Booting from SD-card on StarFive VisionFive 2 is broken in master

Booting from SD-card on StarFive VisionFive 2 is broken in master

[Yao Zi]

Hi there,

While testing the behavior of my previous patch on JH7110 platforms,
it's found that StarFive VisionFive 2 fails to boot from SD-card with
current U-Boot master "a58089ad2e4 (fs: semihosting: Use correct
variable for error check, 2025-10-02)" with messages like

	U-Boot SPL 2025.10-00669-ga58089ad2e41 (Oct 20 2025 - 10:29:30 +0000)
	DDR version: dc2e84f0.
	Trying to boot from MMC2
	spl: partition error
	Error: -38
	SPL: failed to boot from all boot devices
	### ERROR ### Please RESET the board ###

Bisecting shows the failure is introduced by commit 27f617019dd (riscv:
dts: starfive: prune redundant jh7110-common overrides, 2025-09-16),
where the U-Boot devicetree overrides are removed since these have been
in the upstream devicetree.

However, this is not totally true: for mmc0_pins, mmc1_pins, i2c5_pins
and their subnodes, the bootph-pre-ram properties aren't present in the
upstream 6.16 devicetree, and a simple removal seems to break SD card
initialization on StarFive VisionFive2 in SPL stage.

A simple (but obviously not acceptable as it modifies files in
dts/upstream) patch could be found here[1]. Manually adding the
bootph-pre-ram properties back to mmc1_pins and its children fixes the
booting process.

I don't think it's good idea to revert the problematic commit since
several follow-up commits depend on it. Maybe we could bring the
overrides back to arch/riscv/dts/starfive-visionfive2-u-boot.dtsi?

Best regards,
Yao Zi

[1]: https://gist.github.com/ziyao233/0bcce16753b3956a30113cf41631e720

Re: Booting from SD-card on StarFive VisionFive 2 is broken in master

[Yao Zi]

On Mon, Oct 20, 2025 at 10:53:11AM +0000, Yao Zi wrote:
> Hi there,
> 
> While testing the behavior of my previous patch on JH7110 platforms,
> it's found that StarFive VisionFive 2 fails to boot from SD-card with
> current U-Boot master "a58089ad2e4 (fs: semihosting: Use correct
> variable for error check, 2025-10-02)" with messages like
> 
> 	U-Boot SPL 2025.10-00669-ga58089ad2e41 (Oct 20 2025 - 10:29:30 +0000)
> 	DDR version: dc2e84f0.
> 	Trying to boot from MMC2
> 	spl: partition error
> 	Error: -38
> 	SPL: failed to boot from all boot devices
> 	### ERROR ### Please RESET the board ###

Forgot to mention it, this problem was also independently found by
Vivian Wang in later September, so here's also

Reported-by: Vivian Wang <wangruikang@iscas.ac.cn>

Adding her CC as well.

Best regards,
Yao Zi

Re: Booting from SD-card on StarFive VisionFive 2 is broken in master

[E Shattow]

Hi Yao,

On 10/20/25 04:06, Yao Zi wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 20, 2025 at 10:53:11AM +0000, Yao Zi wrote:
>> Hi there,
>>
>> While testing the behavior of my previous patch on JH7110 platforms,
>> it's found that StarFive VisionFive 2 fails to boot from SD-card with
>> current U-Boot master "a58089ad2e4 (fs: semihosting: Use correct
>> variable for error check, 2025-10-02)" with messages like
>>
>> 	U-Boot SPL 2025.10-00669-ga58089ad2e41 (Oct 20 2025 - 10:29:30 +0000)
>> 	DDR version: dc2e84f0.
>> 	Trying to boot from MMC2
>> 	spl: partition error
>> 	Error: -38
>> 	SPL: failed to boot from all boot devices
>> 	### ERROR ### Please RESET the board ###
> 
> Forgot to mention it, this problem was also independently found by
> Vivian Wang in later September, so here's also
> 
> Reported-by: Vivian Wang <wangruikang@iscas.ac.cn>
> 
> Adding her CC as well.
> 
> Best regards,
> Yao Zi

The eMMC / SD Card methods of BootROM loader are deprecated in the
StarFive JH-7110 Technical Reference Manual. Please migrate to using SPI
NOR flash or UART boot methods that are supported.

The lack of support for this method is intentional as a result of
non-compliance in the upstream code review process. In response to the
request to support these deprecated methods I asked for supporting
documentation in the form of BootROM source code (for which StarFive is
in violation of GPL2.0+ by the way, it is required to publish source of
modifications and StarFive have not done this). If we want to support
this deprecated mode I will agree when GPL compliance is adhered to;
this would give us the documentation in form of source code that I
expect to be able to make a reasoned decision about whether or not to
support this deprecated feature set.

If you would like to engage with this discussion it should go to
upstream Linux Kernel Mailing List:

https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/521e5549-de83-49a1-a0e5-e47a2cb275ef@freeshell.de/

-E