From: "Mathieu Dubois-Briand" <mathieu.dubois-briand@bootlin.com>
To: <linux-clk@vger.kernel.org>
Cc: "Grégory Clement" <gregory.clement@bootlin.com>
Subject: Issue with Clock Parent Assignment on AM335x SoC (Watchdog Timer)
Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2026 14:03:16 +0200 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <DI4RUFQNSSNP.2QMSSQWJW9I2O@bootlin.com> (raw)
Hi,
I believe I’ve identified an issue with clock management on the AM335x
SoC and possibly other TI SoC. It can be seen while using the SoC
watchdog timer, but I suspect other clocks or modules might be impacted.
While I partially understand the issue, I struggle to find a correct
solution. I will describe my findings below.
First, here is a quick way to reproduce it.
- Hardware: Beagle Bone Black.
- Linux kernel version: v7.1-rc1 (or anything after 5.19).
- Configuration: omap2plus_defconfig + CONFIG_OMAP_WATCHDOG=y
- In the bootloader, I select the 32KHz clock derived from the 24MHz one
as the watchdog clock source. This is controlled by bit 1 of
CLKSEL_WDT1_CLK.
This is probably the point that differs from most use cases, and why
it hasn't been observed before. On my final setup, I do not control
the bootloader and so cannot change this value.
In u-boot, this is: mw.l 0x44e00538 1
- Once the kernel is booted, I open the watchdog device node. I'm using
busybox "watchdog" command, but a simple "cat" will trigger the same
error.
watchdog /dev/watchdog0
- This will result in the bus clock failing to be enabled and a failure
to access the watchdog module:
[ 11.677752] l4-wkup-clkctrl:00d4:0: failed to enable
[ 11.686079] Unhandled fault: external abort on non-linefetch (0x1028) at 0xf9e35034
I'm attaching the full trace at the very end of my email.
So, I tried to dig a bit into this issue and the reason why the
l4-wkup-clkctrl:00d4:0 clock can't be enabled.
The parent clock of l4-wkup-clkctrl:00d4:0 is wdt1_fck, and the "struct
clk_core" [1] representing this wdt1_fck looks incorrect:
- The "parents" list of all possible sources is set correctly. It
contains pointers on both "clk_rc32k_ck" and "clk_24mhz_clkctrl"
structures.
- The "parent" pointer is NULL, while it should point onto the
"clk_24mhz_clkctrl" clk_core structure.
I believe this is because the value fails to be initialized correctly
during boot. This should be set in clk_core_set_parent_nolock() [2], but
fails as the call to clk_fetch_parent_index() [3] is failing.
The reason it fails is easy to explain:
- The clk_fetch_parent_index() function is used to find which entry in
core->parents[] corresponds to the clock we try to assign as a parent.
- The name of the desired parent, as set in the "struct clk_core" is set
to "clk-24mhz-clkctrl:0000:0".
- The expected name of the clock, as specified in core->parents[1]
"struct clk_parent_map" is just "clk_24mhz_clkctrl".
- As a consequence, the name comparison [4] fails, and the clock choice
is deemed invalid.
Now, where does these names come from? I believe it's partly from the
device tree, partly from drivers/clk/ti/clkctrl.c and
drivers/clk/ti/clk.c. I tried to play a bit with this code, but I'm a
bit lost with the logic here.
Yet, I confirm I can get a working configuration with this horrible
hack:
--- c/drivers/clk/clk.c
+++ w/drivers/clk/clk.c
@@ -2026,6 +2026,11 @@ static int clk_fetch_parent_index(struct clk_core *core,
if (core->parents[i].name &&
!strcmp(parent->name, core->parents[i].name))
break;
+ if (core->parents[i].name &&
+ !strcmp("clk_24mhz_clkctrl", core->parents[i].name) &&
+ !strcmp("clk-24mhz-clkctrl:0000:0", parent->name)) {
+ break;
+ }
}
I can trace the issue back to commit ec7aa25fa483 [5] introduced in
v5.19. Yet today, reverting this commit is not sufficient, as I believe
the code did evolve significantly.
Does anyone have suggestions for fixing this issue? If any part of my
analysis seems incorrect, please let me know.
[1]: https://elixir.bootlin.com/linux/v7.0.1/source/drivers/clk/clk.c#L66
[2]: https://elixir.bootlin.com/linux/v7.0.1/source/drivers/clk/clk.c#L2883
[3]: https://elixir.bootlin.com/linux/v7.0.1/source/drivers/clk/clk.c#L2004
[4]: https://elixir.bootlin.com/linux/v7.0.1/source/drivers/clk/clk.c#L2035
[5]: https://web.git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=ec7aa25fa483
Thanks,
Mathieu
The full log follows.
-------------- >8 -------------
# watchdog /dev/watchdog0
[ 11.677752] l4-wkup-clkctrl:00d4:0: failed to enable
[ 11.682999] 8<--- cut here ---
[ 11.686079] Unhandled fault: external abort on non-linefetch (0x1028) at 0xf9e35034
[ 11.693778] [f9e35034] *pgd=44e11452(bad)
[ 11.697834] Internal error: : 1028 [#1] SMP ARM
[ 11.702394] Modules linked in:
[ 11.705474] CPU: 0 UID: 0 PID: 130 Comm: watchdog Not tainted 7.1.0-rc1-00001-g700d54ce1b97-dirty #2 VOLUNTARY
[ 11.715619] Hardware name: Generic AM33XX (Flattened Device Tree)
[ 11.721742] PC is at omap_wdt_disable+0x14/0xb8
[ 11.726327] LR is at omap_wdt_start+0x34/0xf8
[ 11.730714] pc : [<c0944e08>] lr : [<c0945068>] psr: 600f0013
[ 11.737010] sp : e0305d58 ip : f9e35048 fp : c1aaea80
[ 11.742260] r10: c216b220 r9 : c1ec9ba0 r8 : c1f60c00
[ 11.747509] r7 : b7cab00b r6 : c1ec9bbc r5 : f9e35000 r4 : c1ec9b40
[ 11.754068] r3 : f9e35034 r2 : 00000000 r1 : 600f0013 r0 : f9e35000
[ 11.760627] Flags: nZCv IRQs on FIQs on Mode SVC_32 ISA ARM Segment none
[ 11.767800] Control: 10c5387d Table: 82e68019 DAC: 00000051
[ 11.773573] Register r0 information: 0-page vmalloc region starting at 0xf9c00000 allocated at iotable_init+0x0/0xc0
[ 11.784171] Register r1 information: non-paged memory
[ 11.789254] Register r2 information: NULL pointer
[ 11.793986] Register r3 information: 0-page vmalloc region starting at 0xf9c00000 allocated at iotable_init+0x0/0xc0
[ 11.804570] Register r4 information: slab kmalloc-256 start c1ec9b00 pointer offset 64 size 256
[ 11.813342] Register r5 information: 0-page vmalloc region starting at 0xf9c00000 allocated at iotable_init+0x0/0xc0
[ 11.823927] Register r6 information: slab kmalloc-256 start c1ec9b00 pointer offset 188 size 256
[ 11.832781] Register r7 information: non-paged memory
[ 11.837861] Register r8 information: slab kmalloc-1k start c1f60c00 pointer offset 0 size 1024
[ 11.846539] Register r9 information: slab kmalloc-256 start c1ec9b00 pointer offset 160 size 256
[ 11.855391] Register r10 information: slab dentry start c216b220 pointer offset 0 size 136
[ 11.863721] Register r11 information: slab filp start c1aaea80 pointer offset 0 size 128
[ 11.871876] Register r12 information: 0-page vmalloc region starting at 0xf9c00000 allocated at iotable_init+0x0/0xc0
[ 11.882548] Process watchdog (pid: 130, stack limit = 0x(ptrval))
[ 11.888674] Stack: (0xe0305d58 to 0xe0306000)
[ 11.893055] 5d40: c1ec9b40 c1e44930
[ 11.901275] 5d60: 00000002 c0943de8 0f900000 00000000 c18a5000 c1f60df0 c1ba7580 c1f60c00
[ 11.909496] 5d80: c1e44930 c1aaea80 c1ec9b40 c1f60eac 00000000 c0943f4c c1f60df0 c1e44930
[ 11.917715] 5da0: c0d90324 00000000 c1aaea80 c0370ba8 00000000 73a085ae e0305e78 c1aaea80
[ 11.925935] 5dc0: 00000000 c1e44930 c0370ab8 c1aaeaa8 e0305e78 c0365070 c1aaea80 c1286208
[ 11.934154] 5de0: c1aaeaa8 00000000 e0305f30 c0366ba4 e0305f30 c037986c e0305f30 c037a844
[ 11.942374] 5e00: 00020001 c1286208 00000000 c0380710 e0305e68 b6e56000 b6fb7fff c1bc880c
[ 11.950594] 5e20: 00000000 00000101 00000000 00000000 00000000 82e4a831 c2e79880 00100cca
[ 11.958814] 5e40: 00000150 b6fa6000 b6fa6000 73a085ae c2e6adb8 c195bc00 e0305f30 ffffff9c
[ 11.967034] 5e60: 00000001 c01002ec c1fe1500 00000142 005a6874 c0381170 c18f6f10 c216b220
[ 11.975253] 5e80: 4a3c55ab 00000009 c195bc11 00000000 00000000 c21a2b28 c1e44930 00010001
[ 11.983472] 5ea0: 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000098 00000002 00000000 00000000 00000000
[ 11.991692] 5ec0: e0305ec4 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000
[ 11.999911] 5ee0: 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 c195bc00 c195bc0c 00000000
[ 12.008131] 5f00: 00000002 ffffff9c 00000000 000041ed e0305f60 73a085ae ffffff9c 00000003
[ 12.016351] 5f20: e0305f60 c195bc00 ffffff9c c0367010 00020001 00000000 00000002 00010000
[ 12.024571] 5f40: 00000001 73a085ae bed20ab4 ffffff9c bed20f58 005a79bc 00000142 c03673e8
[ 12.032790] 5f60: 00020001 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00020001 00000000
[ 12.041009] 5f80: 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 bed20b38 73a085ae bed20be4 00000000
[ 12.049229] 5fa0: 00000000 c0100080 00000000 00000000 ffffff9c bed20f58 00020001 00000000
[ 12.057449] 5fc0: 00000000 00000000 005a79bc 00000142 004dfc60 b6ffccf8 00000000 005a6874
[ 12.065668] 5fe0: 00020001 bed20c28 00000001 b6ed2458 200f0010 ffffff9c 00000000 00000000
[ 12.073883] Call trace:
[ 12.073895] omap_wdt_disable from omap_wdt_start+0x34/0xf8
[ 12.082052] omap_wdt_start from watchdog_start+0x8c/0x184
[ 12.087579] watchdog_start from watchdog_open+0x6c/0xf0
[ 12.092930] watchdog_open from chrdev_open+0xf0/0x220
[ 12.098113] chrdev_open from do_dentry_open+0x120/0x4f8
[ 12.103465] do_dentry_open from vfs_open+0x24/0xe4
[ 12.108378] vfs_open from path_openat+0x828/0x1224
[ 12.113293] path_openat from do_file_open+0x64/0xd8
[ 12.118290] do_file_open from do_sys_openat2+0x80/0xe8
[ 12.123550] do_sys_openat2 from sys_openat+0x7c/0xd0
[ 12.128637] sys_openat from ret_fast_syscall+0x0/0x58
[ 12.133810] Exception stack(0xe0305fa8 to 0xe0305ff0)
[ 12.138891] 5fa0: 00000000 00000000 ffffff9c bed20f58 00020001 00000000
[ 12.147111] 5fc0: 00000000 00000000 005a79bc 00000142 004dfc60 b6ffccf8 00000000 005a6874
[ 12.155329] 5fe0: 00020001 bed20c28 00000001 b6ed2458
[ 12.160412] Code: e59f30a4 e280c048 e58c3000 e2803034 (e5902034)
[ 12.166540] ---[ end trace 0000000000000000 ]---
[ 12.171183] note: watchdog[130] exited with irqs disabled
[ 13.282448] omap_prm 44e00d00.prm: sync_state() pending due to 44d00000.cpu
--
Mathieu Dubois-Briand, Bootlin
Embedded Linux and Kernel engineering
https://bootlin.com
next reply other threads:[~2026-04-28 12:03 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 5+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2026-04-28 12:03 Mathieu Dubois-Briand [this message]
2026-04-29 1:54 ` Issue with Clock Parent Assignment on AM335x SoC (Watchdog Timer) Stephen Boyd
2026-04-30 3:40 ` Tony Lindgren
2026-04-30 12:29 ` Mathieu Dubois-Briand
2026-05-01 4:04 ` Tony Lindgren
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