[SOLVED] iwlwifi: beware of 4.14.2 kernel upgrade

cgorac · 11-26-2017, 03:34 AM

If upgrading, make sure that you have 4.14.1 kernel packages handy, so that you can revert back. Namely, after upgrading, booting process get stuck for several minutes during starting wireless card (I'm activating mine from /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1, using wpa_supplicant), filling syslog with following set of messages:

Code:

Nov 26 09:42:42 p71 kernel: [   17.119103] iwlwifi 0000:04:00.0: Error sending SCAN_REQ_UMAC: time out after 2000ms
Nov 26 09:42:42 p71 kernel: [   17.119106] iwlwifi 0000:04:00.0: Current CMD queue read_ptr 39 write_ptr 40
Nov 26 09:42:42 p71 kernel: [   17.119347] iwlwifi 0000:04:00.0: Microcode SW error detected.  Restarting 0x2000000.
Nov 26 09:42:42 p71 kernel: [   17.119503] iwlwifi 0000:04:00.0: Start IWL Error Log Dump:
Nov 26 09:42:42 p71 kernel: [   17.119506] iwlwifi 0000:04:00.0: Status: 0x00000100, count: 6
Nov 26 09:42:42 p71 kernel: [   17.119508] iwlwifi 0000:04:00.0: Loaded firmware version: 34.0.1
Nov 26 09:42:42 p71 kernel: [   17.119512] iwlwifi 0000:04:00.0: 0x00000084 | NMI_INTERRUPT_UNKNOWN       
Nov 26 09:42:42 p71 kernel: [   17.119514] iwlwifi 0000:04:00.0: 0x00A002F0 | trm_hw_status0
Nov 26 09:42:42 p71 kernel: [   17.119516] iwlwifi 0000:04:00.0: 0x00000000 | trm_hw_status1

...and so on. The system will eventually boot, but without WiFi. It seems that there is some kind of bug with firmware that leaked into this kernel, but at the moment I had no time to investigate further, but I reverted to 4.14.1 kernel packages instead.

willysr · 11-26-2017, 05:12 AM

Some chipsets works with older version of iwlwifi, just like what i had in my old ASUS laptop.
I removed iwlwifi-1000.5 and it works right away with 1000.3 version

GazL · 11-26-2017, 06:45 AM

Mine works fine, though I get some warnings and an error from the thermal zone:

Code:

[    7.112619] iwlwifi 0000:08:00.0: loaded firmware version 29.610311.0 op_mode iwlmvm
[    7.137251] iwlwifi 0000:08:00.0: Detected Intel(R) Dual Band Wireless AC 3165, REV=0x210
[    7.158872] iwlwifi 0000:08:00.0: base HW address: _REDACTED_
[    7.227745] ieee80211 phy0: Selected rate control algorithm 'iwl-mvm-rs'
[    7.227904] (NULL device *): hwmon_device_register() is deprecated. Please convert the driver to use hwmon_device_register_with_info().
[    7.228645] thermal thermal_zone1: failed to read out thermal zone (-61)

That's not new to this kernel: it's always been like that.
Other than the warnings/error on boot, It's been working 100% reliably here.

cgorac · 11-26-2017, 12:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by willysr

Some chipsets works with older version of iwlwifi, just like what i had in my old ASUS laptop.
I removed iwlwifi-1000.5 and it works right away with 1000.3 version

Thanks for the hint. As my WiFi card is 8265, I moved iwlwifi-8265-34.ucode out of /lib/firmware, and indeed the 4.14.2 kernel works fine with iwlwifi-8265-31.ucode.

willysr · 11-26-2017, 03:39 PM

Just beware that you might need to repeat the same steps whenever kernel-firmware is updated again

cgorac · 11-26-2017, 03:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by willysr

Just beware that you might need to repeat the same steps whenever kernel-firmware is updated again

Of course, but let's hope they'll fix it upstream.

brobr · 11-26-2017, 06:25 PM

Hi, this does not seem kernel-specific; it is firmware-specific as might be obvious from willy's solution: on my box it also happens on 4.14.1 since the latest firmware-upgrade

EDIT: renaming the ucode files by adding something (NOGOOD) at the end works as well as deleting them