STM32CubeProgrammer 2.12 and later can't load external loader

[atariman]

From version 2.11 to 2.12 a change was introduced that results in the programmer reporting that the external loader "cannot be loaded" while loading via stlink v2 via the command line tool.

-----------------------------------------------------------
       STM32CubeProgrammer v2.12.0
-----------------------------------------------------------
 
Error: External loader <file_name>.stldr cannot be loaded.
Press any key to continue . . .

The loader has not changed through many versions of the programmer and has been functioning as expected until now. Are there known updates to the loader api or other modifications documented somewhere?

The issue came to light after updating to 2.13 from 2.9, after which I was able to narrow down at which release the issue showed up, between 2.11 and 2.12.

Device

STM32H743IIT6 with and external QSPI flash memory

[Tesla DeLorean]

The may have changed or updated the .ELF parser/loader

Watch also for odd characters in the file names, dots, spaces, foreign, etc.

Not seen it effect my builds.

Would suggest inspecting with OBJCOPY or FROMELF and seeing if there are any obvious issues with the program, section, or symbol names, or load address.

H7 loaders should live at 0x24000004

========================================================================
 
** ELF Header Information
 
    File Name: MX25LM51245G_STM32H735G-DK.stldr
 
    Machine class: ELFCLASS32 (32-bit)
    Data encoding: ELFDATA2LSB (Little endian)
    Header version: EV_CURRENT (Current version)
    Operating System ABI: none
    ABI Version: 0
    File Type: ET_EXEC (Executable) (2)
    Machine: EM_ARM (ARM)
 
    Image Entry point: 0x2400000f
    Flags: None (0x05000000)
 
    ARM ELF revision: 5 (ABI version 2)
 
    Conforms to Base float procedure-call standard
 
    Header size: 52 bytes (0x34)
    Program header entry size: 32 bytes (0x20)
    Section header entry size: 40 bytes (0x28)
 
    Program header entries: 2
    Section header entries: 20
 
    Program header offset: 197800 (0x000304a8)
    Section header offset: 197864 (0x000304e8)
 
    Section header string table index: 1
 
========================================================================
 
** Program header #0 (PT_LOAD) [PF_R]
    Size : 200 bytes
    Virtual address: 0x00000000 (Alignment 4)
 
====================================
 
** Program header #1 (PT_LOAD) [PF_X + PF_W + PF_R]
    Size : 18853 bytes
    Virtual address: 0x24000004 (Alignment 4)
 
========================================================================
..
 
** Section #4 'P3' (***_PROGBITS) [SHF_ALLOC]
    Size   : 200 bytes (alignment 4)
    Address: 0x00000000
 
    0x000000:   4d 58 32 35 4c 4d 35 31 32 34 35 47 5f 53 54 4d    MX25LM51245G_STM
    0x000010:   33 32 48 37 33 35 47 2d 44 4b 00 00 00 00 00 00    32H735G-DK......
    0x000020:   00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00    ................
    0x000030:   00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00    ................
    0x000040:   00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00    ................
    0x000050:   00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00    ................
    0x000060:   00 00 00 00 03 00 00 00 00 00 00 90 00 00 00 04    ................
    0x000070:   00 10 00 00 ff 00 00 00 00 04 00 00 00 00 01 00    ................
    0x000080:   00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00    ................
    0x000090:   00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00    ................
    0x0000a0:   00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00    ................
    0x0000b0:   00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00    ................
    0x0000c0:   00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00                            ........
 
    Info_BLOCK$$Limit
 
** Section #5 'P1-P2 ro' (***_PROGBITS) [SHF_ALLOC + SHF_WRITE + SHF_EXECINSTR]
    Size   : 18853 bytes (alignment 4)
    Address: 0x24000004
 
...

[atariman]

The sections were at the correct locations, the entry point address was set to 0x0, however modifying that to 0x24000004 didn't help.

[atariman]

Here is the output of readelf -hS, perhaps it helps.

ELF Header:
  Magic:   7f 45 4c 46 01 01 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
  Class:                             ELF32
  Data:                              2's complement, little endian
  Version:                           1 (current)
  OS/ABI:                            UNIX - System V
  ABI Version:                       0
  Type:                              EXEC (Executable file)
  Machine:                           ARM
  Version:                           0x1
  Entry point address:               0x0
  Start of program headers:          52 (bytes into file)
  Start of section headers:          118252 (bytes into file)
  Flags:                             0x5000000, Version5 EABI
  Size of this header:               52 (bytes)
  Size of program headers:           32 (bytes)
  Number of program headers:         2
  Size of section headers:           40 (bytes)
  Number of section headers:         12
  Section header string table index: 11
 
Section Headers:
  [Nr] Name              Type            Addr     Off    Size   ES Flg Lk Inf Al
  [ 0]                   NULL            00000000 000000 000000 00      0   0  0
  [ 1] P2                PROGBITS        00000000 000074 000080 01   A  0   0  4
  [ 2] P1                PROGBITS        24000004 0000f4 002e74 01 WAX  0   0  4
  [ 3] P1_2              NOBITS          24002e78 002f68 00005c 01 WAX  0   0  1
  [ 4] .debug_frame      PROGBITS        00000000 002f68 0015cd 01      0   0  1
  [ 5] .iar.debug_frame  PROGBITS        00000000 004535 0023e9 01      0   0  1
  [ 6] .comment          PROGBITS        00000000 00691e 00d2d8 01      0   0  1
  [ 7] .iar.rtmodel      PROGBITS        00000000 013bf6 000032 01      0   0  1
  [ 8] .ARM.attributes   ARM_ATTRIBUTES  00000000 013c28 00002e 01      0   0  1
  [ 9] .symtab           SYMTAB          00000000 013c58 004840 10     10 1057  4
  [10] .strtab           STRTAB          00000000 018498 0048f7 00      0   0  1
  [11] .shstrtab         STRTAB          00000000 01cd8f 00005d 00      0   0  1

[Tesla DeLorean · Accepted solution]

The StorageInfo section is supposed to be 200 bytes in size

[atariman]

Thanks for the help. Fixing a change to the StorageInfo struct has corrected the issue.