Re: [PATCH v8 5/6] serial: 8250: retire canceled RX DMA before reusing the receive buffer

[Raul E Rangel]

On Thu, Oct 29, 2026 at 6:32 PM James Hilliard <james.hilliard1@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> With a persistent pause failure and an incomplete transfer, the
> worker keeps retrying. RX remains masked and the runtime PM reference
> is held until the condition resolves or shutdown takes over. There
> is no receive-progress guarantee if the peer remains idle and pause
> continues to fail.
...
> A failed pause with an incomplete cookie does not distinguish a
> persistent hardware fault from completion that has not yet been
> published. A fixed retry limit does not resolve that ambiguity.
>
> Terminating after the limit may discard received data, including a
> completed buffer whose completion is still unpublished. Successful
> termination would make subsequent buffer reuse safe, but would not
> recover those bytes. This would therefore be a potentially lossy
> error-recovery policy rather than a lossless timeout flush.

Checking the in-tree dmaengine providers shows why bounding the retry loop
and escalating to recovery is necessary in practice:

1. `serial8250_request_dma()` (`8250_dma.c:428`) checks `caps.cmd_pause`,
   which `dma_get_slave_caps()` (`drivers/dma/dmaengine.c:614`) sets purely
   from `!!device->device_pause`. However, `drivers/dma/tegra186-gpc-dma.c`
   (lines 422-423, 1351, 1521) unconditionally assigns
   `tdma->dma_dev.device_pause = tegra_dma_device_pause` (so
   `caps.cmd_pause == true`), and then returns `-ENOSYS` at runtime on
   Tegra186 where `tdc->tdma->chip_data->hw_support_pause` is false. And on
   Tegra194/234/264 (`tegra186-gpc-dma.c:399-413`) and Tegra210
   (`tegra210-adma.c:574-579`), `.device_pause()` polls a hardware busy bit
   with an atomic timeout and returns `-ETIMEDOUT` or `-EBUSY` if an active
   burst does not pause in time.

2. In the in-tree providers where `.device_pause()` returns an error because
   a transfer already completed—such as `drivers/dma/ti/edma.c:870, 1468-1469`
   (returning `-EINVAL` when `!echan->edesc`) and
   `drivers/dma/stm32/stm32-dma.c:751-753, 836, 1432` (returning `-EPERM`
   when `chan->status != DMA_IN_PROGRESS`)—the DMA hardirq handler calls
   `vchan_cookie_complete()` *before* clearing the active descriptor, so
   `dmaengine_tx_status()` already reports `DMA_COMPLETE` on the very first
   check in `serial8250_rx_dma_try_flush()`.

   Even on a controller where hardware rejects `pause` the instant the 4096th
   byte finishes while its completion hardirq is still masked by `port->lock`,
   the only thing delaying `completed_cookie` publication is local IRQ masking
   under `port->lock`. Once `serial8250_rx_dma_flush_work()` drops `port->lock`
   (enabling local IRQs) and sleeps `usleep_range(1000, 2000)` in process
   context, any pending DMA completion hardirq runs in microseconds. Across
   5 retries (5-10 ms with `port->lock` released on each sleep), a completed
   4 KB transfer will have published `DMA_COMPLETE`.

   By contrast, leaving the `for (;;)` loop unbounded turns any persistent
   `dmaengine_pause()` error (`-ENOSYS`, `-EINVAL`, `-EBUSY`, `-ETIMEDOUT`) on
   a partial transfer into a guaranteed 100% loss of all current and future RX
   data until `close()`, a 500-1000 Hz `system_percpu_wq` spin, a permanent
   runtime-PM leak, and silently aborted `dw8250_set_divisor()` /
   `dw8250_check_lcr()` calls (`-EAGAIN`). Escalating to recovery after a
   bounded retry budget is strictly better than wedging the receiver forever.

> That requires termination to succeed and callbacks to be drained.
> If termination fails, the channel may still access the FIFO, so PIO
> must remain excluded.
>
> The recovery requirements depend on why the provider cannot pause.

Agreed—and `serial8250_rx_dma_flush_work()` in Patch 5/6 already enforces
that when `serial8250_rx_dma_recover(p)` is called (`8250_dma.c:210-216`):

	if (recover) {
		ret = dmaengine_terminate_sync(dma->rxchan);
		if (ret) {
			/* Retain ownership and keep RX masked if DMA cannot be stopped. */
			dev_err(p->port.dev, "failed to stop RX DMA: %d\n", ret);
			return;
		}
	}

When `serial8250_rx_dma_recover(p)` sets `dma->rx_err = true` and
`dma->rx_terminating = true`, the worker exits the retry loop and calls
`dmaengine_terminate_sync(dma->rxchan)`. If `dmaengine_terminate_sync()`
returns non-zero, the worker returns early at line 215 with
`dma->rx_terminating == true` and `dma->rx_running == 1`, keeping RX
interrupts masked in `IER` and keeping PIO excluded (`serial8250_rx_dma_flush()`
continues returning `-EIO`). It only clears `dma->rx_running = 0` and unmasks
`IER` for PIO fallback after `dmaengine_terminate_sync(dma->rxchan)` succeeds
(`ret == 0`).

Thanks,
Raul