[Hardy] docking station hard freeze with vaio vgn sz483n

[S V N Vishwanathan]

I have a sony vaio VGN SZ483N laptop which I am trying to use with a VGP-PRSZ1 docking station. I have Ubuntu 7.10 installed on my machine. When I try to undock the laptop if freezes completely and all the LEDs start blinking. I then have to remove the battery to hard reboot the machine.

I tried with 8.04 alpha 4 live cd but had the same experience. uname, lspci and other output can be found as attachments to this bug https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux-meta/+bug/188455

Please let me know what other information is required to debug this problem.

This is a showstopper which is preventing me from migrating to Ubuntu fulltime.

thanks

vishy

[S V N Vishwanathan (vishketan)]

This post

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=666757

has some technical explanation, tricks, and scripts which might be worthwhile looking into and including in the distribution.

vishy

[Caroline Ford (secretlondon)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. Unfortunately we can't fix it, because your description does not yet have enough information.

Please include the following additional information, if you have not already done so (pay attention to lspci's additional options), as required by the Ubuntu Kernel Team:
1. Please include the output of the command "uname -a" in your next response. It should be one, long line of text which includes the exact kernel version you're running, as well as the CPU architecture.
2. Please run the command "dmesg > dmesg.log" after a fresh boot and attach the resulting file "dmesg.log" to this bug report.
3. Please run the command "sudo lspci -vvnn > lspci-vvnn.log" and attach the resulting file "lspci-vvnn.log" to this bug report.

For your reference, the full description of procedures for kernel-related bug reports is available at [WWW] http://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelTeamBugPolicies. Thanks in advance!

[S V N Vishwanathan (vishketan)]

I actually uploaded these files as attachments to another bug https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux-meta/+bug/188455

Anyway here they are again.

I can confirm that if I run the scripts from http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=666757 then I no longer get a crash.

Please let me know if you need any further information.

vishy

[S V N Vishwanathan (vishketan)]

I installed 8.04 alpha 5 yesterday and tried a few things.

As reported here http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=666757

if I manually load the acpiphp module and then press the undock button then I can successfully undock once.

But on connecting the laptop back to the docking station the network port is no longer detected and neither is the in use LED glowing.

But if I suspend to RAM once and wake up the machine then the in use LED starts to glow but the network port is still not enabled.

I did a tail -f /var/log/kern.log

and found that indeed a undock event is generated when the in use LED is glowing and the undock button is pressed but not otherwise.

I am attaching fresh uname, lspci and dmesg outputs for your perusal.

Please let me know what else I can do to help.

Is there was an ACPI event that gets generated when the laptop is docked/undocked? It tried to use the acpi_listen command but it did not show any event.

vishy

[S V N Vishwanathan (vishketan)]

Since this bug is related to ACPI I am attaching the dstd.dat file which I produced by

cat /sys/firmware/acpi/tables/DSDT > dsdt.dat

Let me know if you need anything else to debug this problem.

[S V N Vishwanathan (vishketan)]

Here is the decompiled dsdt produced with

 iasl -d dsdt.dat

[S V N Vishwanathan (vishketan)]

One more thing I forgot to add. The USB devices and the external monitor attached to the docking station work perfectly after undocking and docking back. Its only the PCI network card which is not enabled by default.

vishy

[S V N Vishwanathan (vishketan)]

I poked around a bit and trapped the uevents generated when I dock or undock the machine (after manually loading acpiphp) using udevmonitor. I am attaching them.

As you can see when I undock the machine the ethernet card correctly generates an uevent but when I dock the machine back it is conspicuous by its absence. This might give a clue in further debugging the problem.

I also checked the status of /sys/devices/platform/dock.0/docked and it contains the value 0 indicating that the kernel still thinks that the device is undocked.

[S V N Vishwanathan (vishketan)]

More info on the bug. Docking and undocking works perfectly under windows vista.

When I loaded acpiphp as

modprobe acpiphp debug=1

then I find that on pressing the undock button the first time an undock event followed by a bus scan is triggered. But on placing the machine back on the docking station a bus scan is not triggered. But, if I suspend the machine while it is undocked and then place it on the docking station and wake it up then a bus scan followed by a docking event is correctly triggered.

In summary it looks like
a) a bus scan is not being triggered whenever the machine is docked.
b) the sky2 driver is not dock aware therefore when the machine is undocked without pressing the dock key it hard locks it.

vishy

[S V N Vishwanathan (vishketan)]

After installing the updates today and booting into the 2.6.24-11-386 kernel I am seeing the hard freezes again. If I press the undock button then an undock event is correctly generated (if I do a tail -f /var/log/kern.log I can see it) but when I physically undock the machine it hard freezes :(

There seems to be a regression between the 2.6.24-10 and 2.6.24-11.

I can also confirm that the bug exists in the upstream git tree (I compiled and installed the git version of the kernel).

vishy

[Leann Ogasawara (leannogasawara)]

Hi Vishy,

I noticed in your last comment you mentioned this is also and issue in the upstream kernel. Care to open an upstream kernel bugzilla report - http://bugzilla.kernel.org . It is often the case that once a bug is escalated upstream there is a quick resolution through the help and support of the mainline kernel community. Bug reports in Launchpad can also be set up to monitor bugs reported in other bug tracking systems. The "Reporting Bugs Upstream" section of https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelTeamBugPolicies might also help. Thanks.

[Jan Becicka (jan-becicka)]

I have very same problem with OpenSUSE 10.3 on Sony Vaio SZ7
uname -a
SMP 2008/02/10 20:01:04 UTC x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

[S V N Vishwanathan (vishketan)]

Hi Leann,

I have finally gotten around to submitting a bug report upstream (http://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=10431#c0).

A similar bug is also observed under FreeBSD and the explanation here http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-acpi/2008-March/004699.html is related to the bug.

Let me know if I can do anything else to help.

vishy

[S V N Vishwanathan (vishketan)]

Hi,

This bug is now fixed in the upstream kernel. Can you please include the fix in the Hardy kernel?

vishy

[Leann Ogasawara (leannogasawara)]

Thanks Vishy,

It doesn't look like the patch in the upstream bug report has been committed to the upstream kernel just yet. However, I'll have the kernel team take a look and see if they'll consider it for an SRU (stable release update) for Hardy. Thanks.

[Leann Ogasawara (leannogasawara)]

The Ubuntu Kernel Team is planning to move to the 2.6.27 kernel for the upcoming Intrepid Ibex 8.10 release. As a result, the kernel team would appreciate it if you could please test this newer 2.6.27 Ubuntu kernel. There are one of two ways you should be able to test:

1) If you are comfortable installing packages on your own, the linux-image-2.6.27-* package is currently available for you to install and test.

--or--

2) The upcoming Alpha5 for Intrepid Ibex 8.10 will contain this newer 2.6.27 Ubuntu kernel. Alpha5 is set to be released Thursday Sept 4. Please watch http://www.ubuntu.com/testing for Alpha5 to be announced. You should then be able to test via a LiveCD.

Please let us know immediately if this newer 2.6.27 kernel resolves the bug reported here or if the issue remains. More importantly, please open a new bug report for each new bug/regression introduced by the 2.6.27 kernel and tag the bug report with 'linux-2.6.27'. Also, please specifically note if the issue does or does not appear in the 2.6.26 kernel. Thanks again, we really appreicate your help and feedback.

[David Zanetti (dave2-wetstring)]

Behaviour still present on my SZ using 2.6.27-6-generic (has been dist-upgraded to 8.10 for testing).

Starting on dock gets dock GigE port. Pressing dock button the light on the dock goes out, and we get 'ACPI: \_SB_.DOCK - undocking' in kernel messages. No other message. Removing laptop hard locks.

The only working solution for this is manual docking changes as follows:

- apciphp must be loaded (is not by default)
- Shut down the slot the extra gige nic lives in with `echo 0 > /sys/bus/pci/slots/4/power` (sky2 driver notes this and correctly handles the shutdown of just the extra NIC)
- Force undock (turns off LED on dock) with `echo 1 > /sys/bus/platform/devices/dock.0/undock`. Stalls until lifted off dock.

Redocking can be done by merely echoing 1 into slots/4/power (assuming apciphp is loaded), NIC will become available.

/sys/devices/platform/dock.0/docked does not report correct dock status if you redock this way (always returns 0). It does report correct dock status if you power up on the dock (1), and issue the undock above (0).

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Per a decision made by the Ubuntu Kernel Team, bugs will longer be assigned to the ubuntu-kernel-team in Launchpad as part of the bug triage process. The ubuntu-kernel-team is being unassigned from this bug report. Refer to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelTeamBugPolicies for more information. Thanks.

[Jeremy Foshee (jeremyfoshee)]

This bug report was marked as Triaged a while ago but has not had any updated comments for quite some time. Please let us know if this issue remains in the current Ubuntu release, http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download . If the issue remains, click on the current status under the Status column and change the status back to "New". Thanks.

[This is an automated message. Apologies if it has reached you inappropriately; please just reply to this message indicating so.]

[Brad Figg (brad-figg)]

This bug was filed against a series that is no longer supported and so is being marked as Won't Fix. If this issue still exists in a supported series, please file a new bug.

This change has been made by an automated script, maintained by the Ubuntu Kernel Team.