Arch Linux

imran1008

Member

Registered: 2011-01-23

Posts: 5

Re: Broadcom wireless driver - brcm80211

I am using brcm80211 package from AUR, which uses the kernel staging branch open source driver. My version of kernel26 package is 2.6.26.3-1.

The kernel package is updated a couple of days ago. The wireless card was usable during several reboots since then. However, after a reboot this afternoon, the driver makes kernel panic when associating.

I am using wicd to manage wireless networks. If I have a wired connection linked to my computer, it can boot into gdm and establish a wired connection successfully, and I can see the wireless networks available in wicd interface. But if I try to connect to a wireless network, I get a kernel panic when associating.

The wireless network has not been changed lately, and restarting the router makes no difference. I have installed and uninstalled several font packages since the kernel update, which seems irrelevant. I don't know what causes this sudden failure. Using closed-source broadcom-wl package from AUR made wicd unable to find wlan0 interface.

Any idea why this happens?

I had the exact same problem yesterday. My EeePC was working fine for a week but started panicking consistently yesterday afternoon. I am using kernel 2.6.37 but tried 2.6.38-rc1/rc2 and got the same result. I also tried to boot the kernel with acpi_irq_nobalance and noapic mode, same crash.

After some testing, I realized that it only crashes if you attempt to connect to a wireless-n router that is operating in wireless-g mode (that is, the router is in compatible mode and there is a wireless-g device connected to it). As soon as I set the router to wireless-n only mode, my kernel stopped crashing. Another solution is to use max_cpus=1 but I don't think anyone would want to disable all but one of their processors.

I'm still sure if the problem only happens when you connect to a wireless-n router in wireless-g mode but it hasn't crashed for me since. Given that this problem occurs randomly, it may be too soon to tell but its definitely worth a try for others experiencing the same crash.

RolandVossen

Member

Registered: 2011-02-03

Posts: 14

Re: Broadcom wireless driver - brcm80211

A fix for an issue in the brcm80211 softmac driver that appeared in multi CPU configurations has been submitted into the 2.6.38-rc1 kernel tree. Please refer to: https://patchwork.kernel.org/patch/504981/ . I am curious if this solves the issues that you guys are experiencing. patch can be found in  git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/gregkh/staging-2.6.git, in the staging-linus branch.

Best regards,

Roland Vossen
Broadcom

tripox

Member

From: Denmark

Registered: 2009-07-15

Posts: 44

Website

Re: Broadcom wireless driver - brcm80211

A fix for an issue in the brcm80211 softmac driver that appeared in multi CPU configurations has been submitted into the 2.6.38-rc1 kernel tree. Please refer to: https://patchwork.kernel.org/patch/504981/ . I am curious if this solves the issues that you guys are experiencing. patch can be found in  git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/gregkh/staging-2.6.git, in the staging-linus branch.

Best regards,

Roland Vossen
Broadcom

Thank you! Nice to see someone from Broadcom in here.
I'll check it out later.

---

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.
Maintainer of 'xbattbar-acpi' a simple single-line battery indicator - try it!

falconindy

Developer

From: New York, USA

Registered: 2009-10-22

Posts: 4,111

Website

Re: Broadcom wireless driver - brcm80211

A fix for an issue in the brcm80211 softmac driver that appeared in multi CPU configurations has been submitted into the 2.6.38-rc1 kernel tree. Please refer to: https://patchwork.kernel.org/patch/504981/ . I am curious if this solves the issues that you guys are experiencing. patch can be found in  git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/gregkh/staging-2.6.git, in the staging-linus branch.

Best regards,

Roland Vossen
Broadcom

This is great. I've compiled an -rc4 kernel for my laptop with this patch applied and haven't seen a single panic yet. 1 bug down.

---

blog | ±github

tripox

Member

From: Denmark

Registered: 2009-07-15

Posts: 44

Website

Re: Broadcom wireless driver - brcm80211

A fix for an issue in the brcm80211 softmac driver that appeared in multi CPU configurations has been submitted into the 2.6.38-rc1 kernel tree. Please refer to: https://patchwork.kernel.org/patch/504981/ . I am curious if this solves the issues that you guys are experiencing. patch can be found in  git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/gregkh/staging-2.6.git, in the staging-linus branch.

Best regards,

Roland Vossen
Broadcom

This is great. I've compiled an -rc4 kernel for my laptop with this patch applied and haven't seen a single panic yet. 1 bug down.

It was actually my intention to try this.
But how exactly do I get the driver only?

When using git, I get the whole tree with everything.

---

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.
Maintainer of 'xbattbar-acpi' a simple single-line battery indicator - try it!

falconindy

Developer

From: New York, USA

Registered: 2009-10-22

Posts: 4,111

Website

Re: Broadcom wireless driver - brcm80211

Note that the patch was backported to 2.6.37.1 which is currently in testing.

---

blog | ±github

tripox

Member

From: Denmark

Registered: 2009-07-15

Posts: 44

Website

Re: Broadcom wireless driver - brcm80211

Note that the patch was backported to 2.6.37.1 which is currently in testing.

Oh, nice.
I'll take a look at it.

---

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.
Maintainer of 'xbattbar-acpi' a simple single-line battery indicator - try it!

aky

Member

From: BTW, I use Arch Windows...

Registered: 2009-03-14

Posts: 35

Re: Broadcom wireless driver - brcm80211

Hello guys!
First of all I should mention my shiny new laptop has a BCM4313 (b+g+n) wireless card.
I tested brcm80211 from 2.6.37.1 a few hours ago (as I've read it has the latest brcm patches backported) and it still panicked the kernel. I had to pull out the battery in order to shutdown/restart the computer.
I'm kinda disappointed as I expected a little more stability with 'in-kernel' drivers (and I know it's a staging driver but still..) but I'll be patient and hope this issue will get sorted out soon.
Every time the kernel panics it shows an (assertion) error in wlc_mac80211.c, line 5265 IIRC (I'll check the line number later) and then a bunch of other things I don't really understand, many of those lines ending in "[brcm80211]". The assertion and line reported are the same every time the kernel panics; I had no means to capture the error besides a very blurry picture taken with my phone (I had no camera around) but I'll post it anyway as soon as i get home.
The crashes seem to happen when the wireless lan is on "heavy load" (high transfer rates) for some time. I couldn't figure out a way to precisely reproduce the issue other than downloading/transferring massive files for a [not too short] period of time and wait for it (kernel panic) to happen.
One more thing: the brcm driver seems to interfere very badly with bluetooth while the wl driver doesn't; if I use my Logitech V470 bluetooth mouse with the brcm driver loaded the mouse pointer jumps and skips while moving on the screen when transferring something wirelessly (via wlan); this doesn't happen when using the wl driver or at least it isn't that obvious/annoying like when using the brcm driver. Same goes for bluetooth phone-to-computer transfers: when using the brcm driver the pictures are transferred very slowly from phone to laptop (via bluetooth); this is not the case if I use the wl driver (which seems to let me transfer files via bluetooth at a more decent speed).
However there is at least one downside to using the wl driver: I can't switch off the wireless from the keyboard shortcut (Fn+something) with the wl driver loaded while the brcm driver allows me to do so. I'd really like to use the new brcm driver instead of wl driver; the wireless lan card is the only thing in my laptop that has (more or less) the worst support on linux (with free/open drivers) so far. I hope this is about to change..

aky

Member

From: BTW, I use Arch Windows...

Registered: 2009-03-14

Posts: 35

Re: Broadcom wireless driver - brcm80211

I have bcm4321.
Reinstalling broadcom-wl after kernel upgrade didn't help.

brcm doesn't support my card. It's great

Well.. of course it doesn't!

If your card is in the following list, you can use the brcm80211 driver:
PCI-ID             Name
[14e4:4727]     BCM4313
[14e4:4353]     BCM43224
[14e4:4357]     BCM43225

Your card seems to be supported only by the broadcom-wl driver (and you may want to blacklist everything else related to broadcom wireless except broadcom-wl); we have a nice wiki, you know?

Last edited by aky (2011-02-21 13:45:27)

kiernek

Member

Registered: 2009-02-26

Posts: 6

Re: Broadcom wireless driver - brcm80211

I wanted to delete my post, but there is no option to do that. I had opened 2 tabs

Btw broadcom-wl doesn't work since few day on my card

aky

Member

From: BTW, I use Arch Windows...

Registered: 2009-03-14

Posts: 35

Re: Broadcom wireless driver - brcm80211

back with the picture:
http://oi51.tinypic.com/v7txfd.jpg
Kernel panic - not syncing: <3>assertion "0" failed: file "wlc_mac80211.c", line 5265
and then
[something; it could be anything] Tainted: G            C    2.6.37-ARCH #1
Call trace:
(and all crazy stuff here, most of the lines ending in "[brcm80211]" - like I mentioned before)
Just like I said before the first line stays the same every time the kernel panics, as for the second it only differs in the first part where I get a different Pid and process each time.
It seems the fixes Roland Vossen mentioned don't "fix" the problem or at least not for BCM4313 too

--mod edit: please use thumbnails, see: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Fo … s_and_Code

Last edited by litemotiv (2011-03-16 19:44:48)

RolandVossen

Member

Registered: 2011-02-03

Posts: 14

Re: Broadcom wireless driver - brcm80211

Hello Aky,

A fix was recently submitted on the 2.6.38 branch that solves this problem. Details: http://www.spinics.net/lists/linux-driv … 11356.html . The fix has not been merged yet. In short, the ASSERT in wlc_mac80211.c that you hit should not be there. As a quick fix, you could delete the ASSERT(0) yourself, rebuild the driver and retry.

thanks for the feedback,

Roland Vossen
Broadcom

aky

Member

From: BTW, I use Arch Windows...

Registered: 2009-03-14

Posts: 35

Re: Broadcom wireless driver - brcm80211

Hello Mister Roland Vossen

Thank you for the fix and I hope it will be merged soon (and maybe included in the next build for 2.6.37.1 on Arch ). I'll try to test it tomorrow if I'll have the time.
It really makes me feel great that there are people like you out there that actually care, so thanks

RolandVossen

Member

Registered: 2011-02-03

Posts: 14

Re: Broadcom wireless driver - brcm80211

Thanks Aky. I aim to please :-)

Apart from the patch that I just referred to, more stability patches for the 2.6.38 tree are in the pipeline. These are:

- We noticed that the driver can crash during long iperf AMPDU sessions, and fixed that in new firmware, that is now undergoing internal testing before releasing.
- Also the driver can crash under certain conditions when using AMPDU while roaming. I am currently implementing a fix for that.

With these fixes in place, I am confident that we improved driver stability significantly. If you are interested, keep an eye on the development mailing list:
devel@linuxdriverproject.org
http://driverdev.linuxdriverproject.org … info/devel

Thanks for your valuable feedback,

Roland.

aky

Member

From: BTW, I use Arch Windows...

Registered: 2009-03-14

Posts: 35

Re: Broadcom wireless driver - brcm80211

It seems the fix for the crash on heavy transmit traffic didn't make it into the latest stable (2.6.37.2) kernel; I hope this will be fixed in 2.6.38
Should I file a bug report on Arch for this to be included (patched) with current Arch' kernel?

RolandVossen

Member

Registered: 2011-02-03

Posts: 14

Re: Broadcom wireless driver - brcm80211

Hi Aky,

that sounds like a good idea. Btw, I am close to releasing the two fixes that I mentioned in my previous response, will likely occur in the coming week.

Bye,

Roland.

JMO

Member

From: Argentina

Registered: 2006-04-08

Posts: 98

Re: Broadcom wireless driver - brcm80211

I'm eagerly wainting for them. I've been suffering severe stability issues trying to use my brcm80211 module.

Thanks in advance Roland. Your work is much appreciated =]

aky

Member

From: BTW, I use Arch Windows...

Registered: 2009-03-14

Posts: 35

Re: Broadcom wireless driver - brcm80211

Hello again,

I'm sorry for the late reply; I'm usually very busy at work during the weekdays.
As far as I can see it's very likely 2.6.38 won't include the latest patches mentioned in this thread. Linus announced rc8 as being the latest rc for .38 which is now just a few days away from stable --- "I would have been ok with releasing this as the final 38" (Linus)
Unfortunately we can expect 2.6.38 (coming next week) to not include any of these stability patches --- no merge since rc5, 18/02/2011. If this is the case I'll definitely file a bug report for these patches to be added; it's not like stability is something not to bother with, something optional or not really that important
I just hope this weekend I'll have enough time to do something about it.

Regards,

aky

RolandVossen

Member

Registered: 2011-02-03

Posts: 14

Re: Broadcom wireless driver - brcm80211

Hi,

one of the two stability fixes that I talked about in my previous post has been merged into the 2.6.38 tree. Link: http://www.spinics.net/lists/linux-driv … 11925.html

the other stability fix (ucode update) is still in progress, I expect to submit this in the short term.

Thanks,

Roland Vossen
Broadcom

JMO

Member

From: Argentina

Registered: 2006-04-08

Posts: 98

Re: Broadcom wireless driver - brcm80211

Well, I just compiled and booted on 2.6.38 kernel, and stability issues with my Broadcom 4313 disappeared.

Thanks for the help Roland

I'll be letting you know if anything shows up.

litemotiv

Forum Fellow

Registered: 2008-08-01

Posts: 5,026

Re: Broadcom wireless driver - brcm80211

one of the two stability fixes that I talked about in my previous post has been merged into the 2.6.38 tree. Link: http://www.spinics.net/lists/linux-driv … 11925.html

the other stability fix (ucode update) is still in progress, I expect to submit this in the short term.

Roland, what would be the best place to keep an eye on new features being developed in brcm80211?

Thanks for your work en groeten uit Utrecht.

---

ᶘ ᵒᴥᵒᶅ

JMO

Member

From: Argentina

Registered: 2006-04-08

Posts: 98

Re: Broadcom wireless driver - brcm80211

I'm still reaching to this thread weekly leitmotiv. The best place for me yet =P

RolandVossen

Member

Registered: 2011-02-03

Posts: 14

Re: Broadcom wireless driver - brcm80211

Roland, what would be the best place to keep an eye on new features being developed in brcm80211?

Thanks for your work en groeten uit Utrecht.

That would be to subscribe to the dev mailing list: http://driverdev.linuxdriverproject.org … info/devel, and configure your email client to filter messages with 'brcm80211' in the subject.

Hey, you are in Utrecht too ? What a coincidence !

Bye, Roland.

RolandVossen

Member

Registered: 2011-02-03

Posts: 14

Re: Broadcom wireless driver - brcm80211

Good news: the firmware/ucode that increases stability (as mentioned in my previous posts in this thread) was submitted. See:
http://www.spinics.net/lists/linux-driv … 13632.html

Firmware version is 610.811. Note: the firmware is not yet available, it has to be made available first by the community.

The updated firmware is to appear in a git repo as described on: http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Drivers/brcm80211

With this new firmware/ucode version, I am experiencing stable driver behavior. No crashes or oopses anymore. Please report any remaining stability issues to me.

Bye,

Roland Vossen
Broadcom

b6fan

Member

Registered: 2010-03-01

Posts: 13

Re: Broadcom wireless driver - brcm80211

I have upgraded to kernel26 2.6.38.2-1

kernel panic still happens when 'sudo iwlist scan wlan0'

I am using hp probook 5220m laptop with a intel i3-350m cpu.

Is there something needed to check out ?

[UPDATE]

I can not reproduce panic every time.

I am going to see how often it happens

[UPDATE 2011-04-13]

kernel upgraded to .38.3-1.
It seems no panic these times.

Last edited by b6fan (2011-04-19 13:59:24)