Kernel Panic! After recent upgrade

Markyparky56 · 2015-10-09 22:13:34

Firstly I'd like to gripe about how much of a pain it was to copy the sha256sum by hand to register, because part of my problem is that I can't launch browsers on my Arch system. Very impressive captcha though.

Problem: Whenever I try to start a browser (Chromium or Firefox) it panics (Freezes, flashing capslock, requires forced-shutdown), also has panicked when I've tried to 'git clone' and most importantly, when I run pacman -Syu.

Although I've had Arch installed on my laptop for over a year now I haven't used it too much so still see myself as a Newbie.

System:
Lenovo B5400
i5-4200M @ 2.5GHz x 2
3.6 GiB RAM
330.3 GiB HDD
Integrated Graphics
Broadcom Wireless Chipset (ugh)

Linux Kernel 4.2.2-1ARCH

A couple of days ago I ran pacman -Syu for the first time in months to get the laptop back up to date, things went okay. Upgraded fine, no issues which I saw at the time, continued using it for a while before it froze when using Chromium (at the time didn't realise it was a Kernel Panic), restarted it, went back to sorting out the wireless which is always a pain on this laptop. The wl-broadcom driver disables itself every time it gets updated and the dkms version doesn't seem to help.

Yesterday I booted it back up to test out some things, and finding that the wireless was being a pain again I thought I'd run another update to see if that would sort it (naivety is a powerful thing). Flashing Capslock and frozen again, google quickly reveals that it's a Kernel Panic. Reboot and try again (Turning it off and on again solves everything right?), same result. Obviously not good, searches don't reveal anything useful because Kernel Panic is incredibly ambiguous and most results seem to be at boot time. I manage to wrangle the wireless to work and try to 'git clone' my repository anyway to see if I can, another Kernel Panic.

I've already tried reinstalling the Linux Kernel via pacman (seems it has it cached?), however it seemed to have no affect.
(Just reinstalled it right now again)
Things of note:

==> WARNING: Possibly missing firmware for module: wd719x
==> WARNING: Possibly missing firmware for module: aic94xx

I have no idea how to diagnose this problem, so unless I just happen to have an incredibly nervous kernel I'd appreciate some input.

I have been having some problems with wpa_supplicant and netctl, the currently enabled profile fails to start at boot time, sometimes the status mentions "failed to initialize control interface /run/wpa_supplicant", but if I start it manually it tends to work, or if I connect via Wifi-Menu it connects. Current profile is actually the generated one from wifi-menu. Could there be any link/connection?

c3kay · 2015-10-09 22:18:01

i get those exact warnings on the lts kernel, but they cause no problems and i haven't ever seen the need to fix them.

to get a working system you're going to need to chroot into an install disc, and i'd start by downgrading the kernel and seeing if the problem still exists.

Last edited by c3kay (2015-10-09 22:18:24)

Markyparky56 · 2015-10-09 22:38:20

That'll take some time, don't have any discs on me besides a copy of Ubuntu Server 14.

Interesting development: Plugged the laptop into the network via the ethernet and ran pacman -Syu, worked without any problems.

So either netctl, wpa_supplicant or the wireless driver are broken?
Netctl refuses to connect at boot time, blaming wpa_supplicant. Sometimes when connecting via wifi-menu it would say something about netctl-auto having "control" (may be wrong term) over the interface (wlp4s0).

c3kay · 2015-10-09 23:13:43

i don't know if they're broken because you haven't posted any journals.

if you have a working system, downgrade the kernel and try and replicate the error.

Markyparky56 · 2015-10-09 23:49:27

Which journals would you like?

Reinstalled netctl, wpa_supplicant and the wireless driver (wl-broadcom-dkms) and it seems to be happy. Unplugged the ethernet cable and tried to clone my repo, chugged away for about 30 seconds then panicked. Was kinda sad...

Never downgraded the kernel before, what version should I roll back to?

Chromium doesn't cause a panic when it's wired, definitely something weird going on with the wireless.

Trilby · 2015-10-09 23:52:38

What is the wireless hardware?

lspci -vnn | grep -i net

Markyparky56 · 2015-10-09 23:55:04

lspci -vnn | grep -i net >> out

● netctl@Wifi\x2d2G.service - A simple WPA encrypted wireless connection
   Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/netctl@Wifi\x2d2G.service; enabled; vendor preset: disabled)
   Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Fri 2015-10-09 16:16:32 BST; 32s ago
     Docs: man:netctl.profile(5)
  Process: 312 ExecStart=/usr/lib/network/network start %I (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)
 Main PID: 312 (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)

Oct 09 16:16:30 Lenovo systemd[1]: Starting A simple WPA encrypted wireless connection...
Oct 09 16:16:31 Lenovo network[312]: Starting network profile 'Wifi-2G'...
Oct 09 16:16:31 Lenovo network[312]: The interface of network profile 'Wifi-2G' is already up
Oct 09 16:16:32 Lenovo systemd[1]: netctl@Wifi\x2d2G.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE
Oct 09 16:16:32 Lenovo systemd[1]: Failed to start A simple WPA encrypted wireless connection.
Oct 09 16:16:32 Lenovo systemd[1]: netctl@Wifi\x2d2G.service: Unit entered failed state.
Oct 09 16:16:32 Lenovo systemd[1]: netctl@Wifi\x2d2G.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
04:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM43142 802.11b/g/n [14e4:4365] (rev 01)
05:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller [10ec:8168] (rev 10)

Wifi-2G, oddly isn't enabled according to netctl, but thats from before I disabled it I think. Only the ethernet profile is enabled. I've been starting the wireless profile manually when needed.

Last edited by Markyparky56 (2015-10-10 00:02:19)

Arch Linux

#1 2015-10-09 22:13:34

Kernel Panic! After recent upgrade

#2 2015-10-09 22:18:01

Re: Kernel Panic! After recent upgrade

#3 2015-10-09 22:38:20

Re: Kernel Panic! After recent upgrade

#4 2015-10-09 23:13:43

Re: Kernel Panic! After recent upgrade

#5 2015-10-09 23:49:27

Re: Kernel Panic! After recent upgrade

#6 2015-10-09 23:52:38

Re: Kernel Panic! After recent upgrade

#7 2015-10-09 23:55:04

Re: Kernel Panic! After recent upgrade

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