After enabling MCUBoot in NCS, external flash doesn't get picked up by littleFS

Question

Hello: 
 I am using an nrf52840 on a custom board with W25Q01NV NOR Flash with the Nordic QSPI-NOR driver. Programming is with NCS v 1.8.0 (upgraded yesterday) and the VS Code extension. I am using the external Flash partition only for storage of data collected by the device and not for use with MCUBoot or for anything else. This setup was previously working with nrf5 SDK and recently moved to NCS. 
 When the CONFIG_BOOTLOADER_MCUBOOT option is not enabled, the code works fine, mounts the parittion and starts recording the data, but when I enable MCUBoot, LittleFS mounts on an internal flash parition. I found this related issue here: https://devzone.nordicsemi.com/f/nordic-q-a/62212/external-spi-flash-to-use-with-littlefs-on-nrf9160-w-mcuboot , but that was from a year ago and there was no resolution to that issue. 
 Again, I do not want to store MCUBoot images on the external flash, but I want to still use it for storage and I need MCUBoot enabled for upgrades as usual with the internal flash only. 
 Any help is appreciated. 
 Ashwin

akw · Accepted Answer

Thank you Simon for posting the sample project. I can confirm that this indeed works with the nrf DK board. Also, on my board, the partition structure is showing fine. external_flash (0x8000000 - 131072kB): +----------------------------------------------+ | 0x0: external_flash (0x8000000 - 131072kB) | | 0x0: littlefs_storage (0x8000000 - 131072kB) | +----------------------------------------------+ flash_primary (0x100000 - 1024kB): +-------------------------------------------------+ | 0x0: mcuboot (0xc000 - 48kB) | +---0xc000: mcuboot_primary (0x7a000 - 488kB)-----+ | 0xc000: mcuboot_pad (0x200 - 512B) | +---0xc200: mcuboot_primary_app (0x79e00 - 487kB)-+ | 0xc200: app (0x79e00 - 487kB) | +-------------------------------------------------+ | 0x86000: mcuboot_secondary (0x7a000 - 488kB) | +-------------------------------------------------+ sram_primary (0x40000 - 256kB): +--------------------------------------------+ | 0x20000000: sram_primary (0x40000 - 256kB) | +--------------------------------------------+ The following were the essential things I changed (compared to my previous configuration to make this work): 1. Define partitions only in the pm_static.yml file (earlier I was declaring everything, including littlefs config in an overlay file using an fstab entry). In my code now, I define the FS entry inline itself. 2. Added this to my overlay : / { chosen { nordic,pm-ext-flash = & w25q01jv ; }; }; 3. Include the option CONFIG_PM_EXTERNAL_FLASH_MCUBOOT_SECONDARY=n in my prj.conf file I am getting a different error now saying that it cannot find the flash device, but I guess that must be a different issue. I will check and raise another ticket if necessary, but here is my output after this: *** Booting Zephyr OS build v2.7.0-ncs1 *** I: Starting bootloader I: Primary image: magic=unset, swap_type=0x1, copy_done=0x3, image_ok=0x3 I: Secondary image: magic=unset, swap_type=0x1, copy_done=0x3, image_ok=0x3 I: Boot source: none I: Swap type: none I: Bootloader chainload address offset: 0xc000 I: Jumping to the first image slot *** Booting Zephyr OS build v2.7.0-ncs1 *** [00:00:00.143,768] [0m sdc_hci_driver: SoftDevice Controller build revision: df c0 4e d6 1f 7c 66 09 0a f5 2b a0 98 f2 43 64 |..N..|f. ..+...Cd 62 c5 a6 2a |b..* [0m Bluetooth initialized Advertising successfully started Found device MAX17262 Found device LSM6DSL Found device TPS65721 Found device MAX30003 Starting in PatchPro ModeSend Data Thrd STRT Mounting Disk... Area 1 at 0x0 on W25Q01JV for 134217728 bytes [00:00:00.950,225] [0m littlefs: LittleFS version 2.2, disk version 2.0[0m [00:00:00.950,256] [1;31m littlefs: can't get flash device: W25Q01JV[0m [00:00:00.950,256] [1;31m fs: fs mount error (-19)[0m FAIL: mount id 1 at /lfs1: -19 Load IDX... [00:00:01.950,500] [1;31m fs: mount point not found!![0m FAIL: open /lfs1/index: -2

After enabling MCUBoot in NCS, external flash doesn't get picked up by littleFS

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