iwlagn driver update breaks compatibilty with firmware

[Ben James]

Binary package hint: module-init-tools

I'm running Ubuntu 10.04 on a Sony VGN-NS10J laptop. Up until yesterday (2011-06-06), the wireless worked perfectly, however an automatic update broke compatibility with my firmware on 2011-06-06.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
Package: module-init-tools 3.11.1-2ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-33.65-generic 2.6.32.41+drm33.18
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-33-generic x86_64
Architecture: amd64
Date: Tue Jun 7 22:55:12 2011
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.04 LTS "Lucid Lynx" - Release amd64 (20100429)
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=en_GB.utf8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: module-init-tools

[Ben James (something-for-the-pain)]

Running lshw shows my wireless card as:

04:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation Wireless WiFi Link 5100
        Subsystem: Intel Corporation Device 1301
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 30
        Memory at d0500000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=8K]
        Capabilities: <access denied>
        Kernel driver in use: iwlagn
        Kernel modules: iwlagn

Searching dmesg output shows a number of errors that imply that backwards compatibility with early firmware has been broken:

dmesg | grep iwlagn

[ 23.305357] iwlagn: Intel(R) Wireless WiFi Link AGN driver for Linux, 1.3.27k
[ 23.305362] iwlagn: Copyright(c) 2003-2009 Intel Corporation
[ 23.305460] iwlagn 0000:04:00.0: PCI INT A -> GSI 18 (level, low) -> IRQ 18
[ 23.305473] iwlagn 0000:04:00.0: setting latency timer to 64
[ 23.305511] iwlagn 0000:04:00.0: Detected Intel Wireless WiFi Link 5100AGN REV=0x54
[ 23.347489] iwlagn 0000:04:00.0: Tunable channels: 13 802.11bg, 24 802.11a channels
[ 23.347589] iwlagn 0000:04:00.0: irq 30 for MSI/MSI-X
[ 25.676764] iwlagn 0000:04:00.0: firmware: requesting iwlwifi-5000-5.ucode
[ 25.721260] iwlagn 0000:04:00.0: Driver unable to support your firmware API. Driver supports v5, firmware is v0.
[ 25.721292] iwlagn 0000:04:00.0: Could not read microcode: -22
[ 25.742327] iwlagn 0000:04:00.0: firmware: requesting iwlwifi-5000-5.ucode
[ 25.761748] iwlagn 0000:04:00.0: Driver unable to support your firmware API. Driver supports v5, firmware is v0.
[ 25.761781] iwlagn 0000:04:00.0: Could not read microcode: -22
[ 6268.848970] iwlagn 0000:04:00.0: RF_KILL bit toggled to disable radio.
[ 6272.071649] iwlagn 0000:04:00.0: RF_KILL bit toggled to enable radio.
[ 6272.124389] iwlagn 0000:04:00.0: firmware: requesting iwlwifi-5000-5.ucode
[ 6272.130171] iwlagn 0000:04:00.0: Driver unable to support your firmware API. Driver supports v5, firmware is v0.
[ 6272.130237] iwlagn 0000:04:00.0: Could not read microcode: -22

[Ben James (something-for-the-pain)]

Note that the driver does still respond to me switching the wireless switch on the device:

[ 6268.848970] iwlagn 0000:04:00.0: RF_KILL bit toggled to disable radio.
[ 6272.071649] iwlagn 0000:04:00.0: RF_KILL bit toggled to enable radio.

[Ben James (something-for-the-pain)]

It is also worth noting that I have the following updates enabled:

"Important security updates (lucid-security)"
"Recommended updates (lucid-updates)"
"Proposed updates (lucid-proposed)"

[Kacper Mikke (kakmik)]

Exactly the same after today update.

Linux kacper-laptop 2.6.32-33-generic #65-Ubuntu SMP Sun Jun 5 01:43:58 UTC 2011 x86_64 GNU/Linux

on lenovo t400 laptop with Intel PRO/Wireless 5100 AGN [Shiloh] Network Connection

[Jose R. Prieto (joserprieto)]

Exactly the same error, from update on 4-jun-2011

On Sony VAIO VGN-FW56M, with:

joserprieto@FW56M:~$ lspci
06:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation Wireless WiFi Link 5100
08:00.0 Ethernet controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88E8055 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 14)

joserprieto@FW56M:~$ uname -a
Linux FW56M 2.6.32-33-generic-pae #65-Ubuntu SMP Sun Jun 5 03:23:24 UTC 2011 i686 GNU/Linux

joserprieto@FW56M:~$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 10.04.2 LTS
Release: 10.04
Codename: lucid

Error in /var/log/syslog :
Jun 7 19:03:55 FW56M NetworkManager: <info> WiFi now enabled by radio killswitch
Jun 7 19:03:55 FW56M kernel: [ 1305.238422] iwlagn 0000:06:00.0: RF_KILL bit toggled to enable radio.
Jun 7 19:03:55 FW56M NetworkManager: <info> (wlan0): bringing up device.
Jun 7 19:03:55 FW56M kernel: [ 1305.314180] iwlagn 0000:06:00.0: firmware: requesting iwlwifi-5000-5.ucode
Jun 7 19:03:55 FW56M NetworkManager: <info> WWAN now enabled by radio killswitch
Jun 7 19:03:55 FW56M kernel: [ 1305.317821] iwlagn 0000:06:00.0: Driver unable to support your firmware API. Driver supports v5, firmware is v0.
Jun 7 19:03:55 FW56M kernel: [ 1305.317838] iwlagn 0000:06:00.0: Could not read microcode: -22

And before that, I can use the WiFi, but i can't use my network printer, a HP LaserJet cm14515fnw, but with the eth0 (cable) i can use the printer; so, there are a problem with WiFi drivers, IMHO...

Regards :)

[Anton Piatek (anton-piatek)]

Similar problem for me. After updating to the 2.6.32-33-generic-pae kernel my intel wireless stopped working. dmesg shows:
[ 15.261265] iwlagn 0000:03:00.0: firmware: requesting iwlwifi-5000-5.ucode
[ 15.454997] iwlagn 0000:03:00.0: Driver unable to support your firmware API. Driver supports v5, firmware is v0.
[ 15.455008] iwlagn 0000:03:00.0: Could not read microcode: -22
[ 15.951086] iwlagn 0000:03:00.0: firmware: requesting iwlwifi-5000-5.ucode
[ 15.953192] iwlagn 0000:03:00.0: Driver unable to support your firmware API. Driver supports v5, firmware is v0.
[ 15.953208] iwlagn 0000:03:00.0: Could not read microcode: -22

I tried this with both 1.34.7 and 1.34.10 of linux-firmware but it did not help. Rebooting back into the older 2.6.32-32 kernel solved the issue for me

The card is
$lspci -s 03:00.0 -v
03:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 5100 AGN [Shiloh] Network Connection
        Subsystem: Intel Corporation Device 1211
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 31
        Memory at f4300000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=8K]
        Capabilities: <access denied>
        Kernel driver in use: iwlagn
        Kernel modules: iwlagn

and I am running lucid
$lsb_release -dr
Description: Ubuntu 10.04.2 LTS
Release: 10.04

The hardware is a Lenovo W500 laptop

[Jose R. Prieto (joserprieto)]

This steps works for me:

$ wget http://www.orbit-lab.org/kernel/compat-wireless-2.6-stable/v2.6.38/compat-wireless-2.6.38.2-2-ns.tar.bz2
$ sudo apt-get install build-essential linux-headers-`uname -r`
$ sudo apt-get remove lsh-server
$ tar jxvf compat-wireless-2.6.38.2-2-ns.tar.bz2
$ cd compat-wireless-2.6.38.2-2-ns
$ make
$ sudo make install
$ sudo make wlunload
$ sudo make btunload
$ sudo modprobe iwlagn bnep btusb rfcomm sco
$ sudo modprobe iwlagn
$ sudo modprobe bnep
$ sudo modprobe btusb
$ sudo modprobe rfcomm
$ sudo modprobe sco
$ sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart

I follow the steps that you can see here:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1756096&page=2
and here:
http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Download/stable/#compat-wireless_2.6.38_stable_releases

Regards :)

[Greg Gorman (gregg-public)]

Same issue for me on a Lenovo X201

*-network
                description: Wireless interface
                product: WiFi Link 6000 Series
                vendor: Intel Corporation
                physical id: 0
                bus info: pci@0000:02:00.0
                logical name: wlan2
                version: 35
                serial: 58:94:6b:92:6a:2c
                width: 64 bits
                clock: 33MHz
                capabilities: bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless
                configuration: broadcast=yes driver=iwlagn ip=192.168.146.22 latency=0 multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11abgn
                resources: irq:34 memory:f2400000-f2401fff

[Ben James (something-for-the-pain)]

I have a slightly older kernel, it seems (2.6.32-33), therefore I had to stumble around and use a slightly different set of installation instructions - the following worked for me:

wget http://www.orbit-lab.org/kernel/compat-wireless-2.6-stable/v2.6.32/compat-wireless-2.6.32.16.tar.bz2
tar -jxvf compat-wireless-2.6.32.16.tar.bz2
sudo apt-get remove lsh-server
cd compat-wireless-2.6.32.16/
./scripts/driver-select iwlwifi
make
sudo make install
sudo make wlunload
sudo make btunload
sudo make unload
sudo modprobe iwlcore
sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart
sudo modprobe iwlagn
sudo modprobe iwlagn bnep dtusb rfcomm sco

[Greg Gorman (gregg-public)]

Also, on my system, kernel 2.6.32-30-generic-pae #59-Ubuntu SMP Tue Mar 1 23:01:33 UTC 2011 i686 GNU/Linux seems to work. So -- the issue has recently come up.

[Barry Clearwater (barryc)]

this solution worked for me also, but i got the error;
$ sudo modprobe iwlagn bnep btusb rfcomm sco
FATAL: Error inserting iwlagn (/lib/modules/2.6.32-33-generic/updates/drivers/net/wireless/iwlwifi/iwlagn.ko): Unknown symbol in module, or unknown parameter (see dmesg)

whereas the wireless module must have worked because as soon as i had modprobed iwlagn, and signed into gtkauth, the wireless connected to our local ap.