Wireless card no 5GHz IR

[Matthew Keeler]

I am having a bit of trouble with a QCA9880 based nic that was
previously working. At some point I did updates to my system and 5 GHz
no longer works (although it did for a week or so after the updates).

iw reg get output shows correct regulatory information:

global
country US: DFS-FCC
(2402 - 2472 @ 40), (N/A, 30), (N/A)
(5170 - 5250 @ 80), (N/A, 17), (N/A), AUTO-BW
(5250 - 5330 @ 80), (N/A, 23), (0 ms), DFS, AUTO-BW
(5490 - 5730 @ 160), (N/A, 23), (0 ms), DFS
(5735 - 5835 @ 80), (N/A, 30), (N/A)
(57240 - 63720 @ 2160), (N/A, 40), (N/A)

phy#0
country US: DFS-FCC
(2402 - 2472 @ 40), (N/A, 30), (N/A)
(5170 - 5250 @ 80), (N/A, 17), (N/A), AUTO-BW
(5250 - 5330 @ 80), (N/A, 23), (0 ms), DFS, AUTO-BW
(5490 - 5730 @ 160), (N/A, 23), (0 ms), DFS
(5735 - 5835 @ 80), (N/A, 30), (N/A)
(57240 - 63720 @ 2160), (N/A, 40), (N/A)


dmesg output while the device is coming up looks normal too (with
EEPROM getting the correct country code):

[    5.487506] ath10k_pci 0000:02:00.0: pci irq msi interrupts 1
irq_mode 0 reset_mode 0
[    5.856133] ath10k_pci 0000:02:00.0: Direct firmware load for
ath10k/cal-pci-0000:02:00.0.bin failed with error -2
[    5.867829] ath10k_pci 0000:02:00.0: qca988x hw2.0 target
0x4100016c chip_id 0x043202ff sub 0000:0000
[    5.867838] ath10k_pci 0000:02:00.0: kconfig debug 0 debugfs 1
tracing 0 dfs 0 testmode 0
[    5.868177] ath10k_pci 0000:02:00.0: firmware ver 10.2.4.70.9-2 api
5 features no-p2p,raw-mode crc32 b8d50af5
[    5.908305] ath10k_pci 0000:02:00.0: Direct firmware load for
ath10k/QCA988X/hw2.0/board-2.bin failed with error -2
[    5.908406] ath10k_pci 0000:02:00.0: board_file api 1 bmi_id N/A
crc32 bebc7c08
[    7.068008] ath10k_pci 0000:02:00.0: htt-ver 2.1 wmi-op 5 htt-op 2
cal otp max-sta 128 raw 0 hwcrypto 1
[    7.129607] ath: EEPROM regdomain: 0x0
[    7.129614] ath: EEPROM indicates default country code should be used
[    7.129617] ath: doing EEPROM country->regdmn map search
[    7.129620] ath: country maps to regdmn code: 0x3a
[    7.129623] ath: Country alpha2 being used: US
[    7.129625] ath: Regpair used: 0x3a
[    7.141197] ath10k_pci 0000:02:00.0 wlan2: renamed from wlan0

However after this iw phy ph0 info show this for the 5 GHz frequencies:

Frequencies:
	* 5180 MHz [36] (17.0 dBm) (no IR)
	* 5200 MHz [40] (17.0 dBm) (no IR)
	* 5220 MHz [44] (17.0 dBm) (no IR)
	* 5240 MHz [48] (17.0 dBm) (no IR)
	* 5260 MHz [52] (23.0 dBm) (no IR, radar detection)
	  DFS state: usable (for 2898 sec)
	  DFS CAC time: 60000 ms
	* 5280 MHz [56] (23.0 dBm) (no IR, radar detection)
	  DFS state: usable (for 2898 sec)
	  DFS CAC time: 60000 ms
	* 5300 MHz [60] (23.0 dBm) (no IR, radar detection)
	  DFS state: usable (for 2898 sec)
	  DFS CAC time: 60000 ms
	* 5320 MHz [64] (23.0 dBm) (no IR, radar detection)
	  DFS state: usable (for 2898 sec)
	  DFS CAC time: 60000 ms
	* 5500 MHz [100] (disabled)
	* 5520 MHz [104] (disabled)
	* 5540 MHz [108] (disabled)
	* 5560 MHz [112] (disabled)
	* 5580 MHz [116] (disabled)
	* 5600 MHz [120] (disabled)
	* 5620 MHz [124] (disabled)
	* 5640 MHz [128] (disabled)
	* 5660 MHz [132] (disabled)
	* 5680 MHz [136] (disabled)
	* 5700 MHz [140] (disabled)
	* 5720 MHz [144] (23.0 dBm) (no IR, radar detection)
	  DFS state: usable (for 2898 sec)
	  DFS CAC time: 60000 ms
	* 5745 MHz [149] (30.0 dBm) (no IR)
	* 5765 MHz [153] (30.0 dBm) (no IR)
	* 5785 MHz [157] (30.0 dBm) (no IR)
	* 5805 MHz [161] (30.0 dBm) (no IR)
	* 5825 MHz [165] (30.0 dBm) (no IR)

And if I try to run hostapd using any 5GHz channel it fails.

This used to work. Has anyone else experienced something similar or
could there be a mismatch between firmware versions and kernel
versions? I did try using the lastest firmware 10.2.4.70.52 but this
one complained of pcie errors or AER driver support problems and shut
the card down during boot so I reverted back to the system default.

Relevant system information:
    Distro:                   Arch Linux
    kernel version:           4.6.3-1
    firmware package version: 20160516.80d463b-1
    ath10k firmware version:  10.2.4.70.9-2
    iw version:               4.7.1
    crda version:             3.18-1
    hostapd version:          2.5-2


—
Matt Keeler