u-boot not accepting overlay

[CT1IQI]

Situation: image compiled with Armbian build system, Edge for Radxa Rock 5C board. Custom overlay, based on examples given here, compiled fine. The image uses u-boot downloaded from Radxa on github. But u-boot gives an error when trying to do the overlay as defined in armbianEnv.txt. After a lot of trial and error found what the problem was. Not in the syntax of the overlay but in the 'compatible =' line in the metadata section. What is given there has to match what is in the compatible line in the underlying board's dts. In my case that is compatible = "radxa,rock-5c", "rockchip,rk3588s"; The overlay had: compatible = "radxa,rock-5a", "radxa,rock-5c"; u-boot did not accept this discrepancy. Please document this clearly as it is hard to find due to the error message giving no clues.

[RadxaYuntian]

Please give me the name of the overlay file as well as the targeted device. This is not an issue that we have encountered with our systems during testing.

[RadxaYuntian]

Further metadata is a custom data block we defined ourselves. It has no real meaning in the device tree schema, so I don't understand how it is connected to another field in the base device tree. From the device tree's standpoint it is no different from another fan node which will obviously have a different compatible string.

[CT1IQI]

Hi Yuntian,

well, to figure out why u-boot was not doing the overlay I made it simpler and just took a very short one from this repository. It only started working when I had changed the compatible line under metadata to exactly match the compatible line in the board's device tree, in my case a Rock 5C with its dts as defined in Armbian.

Then made that same change to my more complicated overlay, spi4m2 with mcp2515 for CANbus, and it worked. As it is u-boot doing this stuff, one would have to check there what it is doing with the metadata contents. I can just say from experience, and a hint in the right direction I found googling, that apparently the metadata in the overlay are being interpreted.

On Sun, 2024-06-23 at 18:53 -0700, ZHANG Yuntian wrote:

Further metadata is a custom data block we defined ourselves. It has no real meaning in the device tree schema, so I don't understand how it is connected to another field in the base device tree. From the device tree's standpoint it is no different from another fan node which will obviously have a different compatible string. — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or unsubscribe. You are receiving this because you authored the thread.Message ID: @.***>

[CodeChenL]

@CT1IQI , I tried to enable https://github.com/radxa-pkg/radxa-overlays/blob/3dd8baf16bf16543e0ca812f1a058289813746f4/arch/arm64/boot/dts/rockchip/overlays/rock-5a-radxa-camera-4k.dts#L12 , and uboot loads overlays fine:

U-Boot rknext-2017.09-31-5202c42-g6880b24 #runner (Jun 27 2024 - 02:07:51 +0000)

Model: Radxa ROCK 5C
MPIDR: 0x81000000
PreSerial: 2, raw, 0xfeb50000
DRAM:  8 GiB
Sysmem: init
Relocation Offset: eda3a000
Relocation fdt: eb9f93e0 - eb9fecd8
CR: M/C/I
Using default environment

DM: v2
mmc@fe2c0000: 1, mmc@fe2e0000: 0
Bootdev(atags): mmc 0
MMC0: HS400 Enhanced Strobe, 200Mhz
PartType: EFI
No misc partition
boot mode: normal
FIT: No boot partition
Failed to load DTB, ret=-2
No valid DTB, ret=-22
Failed to get kernel dtb, ret=-22
Model: Radxa ROCK 5C
MPIDR: 0x81000000
starting USB...
Bus usb@fc800000: USB EHCI 1.00
Bus usb@fc840000: USB OHCI 1.0
Bus usb@fc880000: USB EHCI 1.00
Bus usb@fc8c0000: USB OHCI 1.0
scanning bus usb@fc800000 for devices... 2 USB Device(s) found
scanning bus usb@fc840000 for devices... 1 USB Device(s) found
scanning bus usb@fc880000 for devices... 1 USB Device(s) found
scanning bus usb@fc8c0000 for devices... 1 USB Device(s) found
       scanning usb for storage devices... 0 Storage Device(s) found
No usb mass storage found
CLK: (sync kernel. arm: enter 1008000 KHz, init 1008000 KHz, kernel 0N/A)
  b0pll 24000 KHz
  b1pll 24000 KHz
  lpll 24000 KHz
  v0pll 24000 KHz
  aupll 24000 KHz
  cpll 1500000 KHz
  gpll 1188000 KHz
  npll 24000 KHz
  ppll 1100000 KHz
  aclk_center_root 702000 KHz
  pclk_center_root 100000 KHz
  hclk_center_root 396000 KHz
  aclk_center_low_root 500000 KHz
  aclk_top_root 750000 KHz
  pclk_top_root 100000 KHz
  aclk_low_top_root 396000 KHz
Net:   No ethernet found.
Hit Ctrl+C key in 0 seconds to stop autoboot...

Device 0: unknown device
MMC: no card present
mmc_init: -123, time 1
pcie@fe190000: PCIe-0 Link Fail

Device 0: unknown device
pcie@fe190000: failed to find reset-gpios property

Device 1: unknown device
switch to partitions #0, OK
mmc0(part 0) is current device
Scanning mmc 0:2...
Scanning mmc 0:3...
Found /boot/extlinux/extlinux.conf
Retrieving file: /boot/extlinux/extlinux.conf
1221 bytes read in 3 ms (397.5 KiB/s)
U-Boot menu
1:      Debian GNU/Linux 12 (bookworm) 6.1.43-12-rk2312
2:      Debian GNU/Linux 12 (bookworm) 6.1.43-12-rk2312 (rescue target)
Enter choice: 1:        Debian GNU/Linux 12 (bookworm) 6.1.43-12-rk2312
Retrieving file: /boot/initrd.img-6.1.43-12-rk2312
16007924 bytes read in 58 ms (263.2 MiB/s)
Retrieving file: /boot/vmlinuz-6.1.43-12-rk2312
35181056 bytes read in 124 ms (270.6 MiB/s)
append: root=UUID=4a435c4c-be8d-491e-b090-5e0ffe496f4f console=ttyFIQ0,1500000n8 quiet splash loglevel=4 rw earlycon consoleblank=0 console=tty1 coherent_pool=2M irqchip.gicv3_pseudo_nmi=0 cgroup_enable=cpuset cgroup_memory=1 cgroup_enable=memory swapaccount=1
Retrieving file: /usr/lib/linux-image-6.1.43-12-rk2312/rockchip/rk3588s-rock-5c.dtb
234489 bytes read in 68 ms (3.3 MiB/s)
Retrieving file: /boot/dtbo/rock-5a-radxa-camera-4k.dtbo
5023 bytes read in 12 ms (408.2 KiB/s)
Fdt Ramdisk skip relocation
No misc partition
## Flattened Device Tree blob at 0x08300000
   Booting using the fdt blob at 0x08300000
   reserving fdt memory region: addr=8300000 size=3c000
   Using Device Tree in place at 0000000008300000, end 000000000833efff
## reserved-memory:
  ramoops@110000: addr=110000 size=e0000
Adding bank: 0x00200000 - 0xf0000000 (size: 0xefe00000)
Adding bank: 0x100000000 - 0x200000000 (size: 0x100000000)
Adding bank: 0x2f0000000 - 0x300000000 (size: 0x10000000)
Total: 7117.374/7383.468 ms

Starting kernel ...