Dell Latitude 5450 and 5550 Ethernet dropped packets (Intel Meteor Lake CPU with 8086:550a NIC)

[Devin]

Hello,

We are testing a Dell Latitude 5450 and Dell Latitude 5550 with Ubuntu Linux and are noticing several dropped Ethernet packets. It was first observed with very slow response times when connected over Ethernet with telnet to the laptops. Both laptops have Meteor Lake CPUs with the Intel NIC 8086:550a.

The simplest way I found to replicate the issue is with a simple script, which I'll attach to this bug later. It basically does the following:
- reboot the laptop via SSH
- wait for the laptop to boot up (via checking ping responses)
- send 60 ping requests and check if any are dropped
- loop and try this 10 times in total

With these new Meteor Lake laptops, they typically drop 6% of the packets in this 60 count ping test.

lsb_release -a shows: Ubuntu 22.04.4 LTS.
I ran "sudo apt update" and "sudo apt upgrade" with no change in the results.

lspci contains (from the Dell 5450):
00:1f.6 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation Device 550a (rev 20)

Let me know if I should provide any other details.

Thanks

[Devin (devinsr)]

Test script to replicate the bug. Run from another computer connected to the Dell Latitude 5450 or Dell Latitude 5550 over Ethernet. It also requires that SSH be setup so that root can login with passwordless login to the Dell laptops.

Note: It doesn't replicate 100% of the time with every reboot. The "try up to 10 times" and "up to 60 ping requests" were chosen arbitrarily. I would expect this test to run overnight without any dropped packets or similarly to be able to ping overnight without any dropped packets.

There's no other network devices connected between the two computers.

[Chris Guiver (guiverc)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better.

Bug reporting is about finding & fixing problems thus preventing future users from hitting the same bug.

I suspect a Support site would be more appropriate, eg. https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu. You can also find help with your problem in the support forum of your local Ubuntu community http://loco.ubuntu.com/ or asking at https://askubuntu.com or https://ubuntuforums.org, or for more support options please look at https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/community-support/709

You've filed this bug against the Ubuntu-Release-Upgrader package, which will upgrade a release from 22.04 to 23.10 (or 24.04 in the future), but no logs or mention of problems with that are mentioned.

Ubuntu 22.04 LTS is a LTS release, thus has some kernel stack choices (GA = 5.15, HWE = 6.5, OEM = ...) but no clues as to product (Server? Desktop?) were provided, nor what install media was used (ie. kernel stack defaults are unknown). Your description implies network issues, where bug report is filed against the `do-release-upgrade` (or equivalent) command without logs..

I suggest trying support first.. as your issue maybe more linked to the linux kernel (or kernel modules) and not what you've filed the bug against; but no details as to what you're running were actually provided (release requires product & install media details to be known for LTS releases with kernel stack choice).

[Devin (devinsr)]

I asked the following question on the support site as you advised:
https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/816003

This is for Desktop.

I see that there's now a 24.04 LTS available at this site:
https://ubuntu.com/download/desktop

I'll download that and give it a try as well.

I believe this is a bug with the Linux kernel. Should I raise a bug with kernel.org instead of launchpad.net?

[Devin (devinsr)]

Hi Chris,

I just tested Ubuntu 24.04 LTS and I can no longer replicate this issue.

I am not familiar with Launchpad bug Status so feel free to close this bug as you see fit.

Thanks

[Devin (devinsr)]

Hi Chris,

I have a stable ping initially after reboot, however, sometime while using Ubuntu, suddenly the Wired NIC is disabled. If I re-enable it then it's fine again for a few minutes.

I think this is a separate issue though. I'll try searching online to see why Ubuntu would randomly disable the NIC on me.

Thanks

[Devin (devinsr)]

In addition to disabling the NIC randomly, it is also being changed from Manual to Automatic (DHCP) with no user interaction.

[Devin (devinsr)]

Hi Chris,

Maybe this isn't fixed after all with 24.04 LTS. It just shows differently.

Now I'll bring up the wired network with a static IP and just ping it from my PC. It'll randomly stop pinging, I'll see a popup on Ubuntu along the lines of "Connection Failed. Activation of network connection failed." Then ping will stop working for a while. I'll see on Ubuntu that the NIC was disabled and set to Automatic (DHCP) from Manual. If I don't do anything, at some point it's brought back up somehow automatically and ping resumes working again. It's very odd.

I'm thinking to test a newer main stream kernel but it's been a while since I did that in Ubuntu.

Thanks

[Devin (devinsr)]

Hi Chris,

As per this question:
https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/816003

I've done some more thorough testing. I have a lot of general Ethernet instability with the Dell 5450/5550 laptops with Ubuntu 24.04 LTS. I also just tried the latest mainline kernel 6.9.1-060901-generic with no luck.

Thanks