Problem with flashing ubi volumes in uboot

Technical Support
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1

I use the Colibri imx7 with the toradex uboot version 2016.11
I added new enviroment parameters to generate additional volumes in the partition ubi

Partition overview
mtdparts=mtdparts=gpmi-nand:512k(mx7-bcb),1536k(u-boot1),1536k(u-boot2),512k(u-boot-env),-(ubi)

Additional volumes
addvolume1=ubi part ubi; ubi createvol kernel ${nand_kernel_size}; ubi createvol dtb ${nand_devicetree_size}; ubi createvol rootfs ${nand_rootfs_size}; ubi createvol update_rootfs ${nand_rootfs_size};

addvolume2=ubi part ubi; ubi createvol dtsapp ${nand_dtsvolume_size}; ubi createvol update_dtsapp ${nand_dtsvolume_size}; ubi createvol dtscfg ${nand_dtsvolume_size}; ubi createvol update_dtscfg ${nand_dtsvolume_size};

We have a separate flash command for each ubi volume
See below some examples
flashKernel=ubi part ubi; ubi remove kernel; ubi createvol kernel ${nand_kernel_size}; dhcp ${loadaddr} ${path_tftp}${img_kernel}; ubi write ${loadaddr} kernel ${filesize};

flashDeviceTree=ubi part ubi; ubi remove dtb; ubi createvol dtb ${nand_devicetree_size}; dhcp ${loadaddr} ${path_tftp}${img_devicetree}; ubi write ${loadaddr} dtb ${filesize};

flashRootFs=ubi part ubi; ubi remove rootfs; ubi createvol rootfs ${nand_rootfs_size}; ubi remove update_rootfs; ubi createvol update_rootfs ${nand_rootfs_size}; dhcp ${loadaddr} ${path_tftp}${img_rootfs}; ubi write ${loadaddr} rootfs ${filesize};

All flash commands are working, but with the Kernel and the Devicetree flash I have a problem. When I make a run flashKernel and boot the system I receive the error : **ERROR: Did not find a cmdline Flattened Device Tree Could not find a valid device tree **

And when I flash the devicetree and start the system I receive the error message: Bad Linux ARM zImage magic!

Strange is, I don’t have this problem, when I erase the complete ubi part and make all volumes new und then flash the kernel, but as soon as I have booted the system and press reset and try to do the flash command I have the described problem.

I allready have tried to make the volumes static, but this did not change anything

2

What exact hardware and software versions of things are you talking about?

3

We use the Colibri iMX7d V1.1d with the toradex uboot branch 2016.11-toradex (commit 30a12087 20.12.2017)

4

Which kernel did you flash? Which kernel branch are you using to compile? Could you share the output of git show in the branch you are compiling from?

5

I have cloned the toradex repository onto a private GItLab server.
The Kernel I use is the toradex_4.9-1.0.x-imx-next with the last commit:

http://git.toradex.com/cgit/linux-toradex.git/commit/?h=toradex_4.9-1.0.x-imx-next&id=72928ca0214c76e4d7abadd6768295509a159bfa

And we use buildroot (Version 2018.05.x)

6

Could you try to reset after flashing the kernel instead of doing boot?

7

When I do it the first time it does not matter if I do direct modeboot or reset.
But as soon as the kernel was loaded once I can not flash only the kernel or the devicetree.

But I can do a run flashAll (creates and flashes all volumes new). This I normaly have also to do twice, because the first time I receive the UBI init error 22.

When I do it a second time I don’t have any problem.

8

Can you test if the latest toradex_4.9-2.3.x-imx-next shows the same behaviour? Thanks.

9

I found the problem. I made the command ubi part ubi more then once, One time for each flash command and once during the boot command.

When I do the ubi part ubi only once during a uboot session I don’t have any problem.

10

Perfect that it works. Thanks for the feedback.