[PATCH 0/6] Enable CONFIG_TIMER for all Kirwood / MVEBU boards

[Tony Dinh]

Hi Stefan,

On Wed, Aug 31, 2022 at 12:22 AM Stefan Roese <sr at denx.de> wrote:
>
> Hi Tony,
>
> On 31.08.22 08:30, Tony Dinh wrote:
> > Hi Stefan,
> >
> > On Tue, Aug 30, 2022 at 10:08 PM Stefan Roese <sr at denx.de> wrote:
> >>
> >> Hi Tony,
> >>
> >> On 31.08.22 07:02, Stefan Roese wrote:
> >>> Hi Tony,
> >>>
> >>> On 31.08.22 00:15, Tony Dinh wrote:
> >>>> Hi Stefan,
> >>>>
> >>>> On Tue, Aug 30, 2022 at 4:53 AM Stefan Roese <sr at denx.de> wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>> This patchset enhaces the recently added Orion Timer driver to support
> >>>>> all other Kirkwood & 32bit MVEBU Armada platforms. Additionally, this
> >>>>> timer support is then enabled per default for those platforms, so that
> >>>>> the board config files don't need to be changed. Also necessary is
> >>>>> some dts hacking, so that the timer DT node is available in early
> >>>>> U-Boot stages.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> I've successfully tested this patchset on an Armada XP board. Additional
> >>>>> test on other boards and platforms are very welcome and necessary.
> >>>>
> >>>> I've run some tests with the following 2 Kirkwood boards: Cloud
> >>>> Engines Pogo V4 88F6192 (with CONFIG_DM_RTC and CONFIG_RTC_EMULATION),
> >>>> and Marvell Sheevaplug 88F6281 (with CONFIG_DM_RTC and CONFIG_RTC_MV).
> >>>>
> >>>> It seems that it was either frozen or the timer did not expire at some
> >>>> subsequent sleep commands. Sometime it happened at 2nd command, some
> >>>> time at a later sleep command. For example,
> >>>>
> >>>> === Pogo V4 (the 1st sleep command works correctly at 10 seconds on my
> >>>> stopwatch)
> >>>>
> >>>> U-Boot 2022.10-rc3-00048-g66ccd87a9c-dirty (Aug 30 2022 - 13:38:24 -0700)
> >>>> Pogoplug V4
> >>>>
> >>>> Hit any key to stop autoboot:  0
> >>>> Pogo_V4> sleep 10
> >>>> Pogo_V4> sleep 31.5
> >>>> <frozen here>
> >>>
> >>> Does the cmd interface support fractial numbers? Please test again with
> >>> 31 or other integral numbers.
> >>>
> >>>> === Sheevaplug (RTC battery is old, so the date was not updated, but
> >>>> the clock seems OK)
> >>>>
> >>>> U-Boot 2022.10-rc3-00048-g66ccd87a9c-dirty (Aug 30 2022 - 14:14:24 -0700)
> >>>> Marvell-Sheevaplug
> >>>> Hit any key to stop autoboot:  0
> >>>> => date
> >>>> Date: 2000-01-01 (Saturday)    Time:  0:02:55
> >>>> => sleep 10
> >>>> => date
> >>>> Date: 2000-01-01 (Saturday)    Time:  0:03:18
> >>>> => sleep 10
> >>>> => sleep 20.1
> >>>> <frozen here>
> >>>>
> >>>> Please let me know what I can do (i.e. perhaps running a debug patch).
> >>>
> >>> Please see above. I assume that the fractional numbers result in very
> >>> long numbers internally, which result in a frozen / hanging system.
> >>
> >> I just tested fractional numbers on another board and hey, it just
> >> works. Learned something new. So we seem to have a problem here. Let
> >> me see, if I can find something.
> >
> > I've added debug printfs and possibly tracked down this issue. Seems
> > like in the 2nd call to sleep, get_timer(0) did not reset the start
> > number.
> >
> > cmd/sleep.c
> > static int do_sleep(struct cmd_tbl *cmdtp, int flag, int argc,
> >                      char *const argv[])
> > {
> >         ulong start = get_timer(0);
> >
> > "do_sleep got a timer start = 2015" is the 1st call to sleep 5.
> > "do_sleep got a timer start = 16304" is the 2nd call to sleep 10.
> >
> > <BEGIN log>
> > Pogo_V4> sleep 5
> > do_sleep got a timer start = 2015
> > do_sleep delay = 5000
> > do_sleep delay = 5000
> > do_sleep sleeping...
> > do_sleep start 2015 curent 100
> > do_sleep start 2015 curent 200
> > do_sleep start 2015 curent 300
> > <snip>
> > do_sleep start 2015 curent 4900
> > do_sleep end of sleep ... current = 5000
> > Pogo_V4>
> >
> > Pogo_V4> sleep 10
> > do_sleep got a timer start = 16304
> > do_sleep delay = 10000
> > do_sleep delay = 10000
> > do_sleep sleeping...
> > <snip>
> >
> > <END log>
> >
> > So somewhere in the DM timer, "start" got accumulated. I think each
> > get_timer(0) should be a different timer instance. It looks like the
> > same timer instance is used again and again, causing the "start "to
> > grow bigger, and at one point it might just overflow.
>
> Frankly I don't really understand the problem you describe above. What
> do you mean with "timer instance"? get_timer(0) will return different
> values, depending on when you call this function. So where exactly is
> the problem with the 2nd "sleep 10" above?

Please ignore what I said above! I misunderstood what get_timer()
does. I'll try again on another KIrkwood  board to see if the behavior
will be the same.

Thanks,
Tony


> Thanks,
> Stefan