ath wireless power management failure

ath wireless power management failure

[Ricardo Wurmus]

GPG: BCA6 89B6 3655 3801 C3C6  2150 197A 5888 235F ACAC
https://elephly.net
Hi Guix,

since a couple of days I’m experiencing problems with my wireless card
after waking up from suspend.  I suspend the laptop very often, so this
is really important to me.

Upon waking up from suspend the wireless card cannot be initialised any
more.  This results in a constant stream of error messages, which can be
seen in dmesg.  The messages disappear when unloading all ath-related
kernel modules.  Reloading the modules does not return the network card
to a workable state, so I have to reboot if I want to connect to a
wireless network (and I usually want to do that).

The error messages that appear in the log look like this:

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
[ 1210.998408] ath: phy0: Unable to reset channel, reset status -22
[ 1211.078027] ath: phy0: DMA failed to stop in 10 ms AR_CR=0xffffffff AR_DIAG_SW=0xffffffff DMADBG_7=0xffffffff
[ 1211.078038] ath: phy0: Could not stop RX, we could be confusing the DMA engine when we start RX up
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

(Repeat ad infinitum.)

According to ancient bug reports these messages relate to power
management problems and have been reported as fixed a long time ago.  I
confirmed with “iw” and “iwconfig” that power management for my WiFi
card is in fact disabled (I didn’t do this myself).

I see these errors with linux-libre-4.1 and linux-libre.  I’m using
a somewhat dated Libreboot (planning to upgrade *after* FOSDEM to be
sure that my machine is usable for the presentation).

Has anyone else experienced the same behaviour?  Any ideas how to fix
this?  Does this just mean that my WiFi card is dying?

--
Ricardo

Re: ath wireless power management failure

[Ludovic Courtès]

Hello!

Ricardo Wurmus <rekado@elephly.net> skribis:

> The error messages that appear in the log look like this:
>
> [ 1210.998408] ath: phy0: Unable to reset channel, reset status -22
> [ 1211.078027] ath: phy0: DMA failed to stop in 10 ms AR_CR=0xffffffff AR_DIAG_SW=0xffffffff DMADBG_7=0xffffffff
> [ 1211.078038] ath: phy0: Could not stop RX, we could be confusing the DMA engine when we start RX up
>
> (Repeat ad infinitum.)

I see some of these in /var/log/messages (using Linux-libre 4.9, on a
UEFI laptop) but it’s only a couple of times, after which things get
reinitialized:

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
[ 4880.470147] ath: phy2: Unable to reset channel (2437 Mhz) reset status -22
[ 4880.470149] ath: phy2: Unable to set channel
[ 4880.480214] ath: phy2: Failed to wakeup in 500us
[ 4880.490224] ath: phy2: Failed to wakeup in 500us

[...]

[ 4880.670796] usb 1-2: ath9k_htc: USB layer deinitialized
[ 4881.414783] usb 1-2: new high-speed USB device number 13 using xhci_hcd
[ 4881.631641] usb 1-2: New USB device found, idVendor=0cf3, idProduct=9271
[ 4881.631643] usb 1-2: New USB device strings: Mfr=16, Product=32, SerialNumber=48
[ 4881.631644] usb 1-2: Product: UB93
[ 4881.631645] usb 1-2: Manufacturer: ATHEROS
[ 4881.631646] usb 1-2: SerialNumber: 12345
[ 4881.632165] usb 1-2: ath9k_htc: Firmware ath9k_htc/htc_9271-1.4.0.fw requested
[ 4881.632281] usb 1-2: Direct firmware load for ath9k_htc/htc_9271-1.4.0.fw failed with error -2
[ 4881.632284] usb 1-2: ath9k_htc: Firmware htc_9271.fw requested
]: Deleting interface #7 wlp0s20f0u2, fe80::6202:b4ff:fe99:9b31%5#123, interface stats: received=0, sent=0, dropped=0, active_time=8 secs
[ 4881.919163] usb 1-2: ath9k_htc: Transferred FW: htc_9271.fw, size: 51008
[ 4882.171184] ath9k_htc 1-2:1.0: ath9k_htc: HTC initialized with 33 credits
[ 4882.440251] ath9k_htc 1-2:1.0: ath9k_htc: FW Version: 1.4
[ 4882.440254] ath9k_htc 1-2:1.0: FW RMW support: On
[ 4882.444769] ieee80211 phy3: Atheros AR9271 Rev:1
[ 4882.444890] ath9k_htc 1-2:1.0 wlp0s20f0u2: renamed from wlan0
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

So I don’t know what’s happening in your case.  It’s a good idea to try
with a different WiFi card or dongle if you have one.

Ludo’.

Re: ath wireless power management failure

[Tiberiu]

On 07.02.2017 16:46, Ludovic Courtès wrote:
> So I don’t know what’s happening in your case.  It’s a good idea to try
> with a different WiFi card or dongle if you have one.

Ricardo, do you have a WiFi card on mPCIe (driver ath9k) or a WiFi
dongle on USB (driver ath9k_htc)? Ludo's using the WiFi dongle.

Thanks,
Tiberiu
--
https://tehnoetic.com

Re: ath wireless power management failure

[Ricardo Wurmus]

Tiberiu <tiberiu@tehnoetic.com> writes:

> On 07.02.2017 16:46, Ludovic Courtès wrote:
>> So I don’t know what’s happening in your case.  It’s a good idea to try
>> with a different WiFi card or dongle if you have one.
>
> Ricardo, do you have a WiFi card on mPCIe (driver ath9k) or a WiFi
> dongle on USB (driver ath9k_htc)? Ludo's using the WiFi dongle.

I’m using an internal WiFi card with ath9k.  I don’t have a WiFi dongle.

--
Ricardo

GPG: BCA6 89B6 3655 3801 C3C6  2150 197A 5888 235F ACAC
https://elephly.net

Re: ath wireless power management failure

[Tiberiu]

On 07.02.2017 17:30, Ricardo Wurmus wrote:
> 
> Tiberiu <tiberiu@tehnoetic.com> writes:
> 
>> On 07.02.2017 16:46, Ludovic Courtès wrote:
>>> So I don’t know what’s happening in your case.  It’s a good idea to try
>>> with a different WiFi card or dongle if you have one.
>>
>> Ricardo, do you have a WiFi card on mPCIe (driver ath9k) or a WiFi
>> dongle on USB (driver ath9k_htc)? Ludo's using the WiFi dongle.
> 
> I’m using an internal WiFi card with ath9k.  I don’t have a WiFi dongle.

Do you also have ath9k log messages and if so, could you please paste
them here? Also, what chip does your WiFi card have?

Thanks,
Tiberiu
--
https://tehnoetic.com

Re: ath wireless power management failure

[Ricardo Wurmus]

Tiberiu <tiberiu@tehnoetic.com> writes:

> Do you also have ath9k log messages and if so, could you please paste
> them here? Also, what chip does your WiFi card have?

There aren’t many ath9k log messages.  Here are the messages from
yesterday and today:

Feb  6 00:35:57 localhost vmunix: [   11.849588] ath9k 0000:02:00.0: enabling device (0000 -> 0002)
Feb  6 00:35:57 localhost vmunix: [   12.052196] ath9k 0000:02:00.0 wlp2s0: renamed from wlan0
Feb  6 09:23:44 localhost vmunix: [   12.052555] ath9k 0000:02:00.0 wlp2s0: renamed from wlan0
Feb  6 16:41:02 localhost vmunix: [21782.562086] [<ffffffffc0687570>] ath_isr [ath9k]
Feb  6 16:48:04 localhost vmunix: [   67.024255] ath9k 0000:02:00.0 wlp2s0: renamed from wlan0
Feb  6 18:18:40 localhost vmunix: [ 5507.166605] [<ffffffffc02eb570>] ath_isr [ath9k]
Feb  6 18:25:22 localhost vmunix: [   25.190524] ath9k 0000:02:00.0 wlp2s0: renamed from wlan0
Feb  6 22:02:25 localhost vmunix: [   53.568402] ath9k 0000:02:00.0 wlp2s0: renamed from wlan0
Feb  7 07:49:13 localhost vmunix: [ 4619.392030] ath9k 0000:02:00.0: Refused to change power state, currently in D3
Feb  7 07:53:51 localhost vmunix: [   64.161516] ath9k 0000:02:00.0 wlp2s0: renamed from wlan0
Feb  7 08:39:19 localhost vmunix: [ 2787.166577] [<ffffffffc0557570>] ath_isr [ath9k]
Feb  7 08:50:07 localhost vmunix: [   18.319719] ath9k 0000:02:00.0: enabling device (0000 -> 0002)
Feb  7 08:50:07 localhost vmunix: [   18.652179] ath9k 0000:02:00.0 wlp2s0: renamed from wlan0
Feb  7 11:55:49 localhost vmunix: [   69.031690] ath9k 0000:02:00.0 wlp2s0: renamed from wlan0

lspci says this about my network controller:

02:00.0 Network controller: Qualcomm Atheros AR9285 Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express) (rev 01)

It used to work fine for several months.  Not sure if it’s failing or if
there’s bad interaction with the kernel/libreboot.

--
Ricardo

GPG: BCA6 89B6 3655 3801 C3C6  2150 197A 5888 235F ACAC
https://elephly.net

Re: ath wireless power management failure

[Tiberiu]

On 07.02.2017 18:03, Ricardo Wurmus wrote:
> Tiberiu <tiberiu@tehnoetic.com> writes:
> 
>> Do you also have ath9k log messages and if so, could you please paste
>> them here? Also, what chip does your WiFi card have?
> 
> There aren’t many ath9k log messages.  Here are the messages from
> yesterday and today:
> 
> Feb  6 00:35:57 localhost vmunix: [   11.849588] ath9k 0000:02:00.0: enabling device (0000 -> 0002)
> Feb  6 00:35:57 localhost vmunix: [   12.052196] ath9k 0000:02:00.0 wlp2s0: renamed from wlan0
> Feb  6 09:23:44 localhost vmunix: [   12.052555] ath9k 0000:02:00.0 wlp2s0: renamed from wlan0
> Feb  6 16:41:02 localhost vmunix: [21782.562086] [<ffffffffc0687570>] ath_isr [ath9k]
> Feb  6 16:48:04 localhost vmunix: [   67.024255] ath9k 0000:02:00.0 wlp2s0: renamed from wlan0
> Feb  6 18:18:40 localhost vmunix: [ 5507.166605] [<ffffffffc02eb570>] ath_isr [ath9k]
> Feb  6 18:25:22 localhost vmunix: [   25.190524] ath9k 0000:02:00.0 wlp2s0: renamed from wlan0
> Feb  6 22:02:25 localhost vmunix: [   53.568402] ath9k 0000:02:00.0 wlp2s0: renamed from wlan0
> Feb  7 07:49:13 localhost vmunix: [ 4619.392030] ath9k 0000:02:00.0: Refused to change power state, currently in D3
> Feb  7 07:53:51 localhost vmunix: [   64.161516] ath9k 0000:02:00.0 wlp2s0: renamed from wlan0
> Feb  7 08:39:19 localhost vmunix: [ 2787.166577] [<ffffffffc0557570>] ath_isr [ath9k]
> Feb  7 08:50:07 localhost vmunix: [   18.319719] ath9k 0000:02:00.0: enabling device (0000 -> 0002)
> Feb  7 08:50:07 localhost vmunix: [   18.652179] ath9k 0000:02:00.0 wlp2s0: renamed from wlan0
> Feb  7 11:55:49 localhost vmunix: [   69.031690] ath9k 0000:02:00.0 wlp2s0: renamed from wlan0
> 
> lspci says this about my network controller:
> 
> 02:00.0 Network controller: Qualcomm Atheros AR9285 Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express) (rev 01)
> 
> It used to work fine for several months.  Not sure if it’s failing or if
> there’s bad interaction with the kernel/libreboot.

To make sure it's not a hardware problem, you could boot with a Live USB
with Trisquel 7.0 (it has an older stable kernel) and see if you have
stable WiFi. If not, maybe this is a good opportunity to upgrade to the
best WiFi card compatible with fully free systems: Tehnoetic N450DB
(a/b/g/n compliant, up to 450Mbps, Dual Band, 3-antenna connectors):
https://tehnoetic.com/tet-n450db

Tiberiu
--
https://tehnoetic.com

Re: ath wireless power management failure

[Björn Höfling]

Hi Ricardo,

On Sun 05 Feb 2017 04:43:26 AM CET
Ricardo Wurmus <rekado@elephly.net> wrote:

> GPG: BCA6 89B6 3655 3801 C3C6  2150 197A 5888 235F ACAC
> https://elephly.net
> Hi Guix,
> 
> since a couple of days I’m experiencing problems with my wireless card
> after waking up from suspend.  I suspend the laptop very often, so
> this is really important to me.
> 
> Upon waking up from suspend the wireless card cannot be initialised
> any more.  This results in a constant stream of error messages, which
> can be seen in dmesg.  The messages disappear when unloading all
> ath-related kernel modules.  Reloading the modules does not return
> the network card to a workable state, so I have to reboot if I want
> to connect to a wireless network (and I usually want to do that).
> 
> The error messages that appear in the log look like this:
> 
> --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
> [ 1210.998408] ath: phy0: Unable to reset channel, reset status -22
> [ 1211.078027] ath: phy0: DMA failed to stop in 10 ms
> AR_CR=0xffffffff AR_DIAG_SW=0xffffffff DMADBG_7=0xffffffff
> [ 1211.078038] ath: phy0: Could not stop RX, we could be confusing
> the DMA engine when we start RX up --8<---------------cut
> here---------------end--------------->8---
> 
> (Repeat ad infinitum.)
> 
> According to ancient bug reports these messages relate to power
> management problems and have been reported as fixed a long time ago.
> I confirmed with “iw” and “iwconfig” that power management for my WiFi
> card is in fact disabled (I didn’t do this myself).
> 
> I see these errors with linux-libre-4.1 and linux-libre.  I’m using
> a somewhat dated Libreboot (planning to upgrade *after* FOSDEM to be
> sure that my machine is usable for the presentation).
> 
> Has anyone else experienced the same behaviour?  Any ideas how to fix
> this?  Does this just mean that my WiFi card is dying?

Just curious:

Is you operating system GuixSD? Do you still have an old system generation of
the time "where it worked"? Have you tried to boot into that?

Björn

Re: ath wireless power management failure

[Ricardo Wurmus]

Björn Höfling <bjoern.hoefling@bjoernhoefling.de> writes:

> Just curious:
>
> Is you operating system GuixSD? Do you still have an old system generation of
> the time "where it worked"? Have you tried to boot into that?

I’m using GuixSD but I reinstalled the system right before going to
FOSDEM.  I did this because my initial installation was on a tiny
partition at the end of my otherwise LVM/LUKS-formatted disk.  The
easiest way to use the whole disk was to reinstall GuixSD, instead of
trying to move around the partitions.

As a result I don’t have an older version of GuixSD that I could boot
into :-/

-- 
Ricardo

GPG: BCA6 89B6 3655 3801 C3C6  2150 197A 5888 235F ACAC
https://elephly.net

Re: ath wireless power management failure

[Ricardo Wurmus]

Tiberiu <tiberiu@tehnoetic.com> writes:

> On 07.02.2017 18:03, Ricardo Wurmus wrote:
>> Tiberiu <tiberiu@tehnoetic.com> writes:
>>
>>> Do you also have ath9k log messages and if so, could you please paste
>>> them here? Also, what chip does your WiFi card have?
>>
>> There aren’t many ath9k log messages.  Here are the messages from
>> yesterday and today:
>>
>> Feb  6 00:35:57 localhost vmunix: [   11.849588] ath9k 0000:02:00.0: enabling device (0000 -> 0002)
>> Feb  6 00:35:57 localhost vmunix: [   12.052196] ath9k 0000:02:00.0 wlp2s0: renamed from wlan0
>> Feb  6 09:23:44 localhost vmunix: [   12.052555] ath9k 0000:02:00.0 wlp2s0: renamed from wlan0
>> Feb  6 16:41:02 localhost vmunix: [21782.562086] [<ffffffffc0687570>] ath_isr [ath9k]
>> Feb  6 16:48:04 localhost vmunix: [   67.024255] ath9k 0000:02:00.0 wlp2s0: renamed from wlan0
>> Feb  6 18:18:40 localhost vmunix: [ 5507.166605] [<ffffffffc02eb570>] ath_isr [ath9k]
>> Feb  6 18:25:22 localhost vmunix: [   25.190524] ath9k 0000:02:00.0 wlp2s0: renamed from wlan0
>> Feb  6 22:02:25 localhost vmunix: [   53.568402] ath9k 0000:02:00.0 wlp2s0: renamed from wlan0
>> Feb  7 07:49:13 localhost vmunix: [ 4619.392030] ath9k 0000:02:00.0: Refused to change power state, currently in D3
>> Feb  7 07:53:51 localhost vmunix: [   64.161516] ath9k 0000:02:00.0 wlp2s0: renamed from wlan0
>> Feb  7 08:39:19 localhost vmunix: [ 2787.166577] [<ffffffffc0557570>] ath_isr [ath9k]
>> Feb  7 08:50:07 localhost vmunix: [   18.319719] ath9k 0000:02:00.0: enabling device (0000 -> 0002)
>> Feb  7 08:50:07 localhost vmunix: [   18.652179] ath9k 0000:02:00.0 wlp2s0: renamed from wlan0
>> Feb  7 11:55:49 localhost vmunix: [   69.031690] ath9k 0000:02:00.0 wlp2s0: renamed from wlan0
>>
>> lspci says this about my network controller:
>>
>> 02:00.0 Network controller: Qualcomm Atheros AR9285 Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express) (rev 01)
>>
>> It used to work fine for several months.  Not sure if it’s failing or if
>> there’s bad interaction with the kernel/libreboot.
>
> To make sure it's not a hardware problem, you could boot with a Live USB
> with Trisquel 7.0 (it has an older stable kernel) and see if you have
> stable WiFi. If not, maybe this is a good opportunity to upgrade to the
> best WiFi card compatible with fully free systems: Tehnoetic N450DB
> (a/b/g/n compliant, up to 450Mbps, Dual Band, 3-antenna connectors):
> https://tehnoetic.com/tet-n450db

I’m pretty sure now that it’s either a hardware problem or a weird
interaction of an older version of Libreboot with my failing hardware.
Can’t say for sure if it’s the mainboard giving up or just the WiFi card
(either is possible).  I’ll try updating Libreboot next and then move on
to buying a new WiFi card if that doesn’t help.

Thanks for the URL and the recommendation!

--
Ricardo

GPG: BCA6 89B6 3655 3801 C3C6  2150 197A 5888 235F ACAC
https://elephly.net