Update to 6.30.x driver needed to avoid kernel panics on some cards

[Kelly Hyde]

The bcmwl driver is causing kernel panics throughout the system running the 3.8 kernel. The panic can be reproduced in multiple ways, including:

1. Running "sudo iwconfig" (every time)
2. Resuming from suspend (occasionally)
3. Trying to report a bug from apportcheckresume

Each kernel panic looks exactly like the one I have attached. In every case, Xorg stops responding (in the resume case, the laptop gets stuck on a black screen with a command line cursor) and the machine must be forcibly powered off.

Connecting to networks works perfectly fine, at both 802.11g and n speeds. If none of the above commands are invoked, the driver operates the network card without an issue.

My laptop has the BCM4331 wireless card and it's being managed by the wl driver. When running sudo iwconfig, I was connected to an auto-mode 802.11b/g/n router (I believe I was connected via wireless-N because the link speed shown was 144 Mbps).

A functional version of the bcmwl driver can be found in this PPA: https://launchpad.net/~eugenesan/+archive/ppa To resolve this bug, bcmwl-kernel-source in the official repositories for Raring needs to be updated to 6.30.

bcmwl-kernel-source version 6.20.155.1+bdcom-0ubuntu6
network-manager version 0.9.7.995+git201301311547.17123fc-0ubuntu1

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 13.04
Package: linux-image-3.8.0-6-generic 3.8.0-6.11
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.8.0-6.11-generic 3.8.0-rc7
Uname: Linux 3.8.0-6-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: wl
ApportVersion: 2.8-0ubuntu4
Architecture: amd64
AudioDevicesInUse:
 USER PID ACCESS COMMAND
 /dev/snd/controlC0: polarimetric 2236 F.... pulseaudio
CurrentDmesg:
 [ 25.228391] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): eth0: link is not ready
 [ 25.228863] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): eth0: link is not ready
 [ 25.354790] init: plymouth-stop pre-start process (1501) terminated with status 1
Date: Wed Feb 13 13:13:01 2013
HibernationDevice: RESUME=UUID=e6de4934-3dd3-42fc-954f-60d2f553fbb7
InstallationDate: Installed on 2013-02-09 (4 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 13.04 "Raring Ringtail" - Alpha amd64+mac (20130208)
MachineType: Apple Inc. MacBookPro8,2
MarkForUpload: True
ProcEnviron:
 TERM=xterm
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcFB:
 0 EFI VGA
 1 inteldrmfb
ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-3.8.0-6-generic root=UUID=da0ce19e-0833-4548-a4cb-f4389fd6d8b0 ro quiet splash i915.lvds_channel_mode=2 i915.modeset=1 i915.lvds_use_ssc=0 i915.i915_enable_rc6=1 i915.i915_enable_fbc=1 i915.lvds_downclock=1 vt.handoff=7
RelatedPackageVersions:
 linux-restricted-modules-3.8.0-6-generic N/A
 linux-backports-modules-3.8.0-6-generic N/A
 linux-firmware 1.100
SourcePackage: linux
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
dmi.bios.date: 01/24/12
dmi.bios.vendor: Apple Inc.
dmi.bios.version: MBP81.88Z.0047.B27.1201241646
dmi.board.asset.tag: Base Board Asset Tag#
dmi.board.name: Mac-94245A3940C91C80
dmi.board.vendor: Apple Inc.
dmi.board.version: MacBookPro8,2
dmi.chassis.type: 10
dmi.chassis.vendor: Apple Inc.
dmi.chassis.version: Mac-94245A3940C91C80
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnAppleInc.:bvrMBP81.88Z.0047.B27.1201241646:bd01/24/12:svnAppleInc.:pnMacBookPro8,2:pvr1.0:rvnAppleInc.:rnMac-94245A3940C91C80:rvrMacBookPro8,2:cvnAppleInc.:ct10:cvrMac-94245A3940C91C80:
dmi.product.name: MacBookPro8,2
dmi.product.version: 1.0
dmi.sys.vendor: Apple Inc.

[Brad Figg (brad-figg)]

This change was made by a bot.

[Joseph Salisbury (jsalisbury)]

Did this issue start happening after an update/upgrade? Was there a kernel version where you were not having this particular problem? This will help determine if the problem you are seeing is the result of the introduction of a regression, and when this regression was introduced.

[Kelly Hyde (polarimetric)]

This did not/does not occur on Quantal with the 3.6.x kernel, so I'm pretty sure this is a Raring specific/3.8.x kernel series issue. On Quantal, my Wifi card was only supported by b43, so I've only begun using bcmwl with Raring.

I think bcmwl added support for my Wifi card when the 6.20 firmware was introduced.

[Kelly Hyde (polarimetric)]

I also should probably mention that I just noticed this output in dmesg:

[ 20.231420] wl: module license 'MIXED/Proprietary' taints kernel.
[ 20.346067] INFO @wl_cfg80211_attach : Registered CFG80211 phy
[ 220.188626] ERROR @wl_cfg80211_get_station : Could not get rate (-1)
[ 220.188637] ERROR @wl_cfg80211_get_station : Could not get rssi (-1)
[ 220.188651] ERROR @wl_cfg80211_get_station : Could not get rate (-1)
[ 220.188655] ERROR @wl_cfg80211_get_station : Could not get rssi (-1)
[ 220.188668] ERROR @wl_dev_intvar_get : error (-1)
[ 220.188672] ERROR @wl_cfg80211_get_tx_power : error (-1)

Not sure if this is relevant. This is after a reboot, so it's not simultaneous with the kernel error.

[Bernardo Reino (reinob)]

Re. ERROR@wl_cfg80211_get_station:

This is (AFAIK) a harmless warning. I had that with the updated bcmwl (bcmwl-kernel-source.6.20.155.1+bdcom-0ubuntu0.0.1) running kernel 3.5 on Ubuntu 12.04).

See here https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/quantal/+source/bcmwl/+bug/923809/comments/22.

Re. kernel-panic:

Yesterday I happened to install kernel 3.7.7 from Ubuntu mainstream and when rebooting I could see what looked like a kernel oops shortly before switching to graphic mode. KDM didn't manage to start. Unfortunately I didn't have time to investigate so I just turned off (holding the button for a few seconds) the laptop.

Hopefully I will have time later today (or at least this week) to debug the issue and confirm (or not) the bug.

[Kelly Hyde (polarimetric)]

An update: I've removed bcmwl and network-manager from the bug report because I no longer believe they're related. This same kernel error just popped up on an attempt to resume from suspend (I attached the log output to this comment; this seems to be more detailed than the other).

After resuming from suspend, the lock screen and the UI appeared normally, but the CPU average one minute load soared all the way up to 7.00 and I couldn't restart from the menu or really do anything. I forced shutdown with the power button before it could go any further.

[Kelly Hyde (polarimetric)]

Oh, I should add--Xorg was the process causing the CPU to rev up.

[Kelly Hyde (polarimetric)]

This error is still occurring with 3.8.0-9 with the same steps to reproduce.

[Kelly Hyde (polarimetric)]

I Googled the problem a little more today and found that kernel paging request errors are often related to network drivers. I disabled the proprietary bcmwl driver and I'm now using b43--using b43, this error is not reproducible. I've re-added bcmwl to the bug report.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Javier Cabezas (javier-cabezas)]

Confirmed here, too

[Javier Cabezas (javier-cabezas)]

Confirmed here, too, using a BCM43228

[Sergio Callegari (callegar)]

Noticed that 3.8.x kernels panic on network disconnession. In my case it is systematic after disconnection from a bluetooth DUN connection. I've seen that others report the same on disconnection from ppp. Can this be related and a general network issue and not related to a specific driver? 3.7.10 does not cause these issues for me.

[Kelly Hyde (polarimetric)]

No, because disabling bcmwl and using b43 causes the problem to go away. It only occurs when I'm using the wl driver. I've been using the b43 driver for a couple weeks now and I haven't experienced any kernel panics.

[James Jesudason (jamesj)]

I have a clean install of the 13.04 daily build and wifi was working great until I ran the updates on 2013-03-22. Since then wifi has been very flaky with the connection dropping after working for a while. Running iwconfig generates a kernel panic.

[James Jesudason (jamesj)]

I've found that the wifi connection can be kept alive by keeping a ping session running in a terminal window. So maybe the connection dropping is related to power management.

[Huan Zhang (victzhang)]

I Just upgraded my laptop to 13.04 yesterday, and also encountered this issue. Connecting to networks works fine, but "sudo iwconfig" crashed the system.
My wireless device is BCM43142.

Screenshot:
http://s10.postimg.org/4hg2ia0zd/Screen_Shot.jpg

[Felipe de Jesús Martínez de lo Santos (fmtz73)]

I have the same issue, and already have a bcmwl driver, I can work with the Kernel 3.5.7 without problems, and the system was working perfectly with 12.10, but when I make the update to 13.04 the problem begins. So I want to know if someone knows a workaround to fix it, or how can i help to solve the bug.

[Kelly Hyde (polarimetric)]

There's a version of bcmwl in a testing PPA by Alberto Milone for Precise that claims it fixes 3.8 kernel compatibility. The PPA is here: https://launchpad.net/~albertomilone/+archive/broadcom However, this version of bcmwl does not work with Raring. Could anyone on Precise running the 3.8 kernel verify if this version fixes this issue?

[Bernardo Reino (reinob)]

@Kelly Hyde,

I'm running (K)ubuntu 12.04.02. Until today I've been using the lts-quantal kernel (3.5.0-27 and 3.5.0-28 from -proposed) with bcmwl-kernel-source_6.20.155.1+bdcom-0ubuntu0.0.1_amd64.deb (precise-updates).

Today I've installed the kernel from linux-generic-lts-raring (3.8.0-19) with the bcmwl package you linked above.

I can report that with the above package the wl module works fine(*). Note that this is with a BCM4313.

* fine means: connection works fine (even bug #1111956 seems to be fixed!!!) , no kernel messages, etc. Just fine :)

[Kelly Hyde (polarimetric)]

@Bernardo, thanks a bunch! Sounds great. I'll try to find out if there are plans to bring this kernel version to Raring in the pipeline. I knew it was unlikely to work but tried enabling the Precise PPA on my Raring installation and installing the test version of bcmwl, but it couldn't scan for networks.

[Kelly Hyde (polarimetric)]

Err, I meant bcmwl version, not kernel version.

[Bernardo Reino (reinob)]

Not sure if this is relevant, but..

I've dumped kernel 3.8.0-19 because while booting/dmesg I saw a number of "swap_free: bad swap file entry..", which scared the hell out of me.

So I went and installed the latest mainline kernel (3.9.0-030900), which effectively solved that issue. Now the bcmwl package above needs an extra patch, basically:

+#if LINUX_VERSION_CODE < KERNEL_VERSION(3, 9, 0)
+ cfg80211_put_bss(bss);
+#else
+ cfg80211_put_bss(wl_to_wiphy(wl), bss);
+#endif

That got me a working wl driver.

Managing to get a semi-working alx driver (for the AR8161 ethernet card) was hit-and-miss. In the end I settled for compat-drivers-3.9-rc4-2-su, as e.g. compat-drivers-2013-03-28-5-u caused all sorts of errors/panics related to hdmi audio (as if this had anything to do with ethernet!), which itself made the whole intel video driver fail miserably.

I have to keep reminding myself why I use Linux (when I started with Linux the kernel didn't even support modules :)
It seems that the latest fashion in linux kernel development is to break fvcking compatibility with anything, just for the fvck of it, with every fvcking minor release.

There, I said it.

[Felipe de Jesús Martínez de lo Santos (fmtz73)]

Thanks to Bernardo and Kelly, I already fix the bug by installing the test bcmwl driver plus the patch that Bernardo post, so now the sistem is working perfectly, but the wireless card is not working properly, because the most of the time can't conect with the networks that before the actualization to 13.04 were working fine, but the same thing was happening with the 3.5 kernel, so I believe that the problem is that something with the update is making conflict with the broadcom wireless card. I did a work around to conect to the internet wireless by conecting a usb wireless card. I hope this can help to other with the same issue.

[Kelly Hyde (polarimetric)]

@Felipe: Yeah, that's the problem when I experimented with using the testing version on Raring. It doesn't appear to be compatible. I got a ton of syslog errors talking about Wifi scan errors and couldn't connect to anything. If it works for Bernardo on Precise, though, hopefully we'll get a version of bcmwl 6.30 for Raring soon and that will fix this issue.

[Kelly Hyde (polarimetric)]

A fully working version of bcmwl on Raring with working wireless-N on the BCM4331 and no kernel panics with iwconfig can be found in this PPA: https://launchpad.net/~eugenesan/+archive/ppa This is a Raring compatible build of bcmwl 6.30.

If you add this PPA to your system, you'll want to disable automatic installation of packages from it with the /etc/apt/preferences file or else you'll get a lot of (probably) unwanted updates for other packages.

[Kelly Hyde (polarimetric)]

Also, additional note: Upon installing that package, networking will be broken at first and you'll get scan errors in dmesg. Restart after installation and they'll go away. Everything should work after that, at least on 3.8.0-19.

[Bernardo Reino (reinob)]

@Kelly,

Great to hear. Now it's time for the powers that be (package maintainers :) to somehow manage to provide a working bcmwl package for every distribution, so that people don't have to go hunting around for the exact version that works with their Ubuntu version + kernel version combination.

[Naum Rusomarov (naum-rusomarov)]

I guess it's too late but I'm also getting kernel panics with 13.04. Previously, the laptop was running 12.04 and everything was okay.

I have managed to get two kernel panics in less than an hour. The first happened randomly and the second was caused by "sudo iwconfig".

Note that I'm getting different output for the both kernel panics. I'm not a low level expert, but they appear to be cause by faulty :/ broadcom drivers.

I've attached lspci output. I'm running Ubuntu 13.04 Linux 3.8.0.19-generic 64bit

let me know if you have any suggestions. Right now, I'm tethering the laptop through my android phone, so I'm in no hurry to fix everything at all costs.

kpanic-iwconfig --> http://ubuntuone.com/7S5TQJWoHauzHeVek4wsGq
kpanic-random --> http://ubuntuone.com/7S5TQJWoHauzHeVek4wsGq

[Bernardo Reino (reinob)]

@Naum,

Which exact version of bcmwl-kernel-source are you using?

For raring the only version that seems to work without problems is the one here:
https://launchpad.net/~eugenesan/+archive/ppa/+sourcepub/3158235/+listing-archive-extra

Pick the appropriate .deb (i386 for 32-bit, amd64 for 64-bit) and install it via dpkg. Report here.
Thank you.

[Naum Rusomarov (naum-rusomarov)]

@Bernardo,

I was using the 6.20.155.1+bdcom-0ubuntu6 version of bcmwl-kernel-source.

I've downloaded and installed the version that you suggested and so far I cannot reproduce the kernel panics with "sudo iwconfig".

However, I also used to experience random panics and black screen freezes during random work and wakeup from suspend. But, those were occurring not so often. I'll run the system for couple of days and let you know how it goes.

[Peter Magdina (peter.magdina)]

Hi all!

I was facing the same issue, but it's ok now after installing the package Bernardo posted.

Thanks

[Kobzeci (zeki)]

I can confim https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/bcmwl/+bug/1134389/comments/30 is solved the problem for me too

[Dmitry Babin (dmittrix)]

I can confirm that installing bcmwl 6.30.223.30+bdcom-0ubuntu2~eugenesan~raring1 from https://launchpad.net/~eugenesan/+archive/ppa has solved the "kernel panic when running sudo iwconfig" issue for me on Ubuntu 13.04 (Raring) with BCM4313 wireless card on Dell Vostro 1540.

[penalvch (penalvch)]

Kelly Hyde, Raring reached EOL on January 27, 2014.
See this document for currently supported Ubuntu releases: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases

If you are having a problem in a supported release, please file a new report via a terminal:
ubuntu-bug bcmwl

Do feel free to report any other bugs you may find.

Helpful bug reporting tips:
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