UBI filesystem creation fails silently with 4k erase size

UBI filesystem creation fails silently with 4k erase size

[Mike Looijmans]

I have a NOR chip that reports a 4k erase size, so in my machine.conf I entered:

MKUBIFS_ARGS = "-m 1 -e 3968 -c 7040"
UBINIZE_ARGS = "-m 1 -p 4096"
UBI_VOLNAME = "qspi-rootfs"


When I create an image with "ubi" in the IMAGE_FSTYPES, the build runs and 
does not report any error, however it did NOT create the ubi filesystem image.

If I change the parameters for a 64k flash using:

MKUBIFS_ARGS = "-m 1 -e 65408 -c 440"

the ubi filesystem is created (both ubifs and ubi files).


Where can I find what went wrong? I'd expect big read error messages telling 
me that it failed to create an image for my device, but I cannot find such 
message anywhere.

So my questions are:

1) Why is there no error message when image creation fails?
2) Where is the log/output from the mkfs.ubi commands?
2) What could be wrong with my mkubifs parameters?

Mike.


Met vriendelijke groet / kind regards,

Mike Looijmans

TOPIC Embedded Systems
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Re: UBI filesystem creation fails silently with 4k erase size

[Mike Looijmans]

On 07/14/2014 02:07 PM, Mike Looijmans wrote:
> I have a NOR chip that reports a 4k erase size, so in my machine.conf I entered:
>
> MKUBIFS_ARGS = "-m 1 -e 3968 -c 7040"
> UBINIZE_ARGS = "-m 1 -p 4096"
> UBI_VOLNAME = "qspi-rootfs"
>
>
> When I create an image with "ubi" in the IMAGE_FSTYPES, the build runs and
> does not report any error, however it did NOT create the ubi filesystem image.
>
> If I change the parameters for a 64k flash using:
>
> MKUBIFS_ARGS = "-m 1 -e 65408 -c 440"
>
> the ubi filesystem is created (both ubifs and ubi files).
>
>
> Where can I find what went wrong? I'd expect big read error messages telling
> me that it failed to create an image for my device, but I cannot find such
> message anywhere.
>
> So my questions are:
>
> 1) Why is there no error message when image creation fails?
> 2) Where is the log/output from the mkfs.ubi commands?
> 2) What could be wrong with my mkubifs parameters?
>

The answer to that last question is that UBI itself refuses to work with a 
sector size below 15kB. Which results in UBI now failing to work on most NOR 
chips on the market because the kernel recently uses 4k erasing for all serial 
flash chips that support it.

So just the question remains why OE doesn't tell me about mkfs.ubifs failure?

Mike.


Met vriendelijke groet / kind regards,

Mike Looijmans

TOPIC Embedded Systems
Eindhovenseweg 32-C, NL-5683 KH Best
Postbus 440, NL-5680 AK Best
Telefoon: (+31) (0) 499 33 69 79
Telefax:  (+31) (0) 499 33 69 70
E-mail: mike.looijmans@topic.nl
Website: www.topic.nl

Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail

Topic zoekt FPGA experts
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Re: UBI filesystem creation fails silently with 4k erase size

[Denys Dmytriyenko]

On Mon, Jul 14, 2014 at 03:06:31PM +0200, Mike Looijmans wrote:
> On 07/14/2014 02:07 PM, Mike Looijmans wrote:
> >I have a NOR chip that reports a 4k erase size, so in my machine.conf I entered:
> >
> >MKUBIFS_ARGS = "-m 1 -e 3968 -c 7040"
> >UBINIZE_ARGS = "-m 1 -p 4096"
> >UBI_VOLNAME = "qspi-rootfs"
> >
> >
> >When I create an image with "ubi" in the IMAGE_FSTYPES, the build runs and
> >does not report any error, however it did NOT create the ubi filesystem image.
> >
> >If I change the parameters for a 64k flash using:
> >
> >MKUBIFS_ARGS = "-m 1 -e 65408 -c 440"
> >
> >the ubi filesystem is created (both ubifs and ubi files).
> >
> >
> >Where can I find what went wrong? I'd expect big read error messages telling
> >me that it failed to create an image for my device, but I cannot find such
> >message anywhere.
> >
> >So my questions are:
> >
> >1) Why is there no error message when image creation fails?
> >2) Where is the log/output from the mkfs.ubi commands?
> >2) What could be wrong with my mkubifs parameters?
> >
> 
> The answer to that last question is that UBI itself refuses to work
> with a sector size below 15kB. Which results in UBI now failing to
> work on most NOR chips on the market because the kernel recently
> uses 4k erasing for all serial flash chips that support it.
> 
> So just the question remains why OE doesn't tell me about mkfs.ubifs failure?

Do you have the following fix?

http://cgit.openembedded.org/openembedded-core/commit/?id=f8125a1e9b6893a12355d55d4df584a8d97f0bff

-- 
Denys