Missing ipw2200 firmware breaks wireless after upgrade

[Christer Edwards]

I installed 8.04.1 fresh this morning and wireless was functioning properly. I did an upgrade to Intrepid Alpha by way of "update-manager -c -d". At this point the wireless does not want to function and causes boot problems.

lscpi:
03:03.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 2200BG Network Connection (rev 05)

uname -r:
2.6.27-2-generic

cat /etc/lsb-release:
DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
DISTRIB_RELEASE=8.10
DISTRIB_CODENAME=intrepid
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu intrepid (development branch)"

[Ken Arnold (kenneth-arnold)]

Do you have linux-restricted-modules-generic installed?

if so... check /lib/firmware/ or /lib/firmware/2.6.27-4-generic (or whatever your kernel version is) for ipw2200 firmware (ipw2200-bss.fw, etc.).

l-r-m-g should have installed linux-restricted-modules-common... Before something installed that, I had to copy the firmware manually from old kernels.

[Leann Ogasawara (leannogasawara)]

Hi Christer,

Is this still an issue for you? You may want to test the Intrepid Beta release via a LiveCD which is set to come out tomorrow. If the issue still exists, can you elaborate a bit more on what sort of "boot problems" you experience? Does the machine hang? Are there error messages shown? Even if you need to take a digital photo of your screen and attach it here that would be helpful. If you are able to capture dmesg output and attach it here that would be great too. Thanks.

[Baard Johansen (baard)]

I can confirm that the firmware is missing. I just upgraded from a working copy of Hardy (8.04.1) and lost my wireless connection.

dmesg:
[ 681.287975] ipw2200: Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 2200/2915 Network Driver, 1.2.2kmprq
[ 681.287984] ipw2200: Copyright(c) 2003-2006 Intel Corporation
[ 681.289717] ipw2200 0000:03:03.0: PCI INT A -> GSI 17 (level, low) -> IRQ 17
[ 681.296473] ipw2200: Detected Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG Network Connection
[ 681.297971] firmware: requesting ipw2200-bss.fw
[ 681.300878] ipw2200: ipw2200-bss.fw request_firmware failed: Reason -2
[ 681.300893] ipw2200: Unable to load firmware: -2
[ 681.300897] ipw2200: failed to register network device
[ 681.301496] ipw2200 0000:03:03.0: PCI INT A disabled
[ 681.301680] ipw2200: probe of 0000:03:03.0 failed with error -5

I have linux-restricted-modules-generic installed, but no ipw2200-bss.fw in /lib/firmware/2.6.27-7-generic

Copying from a previous kernel solves it:
$cp /lib/firmware/2.6.22-14-generic/ipw2200-bss.fw /lib/firmware/2.6.27-7-generic

[Chris Jones (cmsj)]

fwiw the firmware is in linux-restricted-modules-common

[Milan Bouchet-Valat (nalimilan)]

I've just ran into the same problem updating my Intrepid to latest kernel. I was using 2.6.27-7 for some time, and updating to latest 2.6.27- raised this problem after reboot.

The strange point is, now the only kernel that works is the old 2.6.24-21-generic: I also have 2.6.27-4, 2.6.27-6 and 2.6.27-7 installed and they don't work now. linux-restricted-modules-VERSION-generic is installed for each of these kernels.

There does not appear to be any firmware for 2.6.27 kernel (did they use to be present ?!):
$ find /lib/firmware/ -name *ipw2200*
/lib/firmware/2.6.24-21-generic/ipw2200-bss.fw
/lib/firmware/2.6.24-21-generic/ipw2200-sniffer.fw
/lib/firmware/2.6.24-21-generic/ipw2200-ibss.fw

Here's the relevant update log that broke WiFi support:
linux-image-2.6.27-7-generic (2.6.27-7.10) to 2.6.27-7.11
linux-restricted-modules-2.6.27-7-generic (2.6.27-7.9) to 2.6.27-7.12
linux-restricted-modules-common (2.6.27-7.9) to 2.6.27-7.12
linux-restricted-modules-generic (2.6.27.7.8) to 2.6.27.7.9

[Milan Bouchet-Valat (nalimilan)]

Oh, and:
$ apt-cache policy linux-restricted-modules-common
linux-restricted-modules-common:
  Installed: 2.6.27-7.12

In linux-restricted-modules-common, there are no firmwares but only scripts and the like. The only package that provides the ipw2200 firmware is linux-ubuntu-modules-2.6.24-21-generic (from what dpkg-query -S reports).

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

The ipw2200 firmware has moved to the linux-firmware package so you'll want to ensure that you have that installed. Thanks in advance.

[Milan Bouchet-Valat (nalimilan)]

Thanks for the tip. Indeed, linux-firmware was not installed on my system. As I understand it, it should have been drawn by linux-image as a dependency. The problem is, linux-image was not installed on my system. linux-image-generic was also missing, but as I just wanted to install it, Synaptic logs this as a mere update from 2.6.27.7.8 to 2.6.27.7.10.

An interesting point: the update that broke the wireless is logged as having removed linux-generic. Maybe this is the breach.

I don't think my system is untypical: I was using generic kernel images and they always have been updated correctly. Hope this helps...

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

Could you add the log file that shows linux-generic being removed? Thanks again!

[Milan Bouchet-Valat (nalimilan)]

No problem! I've selected the relevant days in /var/log/apt/term.log. You can see that linux-generic was removed during an upgrade (using upgrade-manager), but I'm not sure this explains much...

[Steve Beattie (sbeattie)]

This bug was reported in the Intrepid development cycle; removing regression-potential and marking as regression-release.

[xteejx (xteejx)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. You reported this bug a while ago and there hasn't been any activity in it recently. We were wondering if this is still an issue for you. Can you try with the latest Ubuntu release? Thanks in advance.

[Milan Bouchet-Valat (nalimilan)]

Right, I think it's fixed in releases > Intrepid, since that was a problem with upgrades. Something like linux-image virtual package not being installed.

I'm opening a task for update-manager in case this problem may bite people directly upgrading from Hardy to Lucid. More of a reminder to handle the linux-image package properly, if that's not already done - else feel free to close the bug.

[xteejx (xteejx)]

Actually, if we aren't 100% sure what the root cause was, it's better to Invalidate it, as there could be a number of changes that may have fixed it, and unless we know exactly how it was fixed, this task should be closed.
It *may* be better to file a new bug, and if necessary relate it to this with a bug number in the comment, since this is a different issue, and hence will need to be looked at by another Team.
Thank you :)