Bitbake Debug

BitBake Debug

Use this skill to diagnose Yocto/BitBake failures from concrete evidence. Prefer log.do_*, run.do_*, bitbake -e, bitbake-layers, and pkgdata over guesses.

Evidence First

Ask for or inspect:

failing target and task
first fatal error, not only the final summary
tmp/work/.../temp/log.do_<task>
tmp/work/.../temp/run.do_<task>
conf/local.conf
conf/bblayers.conf
affected recipe or bbappend

Useful commands:

bitbake-layers show-layers
bitbake-layers show-recipes <recipe>
bitbake-layers show-appends
bitbake -e <recipe>
bitbake -c listtasks <recipe>
bitbake -c devshell <recipe>
bitbake -g <target>
oe-pkgdata-util list-pkgs
oe-pkgdata-util find-path '*/path/or/file'

Task Playbook

• do_fetch: verify SRC_URI, protocol, branch, SRCREV, checksums, network policy, mirrors, DL_DIR, and credentials only when the source is private.
• do_unpack: verify archive layout, S, multi-source unpack paths, and subdirectories.
• do_patch: verify patch path, strip level, order, fuzz, upstream status, and apply=yes/no only when automatic patch handling is wrong.
• do_configure: verify inherited class, PACKAGECONFIG, EXTRA_OECONF, EXTRA_OECMAKE, EXTRA_OEMESON, DEPENDS, and recipe-sysroot.
• do_compile: verify compiler command, generated files, missing -native tools, cross variables, and parallel race signs.
• do_install: verify installation under ${D}, permissions, ownership, and paths using ${bindir}, ${libdir}, ${sysconfdir}, etc.
• do_package / do_package_qa: verify package splits, FILES:*, runtime dependencies, and QA tags.
• do_rootfs: verify package names, providers, IMAGE_INSTALL, license policy, package conflicts, and postinstall scripts.
• do_image: verify rootfs completion, IMAGE_FSTYPES, WIC kickstart, boot artifacts, and deploy output.

References

• Read references/yocto-field-guide.md for the broader task playbook.
• Read references/qa-errors.md for common QA failures.
• Read references/variables-core.md when the fix depends on variable semantics.

Output

For every diagnosis, provide:

1. most likely cause
2. evidence that supports it
3. exact next command or metadata change
4. why this is the Yocto/BitBake fix
5. validation command