Intrepid: Regression Ndiswrapper is broken by b43 driver again

[Dave Morley]

As with Hardy until late on in the roadmap Ndiswrapper is failing due to b43 trying to take over and failing on some chipsets.

I don't know what was done as a work round for this in Hardy but it needs doing again in Intrepid.

[josesuarez1983 (j-suarez-agapito)]

You could just try to blacklist that module by adding

blacklist modulename

in /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist

For instance I have rt61pci blacklisted that way to use ndiswrapper.
See if that helps.

[Leann Ogasawara (leannogasawara)]

Hi davmor2,

In addition to testing if blacklisting the b43 driver helps, can you also attach the output of 'sudo lspci -vvnn' as well as dmesg output (when not blacklisting). Thanks.

[Dave Morley (davmor2)]

I've added the hardy logs as ndiswrapper is working in hardy.

next will be the post ndisswrapper logs and then I'll move onto the intrepid versions.

[Dave Morley (davmor2)]

Still no functioning wifi.

I will now try the blacklist b43 and see if it then resolved.

Still no wifi.

[Dave Morley (davmor2)]

Work around:

I've spent the morning hunting all the docs for a work around this one seems to be working:

echo -e '#Intrepid ssb/ndiswrapper workaround, added' `date` '\ninstall ndiswrapper modprobe -r b43 b44 b43legacy ssb; modprobe --ignore-install ndiswrapper $CMDLINE_OPTS; modprobe ssb; modprobe b44;' | sudo tee -a /etc/modprobe.d/ndiswrapper

Found here https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/Driver/bcm43xx/Feisty_No-Fluff#Hardy%20Bug%20Fix

[Dave Morley (davmor2)]

The new broadcom sta wireless driver works better than the ndiswrapper version for my chipset.

I won't close this bug just yet though in case others experience issues with their chipset still as the work round is still good.

[Andreas Gnau (rondom)]

From my understanding this isn't really a bug. If people want to use ndiswrapper they will have to blacklist ssb/b43.
If I misunderstood something, feel free to reopen this bug.

[Atanas Atanasov (thenasko)]

I am not precisely sure about the reason but I am experiencing a similar problem. I am using Intrepid on a Dell Inspiron 1721 with Broadcom 4328 wireless card. I have been using ndiswrapper for a long time without any problems and it suddenly stopped working yesterday. It seems that ndiswrapper is installed properly, the module is loaded but it is not used for the wireless card in any way. I do not see the wireless adapter with ifconfig, despite the fact b43 is blacklisted (it still loads?). Below are some output you might find useful.

nasko@serre:~$ ifconfig
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:1c:23:84:3c:d1
          inet6 addr: fe80::21c:23ff:fe84:3cd1/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:6 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:492 (492.0 B)
          Interrupt:21

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
          inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
          RX packets:2 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:2 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:100 (100.0 B) TX bytes:100 (100.0 B)

nasko@serre:~$ lsmod|grep -i -e b43 -e b44 -e ssb -e ndiswrapper
ndiswrapper 253696 0
b44 41872 0
mii 14592 1 b44
usbcore 175376 5 uvcvideo,ndiswrapper,ehci_hcd,ohci_hcd
ssb 46340 1 b44
nasko@serre:~$ sudo emacs /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist &
[1] 6320
nasko@serre:~$ cd /etc/modprobe.d/
nasko@serre:/etc/modprobe.d$ ls
aliases blacklist blacklist-oss dkms isapnp ndiswrapper
alsa-base blacklist~ blacklist-scanner fuse libpisock9 nvidia-kernel-nkc
arch blacklist-framebuffer blacklist-watchdog i2c libsane options
arch-aliases blacklist-modem bluez ipw3945 lrm-video toshiba_acpi.modprobe
nasko@serre:/etc/modprobe.d$ cd
nasko@serre:/etc/modprobe.d$ cd ~
nasko@serre:~$ ifconfig
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:1c:23:84:3c:d1
          inet addr:192.168.0.2 Bcast:192.168.0.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::21c:23ff:fe84:3cd1/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
          RX packets:4140 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:4044 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:3809582 (3.8 MB) TX bytes:829853 (829.8 KB)
          Interrupt:21

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
          inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
          RX packets:2 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:2 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:100 (100.0 B) TX bytes:100 (100.0 B)

nasko@serre:~$ sudo lshw -c network
  *-ne...

[Atanas Atanasov (thenasko)]

Could anyone see a problem? Is there something I can do to diagnose the issue?

[hradec (hradec)]

I'm also having trouble with intrepid and ndiswrapper. My wifi is a BCM4328 (I'm running it on my appleTV) and for some reason ndiswrapper can't initialize the device...

this is my lspci:

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/PM/GMS, 943/940GML and 945GT Express Memory Controller Hub (rev 03)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/PM/GMS, 943/940GML and 945GT Express PCI Express Root Port (rev 03)
00:07.0 Performance counters: Intel Corporation Device 27a3 (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) High Definition Audio Controller (rev 02)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 02)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 02)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 02)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev e2)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801GBM (ICH7-M) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 02)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) IDE Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 02)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation G72M [Quadro NVS 110M/GeForce Go 7300] (rev a1)
02:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4328 802.11a/b/g/n (rev 05)
03:03.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ (rev 10)

and this is what I get in dmes when loading ndiswrapper:

[ 4965.744660] ndiswrapper version 1.53 loaded (smp=yes, preempt=no)
[ 4965.860223] ndiswrapper: driver bcmwl5 (Broadcom,10/12/2006, 4.100.15.5) loaded
[ 4965.862366] ndiswrapper 0000:02:00.0: enabling device (0000 -> 0002)
[ 4965.862386] ndiswrapper 0000:02:00.0: PCI INT A -> GSI 16 (level, low) -> IRQ 16
[ 4965.862433] ndiswrapper 0000:02:00.0: setting latency timer to 64
[ 4965.864916] ndiswrapper (NdisWriteErrorLogEntry:190): log: C000138D, count: 1, return_address: d107c937
[ 4965.892893] ndiswrapper (NdisWriteErrorLogEntry:193): code: 0x10b
[ 4965.907845] ndiswrapper (mp_init:219): couldn't initialize device: C0000001
[ 4965.907853] ndiswrapper (pnp_start_device:435): Windows driver couldn't initialize the device (C0000001)
[ 4965.907874] ndiswrapper (mp_halt:262): device ce2da480 is not initialized - not halting
[ 4965.907880] ndiswrapper: device eth%d removed
[ 4965.910369] ndiswrapper 0000:02:00.0: PCI INT A disabled
[ 4965.911622] ndiswrapper: probe of 0000:02:00.0 failed with error -22
[ 4965.915329] usbcore: registered new interface driver ndiswrapper

this is ndiswrapper -l:
bcmwl5 : driver installed
 device (14E4:4328) present (alternate driver: ssb)

and I successfully blacklisted all modules tha cause problem to this driver:
blacklist bcm43xx
blacklist ssb
blacklist b44
blacklist b43
blacklist b43legacy

after blacklisting those, I ran /usr/sbin/update-initramfs to update my initrd.img file so none of the above would be loaded at boot time by the kernel...

none of the above are showing up when I do lsmod.

any ideas?

-H