mic0: No valid image found

[Martin_B_3]

Hi!

I already worked with a prototype of the Intel Xeon Phi we got from Intel to test. With the prototype of the card the installation worked fine and we were able to work with the card with no problems.

Then we got the "real" card and installed it in our test machine (the same machine with which the prototype of the card already works fine) and nothing worked any more. I think the problem was, that the mpss service was configured to autostart on booting. So probably the firmware of the card and the driver version doesn't match. So I read there was an known Issue here and tried also the solution from that post: http://software.intel.com/en-us/comment/1751761

After a cold reboot, I can get the card to 'ready' state. dmesg shows me:
mic0: Resetting (Post Code 12)
mic0: Transition from state resetting to ready

Also micctrl -s shows the state 'ready'

Then I tried to flash the card, with and without the '-smcbootloader' flag:
$/opt/intel/mic/bin/micflash -update (-smcbootloader) -device all

But I always get the message:
No image path specified - Searching: /opt/intel/mic/flash 
mic0: No valid image found 

Only one time the flash tools seems to start its work, but ends up with a timeout error. I can't reproduce this behaviour.

I tried all mpss version available on Intel's Download page, but which every version I got the same message: "no valid image found". At the moment I've installed version 2.1.6720-21.

micinfo shows on most of the entries: NotAvailable
Coprocessor Stepping is 'B1' 

Any thought?

[Frances_R_Intel]

Actually, the old version of the mpss shouldn't have mattered. The first thing you do when you install a new MPSS is to unload the old mpss service, uninstall the old MPSS rpm's, then install the new MPSS rpms. So, by the time you update the flash, only the new MPSS will be there.

Is there an /opt/intel/mic/flash directory and does it have new files in it? When you installed the new rpm files for MPSS 2.1 that directory should have been populated with the correct flash update files. It sound like that didn't happen.

Since you are making a major change anyway by going to the new card, I would suggest installing the MPSS 3.1 release that just came out. (There is a Linux and a Windows version, which I don't think people are used to yet. Be careful which one you grab.) The locations of a lot of files have changed - including the location of the flash update files - but starting fresh and going through the install instructions exactly might be the best thing.

[Martin_B_3]

Thanks for your reply.

Yes there is a /opt/intel/mic/flash directory and have files in it. But none of them is compatible.

I've tried now the 3.1 version. I uninstalled the old version of mpss discribed in the readme file. Afterwords I start to install the 3.1 release. After the installation of the rpms finished I ran, like described in the readme file, the "micctrl --initdefaults" command. Nothing happens for a quite long time and then an error occurs (I had this error also with the previous version of mpss):

kernel:BUG: soft lookup - CPU#0 stuck for 67s! [work_for_cpu:2290]
ETC timer compensation(-1000000ppm) is much higherthan expected

The host hangs up completely. So I've resetted the host and do a cold reboot. dmesg shows after booting that the card is in ready state. (mic0: Transition from state resetting to ready). I redo the "micctrl --initdefaults" command. This time it works. Only a warning occurs: "mic0: Generating compat network config file. This will be removed in the 3.2 release"

Then I tried to flash the card, described in the readme file: And now there is the same message: "mic0: No valid image found". I take a look in the /usr/share/mpss/flash directory. There I can find 5 files:
EXT_HP2_A0_0386-03.rom.smc
EXT_HP2_B0_0386-03.rom.smc 
EXT_HP2_B1_0386-03.rom.smc  
EXT_HP2_C0_0386-03.rom.smc  
EXT_HP2_SMC_Bootloader_1_8_4326.css_ab 

I also check these files with "micflash -Compatible" command... result: "mic0: Image check: Invalid image"

Also interessting is, if I do a normal reboot of the host, dmesg shows after booting: "mic: No MIC boards present. SCIF available in loopback mode". On a cold reboot dmesg show that the card is ready.

[Frances_R_Intel]

The "mic0: Generating compat network config file. This will be removed in the 3.2 release" message should be there. It is just telling you that the ifconfig-mic0 file is going away at 3.2.

The flash files you have are all the files there are. I don't know what your coprocessor stepping is (probably B1) but regardless of that, you have the file you need. So the question is, why does micflash believe you don't?

Could I ask you to go to http://software.intel.com/en-us/forums/topic/393956 and try following the flow chart? Follow the link for MPSS doesn't start and let's see if any of the tests under that will give us a clue.