Critical section used from Interrupts

Kernel
1

anonymous wrote on Monday, January 10, 2011:

Hi,

I’m working on a project that uses Cortex-M3 microcontroller and FreeRTOS. Recently, I found a bug that causes a crash here:

/* *** NOTE ***********************************************************
If you find your application is crashing here then likely causes are:
1) Stack overflow -
   see http://www.freertos.org/Stacks-and-stack-overflow-checking.html
2) Incorrect interrupt priority assignment, especially on Cortex M3
   parts where numerically high priority values denote low actual
   interrupt priories, which can seem counter intuitive.  See
   configMAX_SYSCALL_INTERRUPT_PRIORITY on http://www.freertos.org/a00110.html
3) Calling an API function from within a critical section or when
   the scheduler is suspended.
4) Using a queue or semaphore before it has been initialised or
   before the scheduler has been started (are interrupts firing
   before vTaskStartScheduler() has been called?).
See http://www.freertos.org/FAQHelp.html for more tips.
**********************************************************************/

for( pxIterator = ( xListItem * ) &( pxList->xListEnd ); pxIterator->pxNext->xItemValue <= xValueOfInsertion; pxIterator = pxIterator->pxNext )

I called taskENTER_CRITICAL and taskEXIT_CRITICAL from interrupt handler (irq on highest priority). Is this a general rule, that critical section could not be used from interrupt handlers, or this is true only in Cortex-M3 architecture?
It wasn’t my intention to use critical sections in interrupts, ofcourse, but I wonder why masking interrupts in IRQ handlers could cause a crash.

Best regards,
dynamiccontrast

2

rtel wrote on Monday, January 10, 2011:

Recently, I found a bug that causes a crash here

I don’t think you have described the bug in your post.  If there is a bug then I would like to know!

Is this a general rule, that critical section could not be used from interrupt handlers, or this is true only in Cortex-M3 architecture?

It is an absolute rule for all architectures.  The rule extends further than just critical sections “no API function that does not end in ‘FromISR’ should be called from an ISR”.  See point 3 on the following page: FreeRTOS - Open Source RTOS Kernel for small embedded systems

As it happens, the CM3 port has an interrupt safe alternative.  Look in queue.c to see how the macros portSET_INTERRUPT_MASK_FROM_ISR() and portCLEAR_INTERRUPT_MASK_FROM_ISR() are used.

Regards.