[PATCH net v2] net: spacemit: Clarify stat timeout comments and messages

[Paolo Abeni]

On 1/22/26 11:39 AM, Vivian Wang wrote:
> On 1/22/26 12:04, Jakub Kicinski wrote:
>> On Wed, 21 Jan 2026 10:17:18 +0800 Vivian Wang wrote:
>>> This patch isn't a fix for the problem per se, since it is hardware
>>> behavior. The new message and comments, however, should direct those
>>> running into this on new hardware towards a fix.
>> Is it not possible to improve the situation?
> 
> Maybe I should have made it clearer, but this comment and messages
> improvement was proposed by Andrew in the linked thread [1].
> 
> As an aside, saying that made me realize this patch should be:
> 
> Suggested-by: Andrew Lunn <andrew at lunn.ch>
> 
>> Is the refclock disappearing because of power saving?
>> Or because the link is down?
> 
> I'm not really well-versed in what's allowed from the PHY here, but at
> least the Motorcomm and Realtek PHYs seem to only stop this clock while
> the link is down. So from what I can tell it's PHY stopping the clock
> because of power saving for when the link is down. I'm not sure how that
> should translate into an answer to your question here...
> 
>> Because if it's the latter we should be able to skip reading the stats
>> when link is down (still racy but better than waiting in cases we can
>> detect?)
> 
> If checking the link is definitely up as a condition for updating stats
> would be acceptable, then maybe the original patch from the linked
> thread [2] can also be adopted?

My understanding is that such option would fit Jakub's suggestion. Note
that the commit message should be expanded and clarified WRT the
original submission.

/P