NetBSD Problem Report #60069

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Date: Tue, 10 Mar 2026 09:18:41 +0000 (UTC)
From: netbsd@harakirimail.com
Reply-To: netbsd@harakirimail.com
To: gnats-bugs@NetBSD.org
Subject: NetBSD non booting on H3 Allwinner
X-Send-Pr-Version: www-1.0
X-From4GNATS: "netbsd@harakirimail.com via gnats" <gnats-admin@NetBSD.org>

>Number:         60069
>Category:       port-arm32
>Synopsis:       NetBSD non booting on H3 Allwinner
>Confidential:   no
>Severity:       critical
>Priority:       high
>Responsible:    port-arm32-maintainer
>State:          closed
>Class:          sw-bug
>Submitter-Id:   net
>Arrival-Date:   Tue Mar 10 09:20:00 +0000 2026
>Closed-Date:    Fri Apr 03 06:05:07 +0000 2026
>Last-Modified:  Fri Apr 03 06:05:07 +0000 2026
>Originator:     NetBSD reporter
>Release:        
>Organization:
>Environment:
>Description:
Description:
There is a significant regression in bootarm.efi starting from NetBSD 10.x and persisting in 11.0 when booting on Allwinner H3 SoC (specifically tested on OrangePi Plus 2E). The boot process hangs indefinitely immediately after the EFI loader stage.

Symptoms:
The last message visible on the screen is:
EHCI unable to shut down host controller (or similar EFI handoff messages).
After this point, the system becomes unresponsive. No kernel green text appears, and there is no output on the serial console (TTL).

Confirmed Workaround:
Replacing the bootarm.efi file from NetBSD 10/11 with the version from NetBSD 9.x allows the system to boot perfectly into a NetBSD 11 kernel. This confirms that the issue is strictly related to the EFI loader's memory mapping or FDT handoff logic introduced in the newer versions, and not a kernel or U-Boot regression.

Environment:

Hardware: OrangePi Plus 2E (Allwinner H3, 2GB RAM).

Firmware: U-Boot (tested with both older and 2024/2025 mainline versions).

OS versions tested: NetBSD 10.0, 10.1, 11.0 (current).

Architecture: earmv7hf (evbarm).

Attempted Troubleshooting (without success):

Updated U-Boot to the latest version.

Disabled EHCI/USB via userconf in boot.cfg.

Disabled genfb via userconf.

Manually loaded DTB using the dtb command in the loader.

Set fdt_high=0xffffffff in U-Boot to prevent FDT relocation.

Tried boot -n to disable KASLR.

Conclusion:
The new bootarm.efi seems to have an incompatibility with the EFI memory map or the way it handles the transition to the kernel on this specific 32-bit ARM SoC. The fact that the 9.x loader works as a drop-in replacement suggests a regression in the sys/stand/efiboot logic regarding memory allocation or EFI GOP/FDT injection.
>How-To-Repeat:

>Fix:

>Release-Note:

>Audit-Trail:
From: Martin Husemann <martin@duskware.de>
To: gnats-bugs@netbsd.org
Cc: 
Subject: Re: port-arm32/60069: NetBSD non booting on H3 Allwinner
Date: Tue, 10 Mar 2026 10:27:18 +0100

 On Tue, Mar 10, 2026 at 09:20:01AM +0000, netbsd@harakirimail.com via gnats wrote:
 > OS versions tested: NetBSD 10.0, 10.1, 11.0 (current).

 current != 11.0 (or RC2), did you actually test -current?

 Martin

State-Changed-From-To: open->feedback
State-Changed-By: skrll@NetBSD.org
State-Changed-When: Wed, 11 Mar 2026 12:13:31 +0000
State-Changed-Why:
Question asked


From: Nick Hudson <nick.hudson@gmx.co.uk>
To: gnats-bugs@netbsd.org, port-arm32-maintainer@netbsd.org,
 gnats-admin@netbsd.org, netbsd-bugs@netbsd.org
Cc: 
Subject: Re: port-arm32/60069: NetBSD non booting on H3 Allwinner
Date: Wed, 11 Mar 2026 12:12:44 +0000

 On 10/03/2026 09:20, netbsd@harakirimail.com via gnats wrote:
 >> Number:         60069
 >> Category:       port-arm32
 >> Synopsis:       NetBSD non booting on H3 Allwinner
 >> Confidential:   no
 >> Severity:       critical
 >> Priority:       high
 >> Responsible:    port-arm32-maintainer
 >> State:          open
 >> Class:          sw-bug
 >> Submitter-Id:   net
 >> Arrival-Date:   Tue Mar 10 09:20:00 +0000 2026
 >> Originator:     NetBSD reporter
 >> Release:
 >> Organization:
 >> Environment:
 >> Description:
 > Description:
 > There is a significant regression in bootarm.efi starting from NetBSD 10.x and persisting in 11.0 when booting on Allwinner H3 SoC (specifically tested on OrangePi Plus 2E). The boot process hangs indefinitely immediately after the EFI loader stage.
 >
 > Symptoms:
 > The last message visible on the screen is:
 > EHCI unable to shut down host controller (or similar EFI handoff messages).
 > After this point, the system becomes unresponsive. No kernel green text appears, and there is no output on the serial console (TTL).
 >
 > Confirmed Workaround:
 > Replacing the bootarm.efi file from NetBSD 10/11 with the version from NetBSD 9.x allows the system to boot perfectly into a NetBSD 11 kernel. This confirms that the issue is strictly related to the EFI loader's memory mapping or FDT handoff logic introduced in the newer versions, and not a kernel or U-Boot regression.
 >
 > Environment:
 >
 > Hardware: OrangePi Plus 2E (Allwinner H3, 2GB RAM).
 >
 > Firmware: U-Boot (tested with both older and 2024/2025 mainline versions).
 >
 > OS versions tested: NetBSD 10.0, 10.1, 11.0 (current).
 >
 > Architecture: earmv7hf (evbarm).
 >
 > Attempted Troubleshooting (without success):
 >
 > Updated U-Boot to the latest version.
 >
 > Disabled EHCI/USB via userconf in boot.cfg.
 >
 > Disabled genfb via userconf.
 >
 > Manually loaded DTB using the dtb command in the loader.
 >
 > Set fdt_high=0xffffffff in U-Boot to prevent FDT relocation.
 >
 > Tried boot -n to disable KASLR.
 >
 > Conclusion:
 > The new bootarm.efi seems to have an incompatibility with the EFI memory map or the way it handles the transition to the kernel on this specific 32-bit ARM SoC. The fact that the 9.x loader works as a drop-in replacement suggests a regression in the sys/stand/efiboot logic regarding memory allocation or EFI GOP/FDT injection.

 If you have serial console does adding

 options EARLYCONS=sunxi, CONSADDR=0x01c28000

 options VERBOSE_INIT_ARM

 to the kernel you're trying to boot with modern bootarm.efi show anything?

 I think I got the correct EARLYCONS/CONSADDR for your board.


From: "Nick Hudson" <skrll@netbsd.org>
To: gnats-bugs@gnats.NetBSD.org
Cc: 
Subject: PR/60069 CVS commit: src/sys/stand/efiboot
Date: Fri, 20 Mar 2026 16:24:20 +0000

 Module Name:	src
 Committed By:	skrll
 Date:		Fri Mar 20 16:24:20 UTC 2026

 Modified Files:
 	src/sys/stand/efiboot: version
 	src/sys/stand/efiboot/bootarm: Makefile

 Log Message:
 PR/60069 NetBSD non booting on H3 Allwinner

 Disable EFI runtime support on arm as it doesn't play nicely with many
 FWs where things go south after/during the call to SetVirtualAddressMap

 Also seen by cp- on Odriod-XU4


 To generate a diff of this commit:
 cvs rdiff -u -r1.33 -r1.34 src/sys/stand/efiboot/version
 cvs rdiff -u -r1.9 -r1.10 src/sys/stand/efiboot/bootarm/Makefile

 Please note that diffs are not public domain; they are subject to the
 copyright notices on the relevant files.

State-Changed-From-To: feedback->pending-pullups
State-Changed-By: skrll@NetBSD.org
State-Changed-When: Sat, 21 Mar 2026 16:22:33 +0000
State-Changed-Why:
[pullup-11 #227] PR/60069 NetBSD non booting on H3 Allwinner
[pullup-10 #1252] PR/60069 NetBSD non booting on H3 Allwinner


From: "Martin Husemann" <martin@netbsd.org>
To: gnats-bugs@gnats.NetBSD.org
Cc: 
Subject: PR/60069 CVS commit: [netbsd-11] src/sys/stand/efiboot
Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2026 18:39:54 +0000

 Module Name:	src
 Committed By:	martin
 Date:		Thu Apr  2 18:39:54 UTC 2026

 Modified Files:
 	src/sys/stand/efiboot [netbsd-11]: version
 	src/sys/stand/efiboot/bootarm [netbsd-11]: Makefile

 Log Message:
 Pull up following revision(s) (requested by skrll in ticket #227):

 	sys/stand/efiboot/version: revision 1.34
 	sys/stand/efiboot/bootarm/Makefile: revision 1.10

 PR/60069 NetBSD non booting on H3 Allwinner

 Disable EFI runtime support on arm as it doesn't play nicely with many
 FWs where things go south after/during the call to SetVirtualAddressMap

 Also seen by cp- on Odriod-XU4


 To generate a diff of this commit:
 cvs rdiff -u -r1.33 -r1.33.2.1 src/sys/stand/efiboot/version
 cvs rdiff -u -r1.9 -r1.9.12.1 src/sys/stand/efiboot/bootarm/Makefile

 Please note that diffs are not public domain; they are subject to the
 copyright notices on the relevant files.

From: "Martin Husemann" <martin@netbsd.org>
To: gnats-bugs@gnats.NetBSD.org
Cc: 
Subject: PR/60069 CVS commit: [netbsd-10] src/sys/stand/efiboot
Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2026 18:43:46 +0000

 Module Name:	src
 Committed By:	martin
 Date:		Thu Apr  2 18:43:46 UTC 2026

 Modified Files:
 	src/sys/stand/efiboot [netbsd-10]: version
 	src/sys/stand/efiboot/bootarm [netbsd-10]: Makefile

 Log Message:
 Pull up following revision(s) (requested by skrll in ticket #1252):

 	sys/stand/efiboot/version: revision 1.34 (patch)
 	sys/stand/efiboot/bootarm/Makefile: revision 1.10

 PR/60069 NetBSD non booting on H3 Allwinner

 Disable EFI runtime support on arm as it doesn't play nicely with many
 FWs where things go south after/during the call to SetVirtualAddressMap

 Also seen by cp- on Odriod-XU4


 To generate a diff of this commit:
 cvs rdiff -u -r1.31 -r1.31.4.1 src/sys/stand/efiboot/version
 cvs rdiff -u -r1.9 -r1.9.4.1 src/sys/stand/efiboot/bootarm/Makefile

 Please note that diffs are not public domain; they are subject to the
 copyright notices on the relevant files.

State-Changed-From-To: pending-pullups->closed
State-Changed-By: skrll@NetBSD.org
State-Changed-When: Fri, 03 Apr 2026 06:05:07 +0000
State-Changed-Why:
pullups complete


>Unformatted:

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