Origin of Malformed Root-Filesystem Directory Entries

Determine the origin of the repeated malformed entries observed in two microSD-card root-filesystem directory blocks during proton irradiation of the Linux-managed Ultra96-V2 inference platform.

Background

Archived Linux records showed similarly malformed entries in two directory blocks of two root-filesystem directories, with the same offset and inode field and a zero-length name. The repeated pattern was considered more consistent with a storage-path or shared-state mechanism than with independent bit upsets, but the available evidence did not identify the responsible mechanism or component. Establishing the origin would clarify whether the filesystem corruption was radiation-induced and how it relates to the observed workload interruptions.

References

The malformed entries appeared in two root-filesystem directory blocks at one time. They replicate one pattern but do not show persistence, and their origin is unknown.

— Proton Irradiation Characterization of an Open-Source ML Accelerator on a Zynq UltraScale+ MPSoC  (2609.05249 - Memon et al., 4 Sep 2026) in Section V-B, “Persistent State and Recovery Scope”