Bug#864562: No ethernet link on Olimex A20-Olinuxino Micro Rev. J, possibly PHY driver problem

[Jean-Louis Mounier]

Hello Karsten,

There may be an issue : yesterday evening, I only started the 
installation, just enough to verify the communication between the 
installer and the repositories. I didn't complete the installation.


Maybe I should try a (minimalist) installation and verify that the 
network is still working when the system reboots !


Do you think it is necessary ?

Regards

Jean-Louis Mounier


Le 16/10/2017 à 22:45, Karsten Merker a écrit :

On Mon, Oct 16, 2017 at 09:39:36PM +0200, Jean-Louis Mounier wrote:


for some reasons, I changed my mail configuration and I
discovered your last request very recently (!) Sorry for the
delay.  Now I keep an eye on the bug thru the bug web page.

I discovered a new installer release but the bug is still
present.

Now the test :

=> gpio clear PA17
gpio: pin PA17 (gpio 17) value is 0
=>run bootcmd

after that, the installer got IPV4 and IPV6 addresses wwith DHCP and then
ran fine.

Hope it helps

Yes, that helps as it confirms that a change in u-boot alone is
enough to work around the issue in Linux as well (although it is
debateable whether the kernel should rely on the bootloader in
this case or not).  There has recently been an attempt to address
the issue in mainline u-boot, but that didn't work out as planned
and the patch got rejected:

https://lists.denx.de/pipermail/u-boot/2017-September/307778.html

Regards,
Karsten

Bug#864562: No ethernet link on Olimex A20-Olinuxino Micro Rev. J, possibly PHY driver problem

[Jean-Louis Mounier]

Hello Karsten,

for some reasons, I changed my mail configuration and I discovered your 
last request very recently (!) Sorry for the delay. Now I keep an eye on 
the bug thru the bug web page.


I discovered a new installer release but the bug is still present.

Now the test :

=> gpio clear PA17
gpio: pin PA17 (gpio 17) value is 0
=>run bootcmd

after that, the installer got IPV4 and IPV6 addresses wwith DHCP and 
then ran fine.


Hope it helps

Regards


Jean-Louis Mounier

Bug#864562: No ethernet link on Olimex A20-Olinuxino Micro Rev. J, possibly PHY driver problem

[Jean-Louis MOUNIER]

Hello Karsten,

thank you for your investigations and sorry for the delay : I have many 
lives...


here is the test result :

   U-Boot 2016.11+dfsg1-4 (Mar 27 2017 - 18:39:51 +) Allwinner
   Technology

   CPU:   Allwinner A20 (SUN7I)
   Model: Olimex A20-Olinuxino Micro
   I2C:   ready
   DRAM:  1 GiB
   MMC:   SUNXI SD/MMC: 0, SUNXI SD/MMC: 1
   *** Warning - bad CRC, using default environment

   Setting up a 1024x768 vga console (overscan 0x0)
   In:serial
   Out:   vga
   Err:   vga
   SCSI:  SATA link 0 timeout.
   AHCI 0001.0100 32 slots 1 ports 3 Gbps 0x1 impl SATA mode
   flags: ncq stag pm led clo only pmp pio slum part ccc apst
   Net:   eth0: ethernet@01c5
   starting USB...
   USB0:   USB EHCI 1.00
   USB1:   USB OHCI 1.0
   USB2:   USB EHCI 1.00
   USB3:   USB OHCI 1.0
   scanning bus 0 for devices... 1 USB Device(s) found
   scanning bus 2 for devices... 1 USB Device(s) found
   Hit any key to stop autoboot:  0
   =>
   =>
   => *gpio clear PA17*
   gpio: pin PA17 (gpio 17) value is 0
   => *dhcp*
   Speed: 100, full duplex
   BOOTP broadcast 1
   BOOTP broadcast 2
   BOOTP broadcast 3
   DHCP client bound to address 192.168.11.80 (1028 ms)
   *** Warning: no boot file name; using 'C0A80B50.img'
   Using ethernet@01c5 device
   TFTP from server 0.0.0.0; our IP address is 192.168.11.80; sending
   through gateway 192.168.11.254
   Filename 'C0A80B50.img'.
   Load address: 0x4200
   Loading: *
   TFTP error: 'File not found' (1)
   Not retrying...
   =>

As you can see, the gpio command make a change ! For information, the 
192.168.11.80 network address and the gateway address are valid for my 
home network. The DHCP request did work fine !


Thank you

Regards

Jean-louis

Bug#864562: Info received (Bug#864562: No ethernet link on Olimex A20-Olinuxino Micro Rev. J, possibly PHY driver problem)

[Jean-Louis MOUNIER]

Hello,

I've just read Olimex Blog and found the following text about my board 
(which is a J Release).


   /We are selling for some time already //A20-OLinuXino-MICRO
   
//Rev.J
   where few things were improved:/

   //

1. /We changed the LAN PHY from Realtek to Microchip as latter
   is more reliable supplier for both commercial and industrial
   temperature components, we searched desperately Realtek PHY
   in industrial temperature grade but without success./
2. /We extended the input working voltage from 6-16VDC to 8-24VDC/
3. /We changed the NAND Flash to eMMC (but old NAND style flash
   is still possible to assembly)/

   //

   /The Ethernet PHY change requires new patches on the Uboot and
   Linux images which are already uploaded./

Obviously, the Debian Installer Kernel needs a patch to run on my (very) 
new board. I don't have a lot of time neither skill level to investigate 
the patch myself but I'm ready to run any test fron my board as you need...


Thank you in advance

Regards

Bug#864562: No ethernet link on Olimex A20-Olinuxino Micro Rev. J, possibly PHY driver problem

[Jean-Louis MOUNIER]

Hello Karsten,

I installed Stretch on my A20 with the USB network interface.

After a successfull minimal installation (on the Micro SD card), I 
configured eth0 and rebooted the system. The result is the same : the 
PHY is unable to get an IP address with DHCP.


The problem witch 4.9.0-3-armmp-lpae is the same as with the installer 
kernel.


Small information :

root@hendrix:~# dmesg |grep eth0
[   10.040210] sun7i-dwmac 1c5.ethernet eth0: fail to init PTP.
[   10.045905] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): eth0: link is not ready
[   12.117354] sun7i-dwmac 1c5.ethernet eth0: Link is Up - 
100Mbps/Full - flow control rx/tx

[   12.117405] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): eth0: link becomes ready

I think I'll have to wait for a new kernel release...

Hope it helps

Regards

Jean-Louis

Bug#864562: No ethernet link on Olimex A20-Olinuxino Micro Rev. J, possibly PHY driver problem

[Jean-Louis MOUNIER]

Hello Karsten,

thank you for all your informations about A20 specifications. I will 
test them ASAP ! I guessI will spend time on uboot...


However, I have a new information about Jessie on my A20-Olinuxino 
Micro. Yesterday night, I installed Jessie on my board using my 
USB-Ethernet interface. Two informations.


I first used a 128M micro SD, with no speed indication. The (small) size 
would have been enought for the installer but I could not boot the 
installer, probably because the card is too slow. I attempted another 
install with a Class10 8G Micro SD and then it ran fine. I don't know if 
it is really a bug.


Second and more important regarding #864562 : after reboot, the board 
network interface is still unable to connect to the switch. This means 
that the issue is probably in the kernel, even in Jessie kernel.


Hope it helps

Regards

Jean-Louis