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qwitza's avatar
qwitza
Icon for Occasional Contributor rankOccasional Contributor
9 months ago

Cyclone 5 first boot linux crashes, howto debug?

Hello,

We have a design with a Cyclone V FPGA. Some boards only boot after a reset following power-on.

Problem:

The Debian Linux with U-Boot boots from the SD card, but after approximately 10 seconds, the system crashes and becomes unresponsive. The login prompt appears (on UART debug), but I cannot enter anything, and the network interface does not work.

How should I start troubleshooting?

There is a JTAG on the board, but I have never used it until now.

Any hints or links would be greatly appreciated.

Sorry, but I have no idea how to resolve this, or where to start with the troubleshooting.

Board Debug
Fpga Devkit

38 Replies

  • qwitza's avatar
    qwitza
    Icon for Occasional Contributor rankOccasional Contributor
    4 months ago

    Hello,

    I've done some additional testing and wanted to share the current state:

    • The firmware is only written during U-Boot.

    • Occasionally, after powering on, I cannot access the bridge.

    • I'm using the devmem2 program with the following command:
      ./devmem2 0xff200000 w

    • Sometimes it works, but other times Linux crashes.

    • The last output I get is:

    ./devmem2 0xff200000 w
/dev/mem opened.

    Any help would be greatly appreciated.

  • tehjingy_Altera's avatar
    tehjingy_Altera
    Icon for Regular Contributor rankRegular Contributor
    5 months ago

    Hi


    As we do not receive any response from you on the previous question/reply/answer that we have provided. Please login to ‘https://supporttickets.intel.com/s/?language=en_US’, view details of the desire request, and post a feed/response within the next 15 days to allow me to continue to support you. After 15 days, this thread will be transitioned to community support. The community users will be able to help you on your follow-up questions.


    Regards

    Jingyang, Teh


    • qwitza's avatar
      qwitza
      Icon for Occasional Contributor rankOccasional Contributor
      4 months ago

      Hello,

      after extensive testing and verification, I am confident that our crash (Linux stall) is not caused by writing the firmware, since, in our current configuration, only U-Boot writes the firmware. However, our application sometimes fails to work on the first boot; after a simple reset, everything functions as expected.

      At this point, I suspect a problem related to the HPS2FPGA bridge. The crash almost always occurs in code accessing this bridge, making it very difficult to debug.

      Could you please assist with further troubleshooting?

      This issue is critical for our project.

      Thank you very much.

  • tehjingy_Altera's avatar
    tehjingy_Altera
    Icon for Regular Contributor rankRegular Contributor
    5 months ago

    Hi


    Did you managed to try out the recommended tool for programming from linux?


    Regards

    Jingyang, Teh


  • KennyT_altera's avatar
    KennyT_altera
    Icon for Super Contributor rankSuper Contributor
    5 months ago

    Case reopening, please let us know the status once you have try the above suggestion.


  • tehjingy_Altera's avatar
    tehjingy_Altera
    Icon for Regular Contributor rankRegular Contributor
    6 months ago

    Hi


    As we do not receive any response from you on the previous question/reply/answer that we have provided. Please login to ‘https://supporttickets.intel.com/s/?language=en_US’, view details of the desire request, and post a feed/response within the next 15 days to allow me to continue to support you. After 15 days, this thread will be transitioned to community support. The community users will be able to help you on your follow-up questions.


    Regards

    Jingyang, Teh


    • qwitza's avatar
      qwitza
      Icon for Occasional Contributor rankOccasional Contributor
      5 months ago

      Hello,
      sorry, I was busy.
      I will give them a try this week or next.

  • tehjingy_Altera's avatar
    tehjingy_Altera
    Icon for Regular Contributor rankRegular Contributor
    6 months ago

    Hi


    Any update on this case?

    Do you have any follow up question for this case?


    Regards

    Jingyang, Teh


  • tehjingy_Altera's avatar
    tehjingy_Altera
    Icon for Regular Contributor rankRegular Contributor
    6 months ago

    Hi


    Did you managed to try out the "dd" command to flash the FPGA configuration?

    We should not use the overlay method as it is not catered for the CycloneV device.


    Regards

    Jingyang, Teh


  • tehjingy_Altera's avatar
    tehjingy_Altera
    Icon for Regular Contributor rankRegular Contributor
    6 months ago

    Hi


    Please give us some more time as they are still testing this at the moment.


    Regards

    Jingyang, Teh