Re: Problems with jffs corruption

Hi Walter

> This is a known problem. It happens when the JFFS2 image is not complete.
> With the correct options mkfs.jffs2 creates a image that contains all the
> data in all blocks, even the "empty" ones. Then the kernel will not
complain.
> Else you need to erase the FLASH before burning a new one.

I didn't quite explain my problem properly. If I erase the flash first I get
even worse jffs corruption.

I started from a windows based machine, loaded on the latest boot loader and
erased the flash. Then I installed 0.8.1-1 SL4 and very quickly afterwards I
got loads of jffs errors and the jffs partition was marked as full. At that
point I need to reflash to get anything working at all. Out of desperation I
tried the cramfs tinyx image and that works. I noticed the mount_jffs
script, ran that and that seemed to work, too, though I didn't excercise it
much after doing that.

However, installing the opie image after that gives me a reasonably stable
system with the minor exceptions of needing to shutdown rather than suspend
and losing the ram disk after the reboot.

This is why I think my erase flash isn't working - just erasing the flash
doesn't work, whereas mounting a jffs partition from a cramfs image and then
flashing over the top *almost* does. Is it conceivable that some lock bits
are preventing the erase but not the flash?

Oh, I should mention that this affects both the machines in my office which
are from the same batch and which may possibly be slightly non-standard
(they were supplied as development machines).

Do you think starting from the cramfs image with a mounted jffs partition
and then erasing flash may work better?

Thanks for any help you can give.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email protected]
> [mailto:[email protected]]On Behalf Of Tim
> Wentford
> Sent: Monday, August 23, 2004 4:24 PM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: [Simpad-general] Problems with jffs corruption
>
>
> I've been posting to the forums but haven't got much response yet so I
> thought that maybe the mailing list is more active.
>
> Anyway, the short version of what is happening to me is that
> I get jffs
> corruption similar to that which you get when you don't first
> erase the
> flash or have a corrupt image or even damaged serial port.
> However, I have
> eliminated all these as potential sources of my problems by
> various cross
> checks not least of which is observing similar behaviour on a
> colleagues
> simpad from the same batch when he also tried installing opie.
>
> My best success so far has been by installing the tinyx
> cramfs image and
> then running mount_jffs2.sh mount and then reflashing opie
> without erasing
> the flash. This almost works with two relatively minor problems:
>
> 1) If I suspend I can't open any apps after resuming (I have
> to shutdown and
> then reboot)
>
> 2) If I use a kernel with a ram-disk the ram-disk disappears
> after the first
> reboot.
>
> I still get a couple of jffs2 error messages but nothing like
> the flood I
> used to get when relying on erasing the flash. One pops up
> when starting up:
>
> jffs2_read_inode(): No data nodes found for ino #3722
>
> One when terminating (couldn't get the whole message for this
> because it
> disappears too quickly)
>
> totlen at node# NNNN != totlen at NNNN
>
> I think what may be happening is that the erase procedure
> isn't working
> (perhaps there are some lock-bits set in the flash which
> aren't unset by
> erasing but are by serloading a new image?).
>
> So, a few questions:
>
> 1) Does anyone know how to fix this?
>
> 2) Is it worth doing the mount_jffs2 thing but then also
> erasing the flash
> before installing opie?
>
> 3) Is there likely to be a padded SL4 image soon (which, if I
> am right, may
> fix my problems)?
>
> 4) Is there anything else I can do to diagnose the problem?
>
> Cheers
> Tim


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