[ath10k][QCA9377] Firmware crashes on Dell Inspiron 5567 (IRQ #16, all modern distro kernels)

[Bandhan Pramanik]

Hello,

This is to inform all that constant firmware crashes have been seen in
the "Qualcomm Atheros QCA9377 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter",
which was shipped with the Dell Inspiron 5567 laptops. This affects
every kernel release, including the stable and the longterm ones.

All the logs have been taken after livebooting an Arch Linux ISO.

Every distro has been tried, and it has been confirmed that some error
of this kind is shown in every distro.

## Steps to reproduce the issue

1. Boot/liveboot any Linux ISO through this card (and possibly, this laptop).
2. Wi-Fi network interface appears.
3. Connect the Wi-Fi router to the computer.
4. A few moments/minutes after that, the touchpad stops working, and
the network interface cannot even access the Internet anymore (BUT,
the network interface might disappear, might not disappear).

## Affected distros and the necessary workarounds

This has been the pattern on every distro and their corresponding
kernels (LMDE, Linux Mint, Pop!_OS, Zorin, Kubuntu, KDE Neon,
elementaryOS, Fedora, and even Arch). The fix which made these distros
usable is to add two things:

- Adding "options ath10k_core skip_otp=y" to a new conf file in /etc/modprobe.d.
- Adding "pci=noaer" in GRUB kernel parameters so that the logs are
not flooded with Multiple Correctable Errors.

To defend my case (that it occurs in the other models of Inspiron 5567
too), I have recently contacted someone running Linux Mint on the same
model. The answer was the same: the touchpad and the Wi-Fi stop
simultaneously.

## Some of the limitations

The kernel was tainted, but the other things have been properly noted
in case they might provide some useful details. As stated,
investigating why IRQ #16 is disabled will probably give us the
answer.

## Logs provided

All the logs in a combined manner can be found here:
https://gist.github.com/BandhanPramanik/ddb0cb23eca03ca2ea43a1d832a16180

- Full dmesg: https://gist.github.com/BandhanPramanik/ddb0cb23eca03ca2ea43a1d832a16180#file-dmesg-log
- Hostnamectl: https://gist.github.com/BandhanPramanik/ddb0cb23eca03ca2ea43a1d832a16180#file-hostnamectl-log
- lspci: https://gist.github.com/BandhanPramanik/ddb0cb23eca03ca2ea43a1d832a16180#file-lspci-log
- Modinfo of the driver:
https://gist.github.com/BandhanPramanik/ddb0cb23eca03ca2ea43a1d832a16180#file-modinfo-log
- Ping command:
https://gist.github.com/BandhanPramanik/ddb0cb23eca03ca2ea43a1d832a16180#file-ping-log
- /proc/interrupts:
https://gist.github.com/BandhanPramanik/ddb0cb23eca03ca2ea43a1d832a16180#file-proc_interrupts-log
- IP addr command (Heavily Redacted):
https://gist.github.com/BandhanPramanik/ddb0cb23eca03ca2ea43a1d832a16180#file-ip_addr-log

Lastly, this issue on the GitHub repository of Pop!_OS 'might' be
relevant: https://github.com/pop-os/pop/issues/1470

It would be highly appreciated if the matter were looked into.

Thanks,

Bandhan Pramanik