Re: pwm: sun4i: pwm-backlight not working since 5.6-rc1

[Pascal Roeleven]

On 2020-03-17 18:32, Uwe Kleine-KÃnig wrote:
> Hello Pascal,
>
> On Mon, Mar 16, 2020 at 08:26:13AM +0100, Uwe Kleine-KÃnig wrote:
> > On Thu, Mar 12, 2020 at 04:06:07PM +0100, Pascal Roeleven wrote:
> > > On 2020-03-12 14:29, Uwe Kleine-KÃnig wrote:
> > > > On Thu, Mar 12, 2020 at 01:22:13PM +0100, Pascal Roeleven wrote:
> > > > > Hi all,
> > > > >
> > > > > I am working on adding an old A10 device to mainline and noticed an
> > > > > issue
> > > > > when testing on 5.5.8 vs master.
> > > > >
> > > > > Since 5.6-rc1, I can't control the brightness of my LCD backlight
> > > > > anymore.
> > > > > The backlight stays on full brightness instead. I am controlling the
> > > > > brightness value via sysfs for testing.
> > > > >
> > > > > I am not sure if this is a general pwm-sun4i issue or if it is
> > > > > related to
> > > > > the backlight. However I narrowed it down to one commit for pwm-sun4i:
> > > > >
> > > > > fa4d81784681a26bcf7d2a43c6ac5cf991ef28f5
> > > > >
> > > > > If I use pwm-sun4i.c from 5b090b430d750961305030232314b6acdb0102aa on
> > > > > master, the backlight works fine. Unfortunately, due to my lack of
> > > > > kernel
> > > > > experience, I can't see how the commit above broke it.
> > > >
> > > > Hmm, I cannot see how fa4d81784681a26bcf7d2a43c6ac5cf991ef28f5 breaks
> > > > this. Looking at the output of
> > > >
> > > > 	git show -b fa4d81784681a26bcf7d2a43c6ac5cf991ef28f5
> > > >
> > > > (i.e. ignoring whitespace changes) I don't see how the behaviour you're
> > > > reporting can be explained.
> > > >
> > > > Are you sure that fa4d81784681a26bcf7d2a43c6ac5cf991ef28f5 is the bad
> > > > commit?
> > > >
> > > > Can you install a tool to inspect register values and check how the
> > > > affected registers change if you switch kernel versions and/or pwm
> > > > settings?
> > > >
> > > > (e.g.
> > > > 	memtool md 0x1c20e00+0xc
> > > > )
> > > >
> > > > Best regards
> > > > Uwe
> > >
> > > Thanks for your response.
> > >
> > > Yes I am sure that is the commit. If I am on master, and replace pwm-sun4i.c
> > > with the one from 5b090b43, everything works. If I then apply fa4d8178, it
> > > stops working.
> > >
> > > And strangely the output of the registers is exactly the same before and
> > > after fa4d8178:
> > >
> > > 01c20e00: 00000050 00130014 00000000 (full brightness)
> > > 01c20e00: 00000050 00130006 00000000 (min brightness)
> > >
> > > Even when I'm on 5b090b43 and cherry-pick fa4d8178 can I reproduce the
> > > issue.
> >
> > Very strange. I'm out of sensible ideas. The remaining ones are:
> >
> > - enable tracing in the kernel and boot with
> >
> > 	trace_event=pwm
> >
> >   And then check after the problem occurred in
> >   /sys/kernel/debug/tracing/trace if something sticks out.
> >
> > - Try modifying the registers using memtool. E.g.
> >
> > 	memtool mw 0x01c20e04 0x00130012
> >
> > - Do you have equipment to check the actual output of the PWM 
> > hardware?
> >   If so, what do you see?
>
> I assume the sun4i-series you sent earlier today resolves the problems
> you reported here?
>
> Best regards
> Uwe

Hi Uwe,

Yes it does, but as Emil mentioned it's probably not complete. It's just 
an RFC for now to make sure it doesn't cause a regression. Turns out the 
Allwinner PWM controller is even more pickier than I thought.

Again, thank you for your help.