iwlwifi-7265 fails to load after kernel 4.5->4.7 upgrade

[shewhorn]

After upgrading to Kernel 4.7 from 4.5 (experimental install) my Intel 7265 is failing to load. dmesg reports Unsupported splx structure, firmware failed to load iwlwifi-7265D-(16 through 21).ucode failed with error -2

If I understand correctly, error 2 means the driver can't upload the firmware to the card? This feels like it might be a bug with kernel 4.7 as everything is ducky in 4.5 (in terms of the wifi working).

This is running on a Dell XPS 13 9350 (Intel Skylake, I swapped out the broadcom card for the Intel since the Broadcom wasn't supported at the time).

For the time being I'm just booting up with kernel 4.5 and everything works there. Can someone point me in a direction to get 4.7 working?

[Head_on_a_Stick]

https://packages.debian.org/sid/firmware-iwlwifi, perhaps?

This is presuming that you are using the kernel from sid.

Otherwise, install the firmware appropriate for your kernel version.

[pylkko]

if your device is 7265 and not 7265D as you seem to say, then you should not be able to load firmware larger than 17

7260 and 7265 support

7260 and 7265 will not be supported by the newest firmware versions: the last firmware that was released for these devices is -17.ucode. Bug fixes will be ported to -17.ucode. Note that 7265D can run later firmware versions. In order to determine if your 7265 device is a 'D' version, you can check the dmesg output:

Code: Select all

Detected Intel(R) Dual Band Wireless AC 7265, REV=0x210

The revision number of a 7265D device is 0x210, if you see any other number, you have a 7265 device.

[shewhorn]

https://packages.debian.org/sid/firmware-iwlwifi, perhaps?

This is presuming that you are using the kernel from sid.

Otherwise, install the firmware appropriate for your kernel version.

Thank you Head_on_a_Stick, that was the clue I needed.

I assumed everything was good as aptitude shows an 'i' next to firmware-iwlwifi. Unfortunately aptitude search neglects to give you any information at all as to whether or not the installed version is current, or what the version is without supplying additional arguments. Working as intended of course, I just have a different set of expectations for how things should work in the interest of ease of use... anyhow...

aptitude safe-upgrade firmware-iwlwifi

Did the trick.

[shewhorn]

In order to determine if your 7265 device is a 'D' version, you can check the dmesg output:

Code: Select all

Detected Intel(R) Dual Band Wireless AC 7265, REV=0x210

The revision number of a 7265D device is 0x210, if you see any other number, you have a 7265 device.

Indeed that is the output I get so it is a D. The card is now working although I'm still getting those same errors... unable to load the microcode for 7265D-17/18/19/20/21 with error 2.

The code that loaded was:

firmware: direct-laoding firmware iwlwifi-7265D-16.ucode
Detected Intel(R) Dual Band Wireless AC 7265, REV=0x210

So are they just applying some kind of brute force approach... instead of querying the card to see what it is and choosing the appropriate firmware (or even better, querying the card on install and only installing the appropriate code), they just throw everything at it until something sticks?

[pylkko]

I am not absolutely sure about this. But I think what might be the problem is that the firmware in sid is old. A new firmware package has not been update since then to sid (last update according to Debian change log Sun, 10 Jan 2016 21:34:11 +0000) and it might just be that the modules in kernel 4.7 require some changes in the firmware? You could try to get the latest versions manually and see if it changes anything. It appears to me, however, that the one on intel.com page is the same as in the sid package. If you installed them manually check that they are in the correct directory.

However, if your wifi connection seems to be working with no problems I don't know what you could stand to gain?

EDIT: See this thread, especially the answers by Emmanuel Grumbach. Basically he says that new firmware is made every six weeks, and that not every new vesion is released to the public, but that which ones are relased or not are not known at the time when the kernel changes are locked.
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1326591