qca6174 missing firmware or subsystem id?

[Valo, Kalle]

Jiří Prchal <jiri.prchal at aksignal.cz> writes:

> On 13.10.2016 15:00, Valo, Kalle wrote:
>> Jiří Prchal <jiri.prchal at aksignal.cz> writes:
>>
>>> $dmesg | grep ath
>>> [    1.997246] ath10k_pci 0000:02:00.0: pci irq msi interrupts 1 irq_mode 0 reset_mode 0
>>> [    2.252840] ath10k_pci 0000:02:00.0: Direct firmware load for ath10k/cal-pci-0000:02:00.0.bin failed with error -2
>>> [    2.260813] ath10k_pci 0000:02:00.0: Direct firmware load for ath10k/QCA6174/hw3.0/firmware-5.bin failed with error -2
>>> [    2.260816] ath10k_pci 0000:02:00.0: could not fetch firmware file 'ath10k/QCA6174/hw3.0/firmware-5.bin': -2
>>
>> So ignore this firmware-5.bin warning, ath10k will automatically fall
>> back to using firmware-4.bin. I know it's confusing, we just haven't
>> found a good enough way to silence this warning yet.
>
> OK. Maybe temporary fix: write info message what firmware is finally
> loaded?

That's a good idea. Developers can already see that from the "fwapi 4"
print but somekind of explanation in english should reduce the confusion
with normal users.

>>> [    4.461429] ath10k_pci 0000:02:00.0: qca6174 hw3.2 (0x05030000,
>>> 0x00340aff sub 1043:86cd) fw WLAN.RM.2.0-00180-QCARMSWPZ-1 fwapi 4
>>> bdapi 2 htt-ver 3.26 wmi-op 4 htt-op 3 cal otp max-sta 32 raw 0
>>> hwcrypto 1 features wowlan,ignore-otp,no-4addr-pad
>>
>> Your ath10k is too old so that it doesn't print the crc32 checksum of
>> the board file you have so I don't know what version of the board file
>> you exactly have. But I just checked, the latest one from
>> ath10k-firmware.git should support your board with subsystem id
>> 1043:86cd:
>
> Should I try the newest kernel?

That's always a good idea, for example you could try just released v4.8.
Does ubuntu still provide .debs for upstream kernels?

Or you can try backports:

https://wireless.wiki.kernel.org/en/users/drivers/ath10k/backports

>> $ strings QCA6174/hw3.0/board-2.bin | grep 86cd
>> bus=pci,vendor=168c,device=003e,subsystem-vendor=1043,subsystem-device=86cdm
>>
>> The checksums of the latest board file are:
>>
>> FileCRC32: 6fc88fe7
>> FileMD5: 4807903c956dbd8b87f5d83c559c2211
>>
>> You can check what you are using like this:
>>
>> md5sum /lib/firmware/ath10k/QCA6174/hw3.0/board-2.bin
>
> Yes, I have the newest: 4807903c956dbd8b87f5d83c559c2211.

Then I suspect this is something else than board file related, but of
course I can't be 100% sure. You could also try enabling debug messages
and see if they reveal anything, for example debug_mask=0x00000432 is a
good start:

https://wireless.wiki.kernel.org/en/users/drivers/ath10k/debug

Have you verified that this is not a hardware problem? For example, does
the board work on Windows?

Also make sure that you have killed wpasupplicant, network-manager or
any other entity which might control the wireless device (very unlikely
that would cause this but better to be sure).

What channel is your AP in? Are there multiple APs in the area? This
could be also a channel problem, 'iw list' helps to investigate that (or
changing the channel on AP).

-- 
Kalle Valo