Re: [PATCH] net: mdio: force deassert MDIO reset signal

[Pierluigi Passaro]

On Sun, Jan 15, 2023 at 8:02 PM Andrew Lunn <andrew@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> > This behaviour is generally not visible, but easily reproducible with all NXP
> > platforms with dual fec (iMX28, iMX6UL, iMX7, iMX8QM, iMX8QXP)
> > where the MDIO bus is owned by the 1st interface but shared with the 2nd.
> > When the 1st interface is probed, this causes the probe of the MDIO bus
> > when the 2nd interface is not yet set up.
>
> This sounds like a different issue.
>
> We need to split the problem up into two.
>
> 1) Does probing the MDIO bus find both PHYs?
>
> 2) Do the MACs get linked to the PHYs.
>
> If the reset is asserted at the point the MDIO bus is probed, you
> probably don't find the PHY because it does not respond to register
> reads. Your patch probably ensures it is out of reset so it is
> enumerated.
>
You are perfectly right: this patch fixes only the 1st problem.
For the 2nd problem, I've already sent a dedicated patch:
https://lore.kernel.org/all/20230115174910.18353-1-pierluigi.p@xxxxxxxxxxxxx/
>
> For fec1, if the PHY is found during probe, connecting to the PHY will
> work without issues. However, fec2 can potentially have ordering
> issues. Has the MDIO bus finished being probed by the time fec2 looks
> for it? If it is not there you want to return -EPROBE_DEFERED so that
> the driver code will try again later.
>
> There have been patches to do with ordering recently, but they have
> been more to do with suspend/resume. So please make sure you are
> testing net-next, if ordering is your real problem. You also appear to
> be missing a lot of stable patches, so please bring you kernel up to
> date on the 5.15 branch, you are way out of date.
>
>      Andrew