Subject: [PATCH V4 1/2] powerpc tools perf: Initialize error code in auxtrace_record_init function

From: Athira Rajeev <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 2 May 2026 20:02:36 +0530

perf trace record fails some cases in powerpc

 # ./perf test "perf trace record and replay"
 128: perf trace record and replay                                    : FAILED!

 # ./perf trace record sleep 1
 # echo $?
   32

This is happening because of non-zero err value from
auxtrace_record__init() function.

 static int record__auxtrace_init(struct record *rec)
 {
        int err;

        if ((rec->opts.auxtrace_snapshot_opts || rec->opts.auxtrace_sample_opts)
            && record__threads_enabled(rec)) {
                pr_err("AUX area tracing options are not available in parallel streaming mode.\n");
                return -EINVAL;
        }

        if (!rec->itr) {
                rec->itr = auxtrace_record__init(rec->evlist, &err);
                if (err)
                        return err;
        }

Here "int err" is not initialised. The code expects "err" to be set
from auxtrace_record__init() function.

Update auxtrace_record__init() in arch/powerpc/util/auxtrace.c to clear
err value in the beginning.

- Clear err value in beginning of function. Any fail later will
set appropriate return code to err.
- Even if we haven't found any event for auxtrace, perf record
should continue for other events. NULL return
will indicate that there is no auxtrace record initialized.
- Not having "err" set here will affect monitoring of other events
also because perf record will fail seeing random value in err.

Set err to -EINVAL before invoking auxtrace_record__init() in
builtin-record.c

With the fix,

 # ./perf trace record sleep 1
 [ perf record: Woken up 2 times to write data ]
 [ perf record: Captured and wrote 0.033 MB perf.data (228 samples) ]

Fixes: 1dbfaf94cf66 ("perf powerpc: Add basic CONFIG_AUXTRACE support for VPA pmu on powerpc")
Signed-off-by: Athira Rajeev <[email-masked]>
---
Changelog:
v1 -> v2
Addressed review comment from Adrian:
- Set err to -EINVAL before invoking auxtrace_record__init() in
  builtin-record.c
- Added kernel-doc to auxtrace_record__init() in tools/perf/util/auxtrace.c
Addressed review comment from Namhyung:
- Added fixes tag

 tools/perf/arch/powerpc/util/auxtrace.c | 6 ++++++
 tools/perf/builtin-record.c             | 1 +
 2 files changed, 7 insertions(+)

diff --git a/tools/perf/arch/powerpc/util/auxtrace.c b/tools/perf/arch/powerpc/util/auxtrace.c
index e39deff6c857..4600a1661b4f 100644
--- a/tools/perf/arch/powerpc/util/auxtrace.c
+++ b/tools/perf/arch/powerpc/util/auxtrace.c
@@ -71,6 +71,12 @@ struct auxtrace_record *auxtrace_record__init(struct evlist *evlist,
 	struct evsel *pos;
 	int found = 0;
 
+	/*
+	 * Set err value to zero here. Any fail later
+	 * will set appropriate return code to err.
+	 */
+	*err = 0;
+
 	evlist__for_each_entry(evlist, pos) {
 		if (strstarts(pos->name, "vpa_dtl")) {
 			found = 1;
diff --git a/tools/perf/builtin-record.c b/tools/perf/builtin-record.c
index 4a5eba498c02..708825747af5 100644
--- a/tools/perf/builtin-record.c
+++ b/tools/perf/builtin-record.c
@@ -865,6 +865,7 @@ static int record__auxtrace_init(struct record *rec)
 	}
 
 	if (!rec->itr) {
+		err = -EINVAL;
 		rec->itr = auxtrace_record__init(rec->evlist, &err);
 		if (err)
 			return err;
-- 
2.47.3