[Beaglebone Black] u-boot does not seem to read uEnv.txt

[Erwin Schaefer]

Hello,

I am upgrading an embedded platform that uses a Beaglebone black with the Angstrom distribution (kernel 3.8.13). This system uses spidev (as a SPI1 device)

I am using the stable branch of the linux kernel (4.9.79). I am following the instructions from http://www.jumpnowtek.com/ to have a working system on the eMMC (using a microSD with an "installer-image")

I can boot correctly and have a functional operating system. However, although I specified the "bbb-spi1-spidev.dtb" as fdtfile in uEnv, I noticed that the spidev device is not created.

Looking more closely at the boot messages with a FTDI cable, I get the following:

---

U-Boot SPL 2017.09 (Feb 12 2018 - 19:59:16)

Trying to boot from MMC2

reading u-boot.img

reading u-boot.img

U-Boot 2017.09 (Feb 12 2018 - 19:59:16 +0100)

CPU  : AM335X-GP rev 2.1

I2C:   ready

DRAM:  512 MiB

No match for driver 'omap_hsmmc'

No match for driver 'omap_hsmmc'

Some drivers were not found

MMC:   OMAP SD/MMC: 0, OMAP SD/MMC: 1

Net:   cpsw, usb_ether

Press SPACE to abort autoboot in 2 seconds

Card did not respond to voltage select!

mmc_init: -95, time 12

Card did not respond to voltage select!

mmc_init: -95, time 13

Card did not respond to voltage select!

mmc_init: -95, time 12

Card did not respond to voltage select!

mmc_init: -95, time 12

Card did not respond to voltage select!

mmc_init: -95, time 12

switch to partitions #0, OK

mmc1(part 0) is current device

Scanning mmc 1:1...

switch to partitions #0, OK

mmc1(part 0) is current device

SD/MMC found on device 1

4098776 bytes read in 282 ms (13.9 MiB/s)

35090 bytes read in 31 ms (1.1 MiB/s)

## Flattened Device Tree blob at 88000000

  Booting using the fdt blob at 0x88000000

  Loading Device Tree to 8fff4000, end 8ffff911 ... OK

Starting kernel ...

---

As we can see, there's no mention of a uEnv.txt file being read. So I suspect u-boot uses a default configuration (somehow related to am335x-boneblack.dtb)

For the record, here's my uEnv.txt file. It's similar to the "emmc-uEnv.txt" example file provided in the scripts, except with the desired fdtfile.

---

rootpart=1:2

flagpart=1:5

bootdir=/boot

bootfile=zImage

console=ttyO0,115200n8

fdtaddr=0x88000000

fdtfile=bbb-spi1-spidev.dtb

loadaddr=0x82000000

mmcroot=/dev/mmcblk1p2 ro

mmcrootfstype=ext4 rootwait

optargs=consoleblank=0

mmcargs=setenv bootargs console=${console} root=${mmcroot} rootfstype=${mmcrootfstype} ${optargs}

loadfdt=load mmc ${rootpart} ${fdtaddr} ${bootdir}/${fdtfile}

loadimage=load mmc ${rootpart} ${loadaddr} ${bootdir}/${bootfile}

boot_three=setenv rootpart 1:3; setenv mmcroot /dev/mmcblk1p3

findroot=\

   if test -e mmc ${flagpart} three; then \

       if test -e mmc ${flagpart} three_ok; then \

           run boot_three; \

       elif test ! -e mmc ${flagpart} three_tried; then \

           fatwrite mmc ${flagpart} ${loadaddr} three_tried 4; \

           run boot_three; \

       fi; \

   elif test -e mmc ${flagpart} two; then \

       if test ! -e mmc ${flagpart} two_ok; then \

           if test -e mmc ${flagpart} two_tried; then \

               run boot_three; \

           else \

               fatwrite mmc ${flagpart} ${loadaddr} two_tried 4; \

           fi; \

       fi; \

   fi;

uenvcmd=\

   run findroot; \

   echo Using root partition ${rootpart}; \

   if run loadfdt; then \

       echo Loaded ${fdtfile}; \

       if run loadimage; then \

           run mmcargs; \

           bootz ${loadaddr} - ${fdtaddr}; \

       fi; \

   fi;

---

Did someone run into this problem? I would gladly appreciate any help or suggestion.

Thanks in advance,

Erwin Schaefer