[PATCH v1] Fix unbootable ARMv7 devices

[Tom Rini]

On Fri, Jan 30, 2026 at 11:12:17AM +0800, Brian Sune wrote:

> The linker script u-boot-spl.lds now
> is no longer aligned and -nodtb.bin ending shows
> the zeros are not 8 byte aligned. This result in
> the Makefile.xpl simply think the previous file
> is aligned and do not zero pad. simply fix the
> data align to 8 can ensure the -nodtb.bin is aligned,
> hence, the formation of u-boot-spl.bin properly align.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Brian Sune <briansune at gmail.com>
> ---
>  arch/arm/cpu/u-boot-spl.lds | 2 +-
>  1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)

This fixes your problem in that it results in the device tree being
aligned still, but doesn't solve the underlying problem of why there
were 4 extra bytes. Can you please try:

diff --git a/arch/arm/cpu/u-boot-spl.lds b/arch/arm/cpu/u-boot-spl.lds
index c578c3ebf821..5f807323f856 100644
--- a/arch/arm/cpu/u-boot-spl.lds
+++ b/arch/arm/cpu/u-boot-spl.lds
@@ -31,16 +31,16 @@ SECTIONS
 		*(.data*)
 	}
 
-	. = ALIGN(4);
-	__u_boot_list : {
-		KEEP(*(SORT(__u_boot_list*)));
-	}
-
 	. = ALIGN(4);
 	.binman_sym_table : {
 		__binman_sym_start = .;
 		KEEP(*(SORT(.binman_sym*)));
 		__binman_sym_end = .;
+	}
+
+	. = ALIGN(4);
+	__u_boot_list : {
+		KEEP(*(SORT(__u_boot_list*)));
 		. = ALIGN(8);
 	}

As the problem ends up being that when both of these are true:
- .binman_sym_table is empty of actual .binman_sym* symbols
- The inner '. = ALIGN(8);' increments the linker counter from the
  previous '. = ALIGN(4);' (in other words we were not already 8b
  aligned).

The linker sets the type for this section to "NOBITS" which in turn
means that when we later call objcopy to create u-boot-spl-nodtb.bin we
get a mismatch between our expected size and actual size for creating
the -pad.bin file.

-- 
Tom
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