1000+ "Bad EC magic in block" notifications on NAND boot

Banana Pi Router design BPI-R4/BPI-R4 Pro(MT7988)
41

How exactly do you apply the overlay without recompiling the fit/itb? Is it exactly the overlay i’ve posted above?

or do you manually modify dt and use different adresse by hacking into the bootm-chain (like described here)?

fdt set /chosen u-boot,bootconf $bootconf#$bootconf_emmc#$bootconf_extra

only with the reg entry instead of choosen node

Yes first boot has the errors in uboot as initialization of ubi is done in linux later and only next bootup is clean.

The 2m missing are for the bl2 partition,so ubi is 2m less than nand size.

And yes,please make issue on openwrt and link to here for solution…maybe there is another way

42

I needed to keep it simple so I recompiled everything, not following @czo’s suggestion.

I made your update to build_dir/target-aarch64_cortex-a53_musl/linux-mediatek_filogic/linux-6.18.28/arch/arm64/boot/dts/mediatek/mt7988a-bananapi-bpi-r4.dtsi

… changing [email protected] = <0x200000 0xfe00000>.

Afterwards I flashed the sdcard with the new openwrt-mediatek-filogic-bananapi_bpi-r4-sdcard_8g.img and took it from there.

I hope that answers your question.

43

ok, but this is only temporary quick&dirty change…when you do a clean build this gets lost…

so now we know that it fixes the issue you have and we need to think about it how to make it right. I try to make a PR with the overlay, but i’m no expert with the openwrt build-system.

added the overlay here:

can you test it please?

you can apply the overlay by setting bootconf_extra=mt7988a-bananapi-bpi-r4-nand in uboot environment

Please erase your nand before and then bootup sd with the overlay active

44

Happy to test it. I don’t know how though.

I’ve cloned your repo. I see the bootconf_extra parameter in /package/boot/uboot-mediatek/patches/450-add-bpi-r4.patch do I just set that? or is it a command I need to run?

45

either

setenv bootconf_extra mt7988a-bananapi-bpi-r4-nand
saveenv

Or using fw_setenv in linux

You can also patch the env file in source,but you have to use the right file (sdmmc) or all.

46

As it happens my system doesn’t have setenv or fw_setenv. NOTE these aren’t advertised in the apt repositories. Consequently I just did export bootconf_extra=mt7988a-bananapi-bpi-r4-nand.

Your repo compiled but I couldn’t see anything about the patch in,

$ make -j1 V=s > makedump && grep -E "bpi-r4-nand" makedump

Anyhow, it doesn’t look like your build worked,

root@OpenWrt:~# dmesg 
[    1.153758] spi-nand spi0.0: Winbond SPI NAND was found.
[    1.159073] spi-nand spi0.0: 256 MiB, block size: 128 KiB, page size: 2048, OOB size: 128
[    1.173815] OF: Bad cell count for /soc/spi@11007000/spi_nand@0/partitions
[    1.180686] OF: Bad cell count for /soc/spi@11007000/spi_nand@0/partitions
[    2.140401] OF: Bad cell count for /soc/spi@11007000/spi_nand@0/partitions
[    2.153269] OF: Bad cell count for /soc/spi@11007000/spi_nand@0/partitions
   .
   .
   .
[    1.286590] ubi0: default fastmap pool size: 50
[    1.291118] ubi0: default fastmap WL pool size: 25
[    1.295905] ubi0: attaching mtd1
[    2.070253] ubi0: scanning is finished
[    2.083305] ubi0: attached mtd1 (name "ubi", size 126 MiB)
[    2.088802] ubi0: PEB size: 131072 bytes (128 KiB), LEB size: 126976 bytes
[    2.095667] ubi0: min./max. I/O unit sizes: 2048/2048, sub-page size 2048
[    2.102442] ubi0: VID header offset: 2048 (aligned 2048), data offset: 4096
[    2.109395] ubi0: good PEBs: 1008, bad PEBs: 0, corrupted PEBs: 0
[    2.115478] ubi0: user volume: 7, internal volumes: 1, max. volumes count: 128
[    2.122687] ubi0: max/mean erase counter: 2/1, WL threshold: 4096, image sequence number: 0
[    2.131026] ubi0: available PEBs: 0, total reserved PEBs: 1008, PEBs reserved for bad PEB handling: 40
[    2.140325] ubi0: background thread "ubi_bgt0d" started, PID 245
root@OpenWrt:~#

But I don’t think my testing skills are up to par.

Happy to take another run at it. If you have any other things you want to try let me know.

47

Setenv is uboot command,fw_setwnv is from openwrt linux.

You should see the dt overlays applied just before linux starts.

You could dump initramfs.itb with dumpinage -l which overlays are present

$ dumpimage -l bin/targets/mediatek/filogic/openwrt-mediatek-filogic-bananapi_bpi-r4-initramfs-recovery.itb
...
 Configuration 5 (mt7988a-bananapi-bpi-r4-nand)
  Description:  OpenWrt bananapi_bpi-r4 overlay mt7988a-bananapi-bpi-r4-nand
  Kernel:       unavailable
  FDT:          fdt-mt7988a-bananapi-bpi-r4-nand

so overlay is there

if your itb also shows this and you have flashed the image, exit the bootmenu and run the setenv command and then the default menuentry (bootmenu shows the menu again). and then post full log as file

48

I was able to find uboot tools for my distro.

It looks like my compile is missing the crucial overlay.

$ dumpimage -l bin/targets/mediatek/filogic/openwrt-mediatek-filogic-bananapi_bpi-r4-8g-initramfs-recovery.itb
FIT description: ARM64 OpenWrt FIT (Flattened Image Tree)
Created:         Tue Oct 21 16:46:13 2025
 Image 0 (kernel-1)
  Description:  ARM64 OpenWrt Linux-6.6.110
  Created:      Tue Oct 21 16:46:13 2025
    .
    .
    .
 Image 5 (fdt-mt7988a-bananapi-bpi-r4-sd)
  Description:  ARM64 OpenWrt bananapi_bpi-r4-8g device tree overlay mt7988a-bananapi-bpi-r4-sd
  Created:      Tue Oct 21 16:46:13 2025
  Type:         Flat Device Tree
  Compression:  uncompressed
  Data Size:    1474 Bytes = 1.44 KiB = 0.00 MiB
  Architecture: AArch64
  Hash algo:    crc32
  Hash value:   992dc95a
  Hash algo:    sha1
  Hash value:   d8c80e86d46ccac204bdcf81feb9ca2802402042
    .
    .
    .
 Configuration 0 (config-mt7988a-bananapi-bpi-r4)
  Description:  OpenWrt bananapi_bpi-r4-8g
  Kernel:       kernel-1
  Init Ramdisk: initrd-1
  FDT:          fdt-1
 Configuration 1 (mt7988a-bananapi-bpi-r4-emmc)
  Description:  OpenWrt bananapi_bpi-r4-8g overlay mt7988a-bananapi-bpi-r4-emmc
  Kernel:       unavailable
  FDT:          fdt-mt7988a-bananapi-bpi-r4-emmc
 Configuration 2 (mt7988a-bananapi-bpi-r4-rtc)
  Description:  OpenWrt bananapi_bpi-r4-8g overlay mt7988a-bananapi-bpi-r4-rtc
  Kernel:       unavailable
  FDT:          fdt-mt7988a-bananapi-bpi-r4-rtc
 Configuration 3 (mt7988a-bananapi-bpi-r4-sd)
  Description:  OpenWrt bananapi_bpi-r4-8g overlay mt7988a-bananapi-bpi-r4-sd
  Kernel:       unavailable
  FDT:          fdt-mt7988a-bananapi-bpi-r4-sd
 Configuration 4 (mt7988a-bananapi-bpi-r4-wifi-mt7996a)
  Description:  OpenWrt bananapi_bpi-r4-8g overlay mt7988a-bananapi-bpi-r4-wifi-mt7996a
  Kernel:       unavailable
  FDT:          fdt-mt7988a-bananapi-bpi-r4-wifi-mt7996a

Also,

root@OpenWrt:~# dmesg | grep -E 'mtd|nand'
[    1.170202] spi-nand spi0.0: Winbond SPI NAND was found.
[    1.175542] spi-nand spi0.0: 256 MiB, block size: 128 KiB, page size: 2048, OOB size: 128
[    1.556460] OF: Bad cell count for /soc/spi@11007000/spi_nand@0/partitions
[    1.563336] OF: Bad cell count for /soc/spi@11007000/spi_nand@0/partitions
[    1.678903] ubi0: attaching mtd1
[    2.467256] ubi0: attached mtd1 (name "ubi", size 126 MiB)
[    2.524347] OF: Bad cell count for /soc/spi@11007000/spi_nand@0/partitions
[    2.537212] OF: Bad cell count for /soc/spi@11007000/spi_nand@0/partitions

Note, I didn’t get any of the original error messages when I booted for whatever reason.

I’m just figuring out what uboot is btw. I will need time to understand the commands I’m running.

49

Are you sure you checked out my nand tree and cleaned the image before building? Look at buildzine of the files (itb when dumping it).

50

I did not checkout your nand tree.

Do you mean https://github.com/frank-w/u-boot?

If yes, I cloned the above linked u-boot repo, ran make clean and updated the build.conf file,

$ cat build.conf
uploaduser=$USER
uploadserver=r2
uploaddir=/var/lib/tftp

#board=bpi-r2
#board=bpi-r64
#board=bpi-r2pro
#board=bpi-r3
#board=bpi-r3mini
board=bpi-r4
#board=bpi-r4lite
#board=bpi-r4pro

#device=emmc
device=spi-nand
#device=spi-nor

but ./build.sh fails early on at …

Address in memory to use by default (SYS_LOAD_ADDR) [] (NEW)

I ran menuconfig (without making any changes) just to generate a .config file.

The build still fails as above… all assuming I’m in the right place doing the right things.

That said, even after a successful build I’m not sure how to mix the “nand tree” with an openwrt build. Sorry, my compling knowledge is pretty basic. I want to test this but I’ll need some “hand holding” if you have the time.

51

We are talking about openwrt…my uboot repo is standalone

Please clone my openwrt repo and switch to the bpi-r4-nand branch

Then make menuconfig,select board and your packages and then make to build

52

Thanks, I have it now.

before fw_setenv bootconf_extra mt7988a-bananapi-bpi-r4-nand

root@OpenWrt:~# dmesg | grep -E 'mtd|nand'
[    1.180925] spi-nand spi0.0: Winbond SPI NAND was found.
[    1.186269] spi-nand spi0.0: 256 MiB, block size: 128 KiB, page size: 2048, OOB size: 128
[    1.294131] ubi0: attaching mtd1
[    1.686520] ubi0: attached mtd1 (name "ubi", size 126 MiB)
[    1.956502] FIT:          flat_dt sub-image 0x00628000..0x00628112 "fdt-mt7988a-bananapi-bpi-r4-nand" (ARM64 OpenWrt bananapi_bpi-r4 device tree overlay mt7988a-bananapi-bpi-r4-nand)

after…

root@OpenWrt:~# dmesg | grep -E 'nand|mtd'
[    1.180521] spi-nand spi0.0: Winbond SPI NAND was found.
[    1.185864] spi-nand spi0.0: 256 MiB, block size: 128 KiB, page size: 2048, OOB size: 128
[    1.362444] ubi0: attaching mtd1
[    2.078494] ubi0: attached mtd1 (name "ubi", size 254 MiB)
[    2.345772] FIT:          flat_dt sub-image 0x00628000..0x00628112 "fdt-mt7988a-bananapi-bpi-r4-nand" (ARM64 OpenWrt bananapi_bpi-r4 device tree overlay mt7988a-bananapi-bpi-r4-nand)

That looks like good news to me :slight_smile:

Note, there was a lot of missteps getting here. Just to be clear,

dumpimage -l openwrt-mediatek-filogic-bananapi_bpi-r4-initramfs-recovery.itb                 22:47:10
FIT description: ARM64 OpenWrt FIT (Flattened Image Tree)
Created:         Sun May 24 11:04:31 2026
 Image 0 (kernel-1)
  Description:  ARM64 OpenWrt Linux-6.18.31
  Created:      Sun May 24 11:04:31 2026
    .
    .
    .
 Image 7 (fdt-mt7988a-bananapi-bpi-r4-nand)
  Description:  ARM64 OpenWrt bananapi_bpi-r4 device tree overlay mt7988a-bananapi-bpi-r4-nand
  Created:      Sun May 24 11:04:31 2026
  Type:         Flat Device Tree
  Compression:  uncompressed
  Data Size:    275 Bytes = 0.27 KiB = 0.00 MiB
  Architecture: AArch64
  Hash algo:    crc32
  Hash value:   9fc80998
  Hash algo:    sha1
  Hash value:   eafc7c33f378a0770c9d7d6445619c9f7ac357dd
 Default Configuration: 'config-mt7988a-bananapi-bpi-r4'

Opah!

Thanks for your help and patience.

1 Like
53

I’ve updated the branch to have the nand overlay set on 8g boards…maybe you can pull latest change and test again?

Btw. I’ve noticed that openwrt still uses older version of msize command with the multiplier param (g). I have to update it with newer version to keep compatibility of env when newer uboot is used (2026.04+)

Basicly replace existing patch

with this version:

https://patchwork.ozlabs.org/project/uboot/patch/[email protected]/

54

Happy to test the build.

You’ll have to walk me through it though. I barely made it through the last build test. :slight_smile:

I see your bpi-r4-nand branch with the 4 commits.

No idea how I replace the ‘getting the size of ram’ patch with the ozlabs patch?

Looking at the diffs in https://patchwork.ozlabs.org/project/uboot/patch/[email protected]/… is this a copy/paste kind of operation?

55

I did already in the branch,but unable to test it currently.basicly i used the existing patchfile,and replaced content with the patch from patchwork

Then updated environment to drop size multiplier and compare to > 8000 instead of =8

56 
root@OpenWrt:~# dmesg | grep -E 'mtd|nand'
[    1.185206] spi-nand spi0.0: Winbond SPI NAND was found.
[    1.190521] spi-nand spi0.0: 256 MiB, block size: 128 KiB, page size: 2048, OOB size: 128
[    1.367078] ubi0: attaching mtd1
[    2.021279] ubi0: attached mtd1 (name "ubi", size 254 MiB)
[    2.295916] FIT:          flat_dt sub-image 0x00628000..0x00628112 "fdt-mt7988a-bananapi-bpi-r4-nand" (ARM64 OpenWrt bananapi_bpi-r4 device tree overlay mt7988a-bananapi-bpi-r4-nand) 
root@OpenWrt:~#

… seems like a win to me.

57

Can you post uart output on which overlays are applied (uboot output after menu)?

btw. started pull-request