Direct firmware load for ath10k/QCA6174/hw3.0/firmware-5.bin failed with error -2

[Michal Kazior]

On 5 January 2017 at 14:28, Xavier Bestel <xavier.bestel at free.fr> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> [Sorry if this is a FAQ, I didn't find the answer on https://wireless.wiki.kernel.org/en/users/drivers/ath10k/firmware
> and the mailing-list isn't searchable]
>
> I have an XPS 13 9360 with a stock Killer 1535, and I suffer random
> freeze when enabling on-board WiFi. I'm not yet sure if it's due to
> i915 or ath10k.

Does it freeze the entire system? Try making sure ath10k_pci is loaded
with reset_mode, e.g. via /etc/modprobe.d/ with:

 options ath10k_pci reset_mode=1


> Anyway, while looking at the logs I noticed this:
> [    3.685987] ath10k_pci 0000:3a:00.0: pci irq msi oper_irq_mode 2 irq_mode 0 reset_mode 0
> [    3.969321] ath10k_pci 0000:3a:00.0: firmware: failed to load ath10k/pre-cal-pci-0000:3a:00.0.bin (-2)
> [    3.969324] ath10k_pci 0000:3a:00.0: Direct firmware load for ath10k/pre-cal-pci-0000:3a:00.0.bin failed with error -2
> [    3.969347] ath10k_pci 0000:3a:00.0: firmware: failed to load ath10k/cal-pci-0000:3a:00.0.bin (-2)
> [    3.969350] ath10k_pci 0000:3a:00.0: Direct firmware load for ath10k/cal-pci-0000:3a:00.0.bin failed with error -2
> [    3.969889] ath10k_pci 0000:3a:00.0: firmware: failed to load ath10k/QCA6174/hw3.0/firmware-5.bin (-2)
> [    3.969892] ath10k_pci 0000:3a:00.0: Direct firmware load for ath10k/QCA6174/hw3.0/firmware-5.bin failed with error -2
> [    3.969896] ath10k_pci 0000:3a:00.0: could not fetch firmware file 'ath10k/QCA6174/hw3.0/firmware-5.bin': -2
> [    3.971125] ath10k_pci 0000:3a:00.0: firmware: direct-loading firmware ath10k/QCA6174/hw3.0/firmware-4.bin
> [    3.971137] ath10k_pci 0000:3a:00.0: qca6174 hw3.2 target 0x05030000 chip_id 0x00340aff sub 1a56:1535
> [    3.971140] ath10k_pci 0000:3a:00.0: kconfig debug 0 debugfs 0 tracing 0 dfs 0 testmode 0
> [    3.972789] ath10k_pci 0000:3a:00.0: firmware ver WLAN.RM.2.0-00180-QCARMSWPZ-1 api 4 features wowlan,ignore-otp,no-4addr-pad crc32 75dee6c5
> [    4.035365] ath10k_pci 0000:3a:00.0: firmware: direct-loading firmware ath10k/QCA6174/hw3.0/board-2.bin
> [    4.035543] ath10k_pci 0000:3a:00.0: board_file api 2 bmi_id N/A crc32 6fc88fe7
> [    6.156152] ath10k_pci 0000:3a:00.0: htt-ver 3.26 wmi-op 4 htt-op 3 cal otp max-sta 32 raw 0 hwcrypto 1
> [    6.249858] ath10k_pci 0000:3a:00.0 wlp58s0: renamed from wlan0
>
> Apparently there are files missing, and I can't even find them on https://github.com/kvalo/ath10k-firmware
> but apparently the card is working anyway.
>
> So why does it try to load a firmware if it's not useful ?

Driver tries to load latest-to-oldest version blobs (for backward
compatibility) and uses whatever it finds first. Due to deficient
firmware API in kernel you see these "error" messages. There's been
some work going on but it's progressing slowly.


Michał