Thanks, but I would still like to pinpoint the point where something
went wrong and YAFFS decided to mark the block as bad.
I think this could help me determine the root cause for this issue.

FYI, I am using HW ecc and therefor
I've enabled CONFIG_YAFFS_DISABLE_TAGS_ECC.

Boaz.

On Thu, 2011-04-07 at 09:36 +0100, Laurie van Someren wrote:
> On Thu, 2011-04-07 at 10:51 +0300, Boaz Ben-David wrote: 
> > Hi,
> > 
> > This indeed seems like a problem in our kernel, but this brings me to
> > another question.
> > It seems that YAFFS is marking a lot of blocks as bad, the board itself
> > is very new so this couldn't be a bad NAND chip and it happens on all of
> > our boards.
> > 
> > Is there any debugging option that can help me find out why YAFFS is
> > marking blocks as bad?
> > 
> > Also, could this be somehow related to the fact I am using YAFFS on a
> > MLC device? Is there some kernel option I need to enable/disable?
> Mr Ben-David,
> Charles Manning is better placed than I to answer your question, but I
> can tell you there is no kernel option relating to MLC chips.  I
> believe it is Charles's intention that improved (more active and
> therefore slower) Error Correction Code should be brought in to
> improve the reliability of MLCs.
> LvS 
> > 
> > On Mon, 2011-04-04 at 08:10 +1200, Charles Manning wrote:
> > > On Sunday 03 April 2011 17:28:15 Boaz Ben-David wrote:
> > > > Hi,
> > > >
> > > > I'm using yaffs2 on a 2GB MLC Samsung flash.
> > > > We have a few systems running for testing purposes and I've noticed the
> > > > following error in the kernel log:
> > > >
> > > > Apr  1 07:22:46 wellsense kernel: yaffs: Block struck out
> > > > Apr  1 13:52:31 wellsense kernel: yaffs-bg-1: page allocation failure.
> > > > order:8, mode:0x40d0
> > > > Apr  1 13:52:32 wellsense kernel: [<c023c4b4>] (unwind_backtrace
> > > > +0x0/0xd0) from [<c028dc80>] (__alloc_pages_nodemask+0x49c/0x504)
> > > > Apr  1 13:52:32 wellsense kernel: [<c028dc80>] (__alloc_pages_nodemask
> > > > +0x49c/0x504) from [<c028dd3c>] (__get_free_pages+0x10/0x3c)
> > > > Apr  1 13:52:32 wellsense kernel: [<c028dd3c>] (__get_free_pages
> > > > +0x10/0x3c) from [<c02af8a8>] (__kmalloc+0x3c/0x1d4)
> > > > Apr  1 13:52:32 wellsense kernel: [<c02af8a8>] (__kmalloc+0x3c/0x1d4)
> > > > from [<c0428b08>] (nand_update_bbt+0x54/0x15c)
> > > > Apr  1 13:52:32 wellsense kernel: [<c0428b08>] (nand_update_bbt
> > > > +0x54/0x15c) from [<c0427604>] (nand_default_block_markbad+0x74/0xfc)
> > > > Apr  1 13:52:32 wellsense kernel: [<c0427604>]
> > > > (nand_default_block_markbad+0x74/0xfc) from [<c04258f8>]
> > > > (nand_block_markbad+0x38/0x3c)
> > > > Apr  1 13:52:32 wellsense kernel: [<c04258f8>] (nand_block_markbad
> > > > +0x38/0x3c) from [<c0419a20>] (part_block_markbad+0x50/0x64)
> > > > Apr  1 13:52:32 wellsense kernel: [<c0419a20>] (part_block_markbad
> > > > +0x50/0x64) from [<c0386314>] (nandmtd2_MarkNANDBlockBad+0x48/0x5c)
> > > > Apr  1 13:52:32 wellsense kernel: [<c0386314>]
> > > > (nandmtd2_MarkNANDBlockBad+0x48/0x5c) from [<c03853cc>]
> > > > (yaffs_MarkBlockBad+0x1c/0x28)
> > > > Apr  1 13:52:32 wellsense kernel: [<c03853cc>] (yaffs_MarkBlockBad
> > > > +0x1c/0x28) from [<c0380208>] (yaffs_BlockBecameDirty+0x1e4/0x388)
> > > > Apr  1 13:52:32 wellsense kernel: [<c0380208>] (yaffs_BlockBecameDirty
> > > > +0x1e4/0x388) from [<c03805a0>] (yaffs_DeleteChunk+0x1f4/0x214)
> > > > Apr  1 13:52:32 wellsense kernel: [<c03805a0>] (yaffs_DeleteChunk
> > > > +0x1f4/0x214) from [<c0381af0>] (yaffs_CheckGarbageCollection
> > > > +0x8f8/0xb7c)
> > > > Apr  1 13:52:32 wellsense kernel: [<c0381af0>]
> > > > (yaffs_CheckGarbageCollection+0x8f8/0xb7c) from [<c03826dc>]
> > > > (yaffs_BackgroundGarbageCollect+0x34/0x58)
> > > > Apr  1 13:52:32 wellsense kernel: [<c03826dc>]
> > > > (yaffs_BackgroundGarbageCollect+0x34/0x58) from [<c037da10>]
> > > > (yaffs_BackgroundThread+0x114/0x1c4)
> > > > Apr  1 13:52:32 wellsense kernel: [<c037da10>] (yaffs_BackgroundThread
> > > > +0x114/0x1c4) from [<c026b708>] (kthread+0x78/0x80)
> > > > Apr  1 13:52:32 wellsense kernel: [<c026b708>] (kthread+0x78/0x80) from
> > > > [<c0238804>] (kernel_thread_exit+0x0/0x8)
> > > > Apr  1 13:52:32 wellsense kernel: Mem-info:
> > > > Apr  1 13:52:32 wellsense kernel: DMA per-cpu:
> > > > Apr  1 13:52:32 wellsense kernel: CPU    0: hi:    0, btch:   1 usd:   0
> > > > Apr  1 13:52:32 wellsense kernel: Normal per-cpu:
> > > > Apr  1 13:52:32 wellsense kernel: CPU    0: hi:   90, btch:  15 usd:  23
> > > > Apr  1 13:52:32 wellsense kernel: Active_anon:16294 active_file:12696
> > > > inactive_anon:16145
> > > > Apr  1 13:52:32 wellsense kernel: inactive_file:13013 unevictable:658
> > > > dirty:0 writeback:0 unstable:0
> > > > Apr  1 13:52:32 wellsense kernel: free:2366 slab:1219 mapped:3563
> > > > pagetables:70 bounce:0
> > > > Apr  1 13:52:32 wellsense kernel: DMA free:1976kB min:188kB low:232kB
> > > > high:280kB active_anon:3372kB inactive_anon:3500kB active_file:3476kB
> > > > inactive_file:2448kB unevictable:0kB present:24384kB pages_scanned:0
> > > > all_unreclaimable? no
> > > > Apr  1 13:52:32 wellsense kernel: lowmem_reserve[]: 0 229 229
> > > > Apr  1 13:52:32 wellsense kernel: Normal free:9948kB min:1840kB
> > > > low:2300kB high:2760kB active_anon:61640kB inactive_anon:61244kB
> > > > active_file:44796kB inactive_file:49304kB unevictable:2632kB
> > > > present:234688kB pages_scanned:0 all_unreclaimable? no
> > > > Apr  1 13:52:32 wellsense kernel: lowmem_reserve[]: 0 0 0
> > > > Apr  1 13:52:32 wellsense kernel: DMA: 70*4kB 20*8kB 6*16kB 5*32kB
> > > > 2*64kB 1*128kB 0*256kB 0*512kB 1*1024kB 0*2048kB 0*4096kB 0*8192kB
> > > > 0*16384kB = 1976kB
> > > > Apr  1 13:52:32 wellsense kernel: Normal: 986*4kB 155*8kB 57*16kB
> > > > 36*32kB 11*64kB 9*128kB 4*256kB 0*512kB 0*1024kB 0*2048kB 0*4096kB
> > > > 0*8192kB 0*16384kB = 10128kB
> > > > Apr  1 13:52:32 wellsense kernel: 55383 total pagecache pages
> > > > Apr  1 13:52:32 wellsense kernel: 0 pages in swap cache
> > > > Apr  1 13:52:32 wellsense kernel: Swap cache stats: add 0, delete 0,
> > > > find 0/0
> > > > Apr  1 13:52:32 wellsense kernel: Free swap  = 0kB
> > > > Apr  1 13:52:32 wellsense kernel: Total swap = 0kB
> > > > Apr  1 13:52:32 wellsense kernel: 65536 pages of RAM
> > > > Apr  1 13:52:32 wellsense kernel: 3406 free pages
> > > > Apr  1 13:52:32 wellsense kernel: 2456 reserved pages
> > > > Apr  1 13:52:32 wellsense kernel: 985 slab pages
> > > > Apr  1 13:52:32 wellsense kernel: 4497 pages shared
> > > > Apr  1 13:52:32 wellsense kernel: 0 pages swap cached
> > > > Apr  1 13:52:32 wellsense kernel: nand_update_bbt: Out of memory
> > > > Apr  1 13:52:32 wellsense kernel: nand_erase: attempt to erase a bad
> > > > block at page 0x00021c00
> > > > Apr  1 13:52:32 wellsense kernel: yaffs: Failed to mark bad and erase
> > > > block 285
> > > > Apr  1 13:52:32 wellsense kernel: **>> Block 285 retired
> > > > Apr  1 13:52:32 wellsense kernel: Block 285 is in state 9 after gc,
> > > > should be erased
> > > >
> > > > Anyone know what this is about?
> > > 
> > > 
> > > The following:
> > > > Apr  1 13:52:32 wellsense kernel: nand_update_bbt: Out of memory
> > > > Apr  1 13:52:32 wellsense kernel: nand_erase: attempt to erase a bad
> > > 
> > > tells me it is a problem in the mtd layer.
> > > 
> > > Looks like yaffs still handled the problem properly though.
> > > 
> > > -- Charles
> > > 
> > > _______________________________________________
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> > > yaffs@lists.aleph1.co.uk
> > > http://lists.aleph1.co.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/yaffs
> > 
> > _______________________________________________
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> 
> 
> -- 
> Laurie van Someren, Aleph One Ltd, Old Courthouse, Bottisham, CAMBRIDGE
> CB25 9BA  UK  t: +44 (0)1 223 811 679  www.aleph1.co.uk & www.yaffs.net
>