Unable to Load FreeRTOS R5F Firmware on BeagleBone AI-64 (bad phdr error)

General Discussion
1

Hello,

I am working with a BeagleBone AI-64 which uses the TI TDA4VM SoC.
I have flashed the board with:

BeagleBone AI-64 Debian 13 – v6.12.x-ti XGCE image

My goal is to run FreeRTOS on the R5F core.
For this, I downloaded:

TI PSDK RTOS – J721E 08.02.00.05

From the PSDK RTOS, I built the IPC example:
pdk_jacinto_08_02_00_21/packages/ti/drv/ipc/examples/echo_test

I successfully compiled the FreeRTOS Echo Test application and obtained:
ipc_echo_test_freertos_mcu1_0_release.xer5f

I then tried to load this firmware to the R5F core using Linux remoteproc:
sudo cp ipc_echo_test_freertos_mcu1_0_release.xer5f /lib/firmware/

echo stop | sudo tee /sys/class/remoteproc/remoteproc16/state
echo ipc_echo_test_freertos_mcu1_0_release.xer5f | sudo tee /sys/class/remoteproc/remoteproc16/firmware
echo start | sudo tee /sys/class/remoteproc/remoteproc16/state

But I get:
/sys/class/remoteproc/remoteproc16/state: Invalid argument

dmesg:

remoteproc remoteproc16: Booting fw image ipc_echo_test_freertos_mcu1_0_release.xer5f, size 1483284
remoteproc remoteproc16: bad phdr da 0xa0100000 mem 0x8c
remoteproc remoteproc16: Failed to load program segments: -22
remoteproc remoteproc16: Boot failed: -22

Why does the kernel report “bad phdr” and fail to load the FreeRTOS binary?
Is the .xer5f output from PSDK RTOS incompatible with the BeagleBone AI-64 Debian remoteproc loader?
Do I need a different memory map / linker file when building R5F firmware for the BeagleBone AI-64?
The PSDK RTOS examples seem targeted for TI EVM (J721E EVM). Does the AI-64 require different R5F addresses?
Is there a specific PSDK version or configuration required for BeagleBone AI-64?
Or is FreeRTOS on R5F not supported with the XGCE Debian kernel.
**What is the correct procedure to load custom R5F firmware on BeagleBone AI-64?

**
Any guidance on how to correctly build and load FreeRTOS firmware on the AI-64 R5F core would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you!

2

You are using the Debian 13 (v 6.12.x-ti) image, which is relatively new (mid/late 2025, given that your post is December 2025).

But then PROCESSOR-SDK-RTOS-J721E version 08.02.00.05 is quite old (March 2022)! and is likely built to work with a much older kernel / OS version than you are running.

Perhaps you would have better luck with the PSDK RTOS v 11.01.00.04 (September 2025), here:
https://www.ti.com/tool/download/PROCESSOR-SDK-RTOS-J721E/11.01.00.04

(by now they have even released 11.02.00.06, Jan 2026)

Beyond that I am not able to help, as I don’t know the specifics about FreeRTOS or the R5F at this time, but I do know that there were a lot of lower-level changes in Linux between 2022 (roughly kernel 5.10 or so, I’m guessing?) and the more recent 6.12.x

Best of luck, hope this helps get you on the right track!

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