Emulator crashes with mt25q flash write errors and RTC/PLL warnings

[vman26]

Title

Emulator crashes with mt25q flash write errors and RTC/PLL warnings

Description

Summary

The Pebble emulator crashes immediately after app launch with flash write errors, RTC time synchronization warnings, and PLL configuration errors.

Environment

• Platform: WSL2 (Windows Subsystem for Linux)
• Pebble Tool: v5.0.10
• Pebble SDK: v4.5
• Target Platform: Emery (Pebble 2), but tried all others
• App Type: Watchface (no persistent storage, no AppMessage)
• Tested on all platforms: aplite, basalt, chalk, diorite, emery - all crash identically

Reproduction Steps

1. Create a simple watchface app (no persist_* calls, no external dependencies)
2. Run pebble build
3. Run pebble install --emulator <platform> (tried aplite, basalt, chalk, diorite, emery)
4. Emulator crashes immediately after app launch on all platforms

Troubleshooting attempts that did NOT resolve the issue:

• Cleared ~/.pebble-sdk/ directory
• Ran pebble clean and rebuilt
• Wiped emulator state completely
• Created brand new project from scratch - same issue occurs
• Tried all available platforms (aplite, basalt, chalk, diorite, emery) - all crash identically

Error Output

DEBUG_STM32F2XX_RTC f2xx_update_current_date_and_time: detected -9 mismatch between host and target ticks, jamming new host time into RTC without checking for alarms
qemu stm32: hardware warning: PLL cannot be disabled while it is selected as the system clock.
R00=00000000 R01=00000000 R02=00000000 R03=00000000
R04=00000000 R05=00000000 R06=00000000 R07=00000000
R08=00000000 R09=00000000 R10=00000000 R11=00000000
R12=00000000 R13=2001aa00 R14=00000000 R15=080025e0
PSR=40000173 -Z-- T svc32
-1: mt25q_write8: Flipping bit from 0 => 1 (addr=0x552003, value=0xfd, current=0xfa)
-1: mt25q_write8: Flipping bit from 0 => 1 (addr=0x554003, value=0xfd, current=0xfa)
-1: mt25q_write8: Flipping bit from 0 => 1 (addr=0x556003, value=0xfd, current=0xf6)
-1: mt25q_write8: Flipping bit from 0 => 1 (addr=0x558003, value=0xfd, current=0xf6)
-1: mt25q_write8: Flipping bit from 0 => 1 (addr=0x55a003, value=0xfd, current=0xf6)

Impact

• Severity: Critical - emulator completely unusable on all platforms
• Workarounds: None found - issue persists across all troubleshooting attempts
• Reproducibility: 100% - occurs with every app launch on every platform

Additional Context

• Issue occurs on all platforms (aplite, basalt, chalk, diorite, emery)
• App code is clean (no persistent storage, no heap allocations, proper initialization)
• Creating a new project from scratch does not resolve the issue
• Issue appears to be in QEMU's STM32F2xx peripheral emulation or firmware initialization

[EuphoricPenguin]

coredevices/pebble-tool#17
Linked this issue here; I suspect this is probably a better venue for the Core Devices devs to see it, assuming you were using the Core pebble-tool based on your Discord messages.