[PATCH] power: supply: bq27xxx: fix error return in case of no bq27000 hdq battery

From: H. Nikolaus Schaller
Date: Mon Jul 21 2025 - 09:36:35 EST


Since commit

commit f16d9fb6cf03 ("power: supply: bq27xxx: Retrieve again when busy")

the console log of some devices with hdq but no bq27000 battery
(like the Pandaboard) is flooded with messages like:

[ 34.247833] power_supply bq27000-battery: driver failed to report 'status' property: -1

as soon as user-space is finding a /sys entry and trying to read the
"status" property.

It turns out that the offending commit changes the logic to now return the
value of cache.flags if it is <0. This is likely under the assumption that
it is an error number. In normal errors from bq27xxx_read() this is indeed
the case.

But there is special code to detect if no bq27000 is installed or accessible
through hdq/1wire and wants to report this. In that case, the cache.flags
are set (historically) to constant -1 which did make reading properties
return -ENODEV. So everything appeared to be fine before the return value was
fixed. Now the -1 is returned as -ENOPERM instead of -ENODEV, triggering the
error condition in power_supply_format_property() which then floods the
console log.

So we change the detection of missing bq27000 battery to simply set

cache.flags = -ENODEV

instead of -1.

Fixes: f16d9fb6cf03 ("power: supply: bq27xxx: Retrieve again when busy")
Cc: Jerry Lv <Jerry.Lv@xxxxxxxx>
Cc: stable@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Signed-off-by: H. Nikolaus Schaller <hns@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
---
drivers/power/supply/bq27xxx_battery.c | 2 +-
1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/drivers/power/supply/bq27xxx_battery.c b/drivers/power/supply/bq27xxx_battery.c
index 93dcebbe11417..efe02ad695a62 100644
--- a/drivers/power/supply/bq27xxx_battery.c
+++ b/drivers/power/supply/bq27xxx_battery.c
@@ -1920,7 +1920,7 @@ static void bq27xxx_battery_update_unlocked(struct bq27xxx_device_info *di)

cache.flags = bq27xxx_read(di, BQ27XXX_REG_FLAGS, has_singe_flag);
if ((cache.flags & 0xff) == 0xff)
- cache.flags = -1; /* read error */
+ cache.flags = -ENODEV; /* read error */
if (cache.flags >= 0) {
cache.capacity = bq27xxx_battery_read_soc(di);

--
2.50.0