[U-Boot] [mips][cfi] Unable to write into flash under qemu

Hello,

I am using malta board within qemu. I tried recent releases and master of both. Two years ago in qemu-1.5 and qemu-1.6 I could use erase and cp.b in order to erase and write to the flash. Now when I try to erase flash I get an error suggesting the erase failed, however, I do see 0xff all over in the device backed file (-pflash). When I try to write I also receive a failure message.

I am unsure how to debug this, I went back in time and tried the qemu-1.6 and got same error. I suspect it is has something to do with u-boot CFI driver.

Can anyone help determine if issue is at qemu side or at u-boot side? How can I debug this?

Thanks, Alon