Re: [Xen-users] VGA passthrough: "invalid access size alignment" solution?

["Zytaruk, Kelly" <Kelly.Zytaruk@xxxxxxx>]

>From: Scott Helvick [mailto:scott.helvick@xxxxxxxxx] 
>Sent: Tuesday, May 05, 2015 3:38 AM
>To: xen-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxx; Zytaruk, Kelly
>Subject: VGA passthrough: "invalid access size alignment" solution?
>
>** Not on mailing list, please CC, thanks. **
>Hey folks, I'm trying to pass through a Radeon R9 290X to Win7 and running 
>into these infamous errors:
>pt_pci_read_config: [00:05:0] Error: Failed to read register with invalid 
>access size alignment. [Offset:0eh][Length:4]
>I'm getting similar errors with both qemu-dm and qemu-xen-traditional. This is 
>on Xen 4.4.2 and kernel 3.18.10.
>
>Kelly -- I'm including you because AFAICT you're one of the most recent people 
>to have worked on this 
>(http://lists.xen.org/archives/html/xen-devel/2014-04/msg01510.html) and 
>potentially figured it out 
>>(http://wiki.xen.org/wiki/Xen_VGA_Passthrough_Tested_Adapters). The wiki 
>claims you got it working on Xen 4.2 and kernel 3.4.9; can you say more about 
>what's different in that config and whether you checked with any >newer 
>Xens/kernels?
>Pointers from anyone else are welcome too, of course. Otherwise, I'll do my 
>best to dig in and report any findings back to the group.
>Thanks,
>-Scott

Scott,

From my testing I was able to trace the request back to the Win 7 guest OS 
request.  I don't know why the OS is making a 4 byte request on a 2 byte 
boundary.  I did not dig any deeper than that.  From my testing it appeared 
that the error message was a red-herring as it was not the root of my problem 
and I can successfully pass through devices while still seeing these error 
messages.

If anyone is interested in finding the root of the problem my suggestion would 
be to continue where I left off.  You will have to 'hack' around a bit.  I used 
Windbg in the Win7 guest and you can either use Xenctx or incorporate the same 
API that Xenctx uses in QEMU to try and dump a stack trace when the error 
occurs.  Once you have a stack trace you can reflect it back to actual 
functions back in the Windbg session.  It gets a bit tricky if you pause the 
guest because the Windbg session will also freeze.

I imagine that there must be some way of taking a 'snap-shot' of the guest when 
the error occurs and debugging the snap-shot but I don't know how to do that.  
If anyone can provide instructions on how to do that I would really love to 
learn how to do it.

My problem was related to the VBios of the secondary adapter not being posted 
properly.  When the adapter is set as the primary the VBios is posted by the 
SBios.  On the other hand when the adapter is set as the secondary the adapter 
relies on the video driver to post the VBios.  Make sure that you have up to 
date video drivers to support your card. 

Thanks,
Kelly
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