[BUG] MTD: refcount underflow/use-after-free during rapid SPI NOR unbind/bind cycles

He, Guocai (CN) Guocai.He.CN at windriver.com
Thu Nov 27 18:24:11 PST 2025


Hi MTD maintainers,

I'm reporting a kernel bug in the MTD subsystem that causes a refcount underflow and use-after-free warning during rapid SPI NOR driver unbind/bind operations.

## Environment
- Kernel version: 6.6.116-yocto-standard #1  (6.12 have the same issue)
- Architecture: SoCFPGA Stratix 10 SoCDK (ARM64  have the same issue)
- Device: SPI NOR flash (mt25qu02g, 262144 Kbytes)
- SPI controller: ff8d2000.spi.0

## Reproduction Steps
1. In one SSH session, run continuous unbind/bind:
   ```bash
   while :; do
       echo spi0.0 >/sys/bus/spi/devices/spi0.0/driver/unbind
       echo spi0.0 >/sys/bus/spi/drivers/spi-nor/bind
   done
   ```

2. In another SSH session, continuously read MTD info:
   ```bash
   while :; do cat /proc/mtd; done
   ```

3. After running for some time, the following call trace appears:

## Call Trace
```
Deleting MTD partitions on "ff8d2000.spi.0":
Deleting u-boot MTD partition
------------[ cut here ]------------
refcount_t: underflow; use-after-free.
WARNING: CPU: 2 PID: 921 at /lib/refcount.c:28 refcount_warn_saturate+0xf4/0x148
Modules linked in: sch_fq_codel openvswitch nsh nf_conncount nf_nat fuse nfnetlink
CPU: 2 PID: 921 Comm: sh Not tainted 6.6.116-yocto-standard #1
Hardware name: SoCFPGA Stratix 10 SoCDK (DT)
pstate: 60000005 (nZCv daif -PAN -UAO -TCO -DIT -SSBS BTYPE=--)
pc : refcount_warn_saturate+0xf4/0x148
lr : refcount_warn_saturate+0xf4/0x148
sp : ffff8000829abaf0

Call trace:
 refcount_warn_saturate+0xf4/0x148
 del_mtd_device+0x118/0x140
 __del_mtd_partitions+0x94/0xf8
 del_mtd_partitions+0x50/0x80
 mtd_device_unregister+0x50/0x90
 spi_nor_remove+0x2c/0x48
 spi_mem_remove+0x28/0x40
 spi_remove+0x38/0x60
 device_remove+0x54/0x90
 device_release_driver_internal+0x1d4/0x238
 device_driver_detach+0x20/0x38
 unbind_store+0xbc/0xc8
 drv_attr_store+0x2c/0x48
 sysfs_kf_write+0x4c/0x68
 kernfs_fop_write_iter+0x138/0x1f0
 vfs_write+0x1b8/0x2e0
 ksys_write+0x7c/0x120
 __arm64_sys_write+0x24/0x38
 invoke_syscall+0x5c/0x138
 el0_svc_common.constprop.0+0x48/0xf0
 do_el0_svc+0x24/0x38
do_el0_svc+0x24/0x38
 el0_svc+0x38/0x108
 el0t_64_sync_handler+0x120/0x130
 el0t_64_sync+0x190/0x198
```

## Analysis
This appears to be a race condition? :
1. The unbind operation triggers MTD partition deletion via del_mtd_device()
2. Simultaneously, another process reading /proc/mtd holds references to the MTD device
3. The reference count goes negative, indicating the device was freed while still being accessed

## Additional Information
- The issue is reproducible with the above test case

Please let me know if you need any additional information or testing.

Best regards,
Guocai He


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