* [PATCH wireless-next v2] wifi: brcmfmac: log the firmware status when a connect fails
@ 2026-09-09 8:06 Ryohei Hashimoto
0 siblings, 0 replies; only message in thread
From: Ryohei Hashimoto @ 2026-09-09 8:06 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: linux-wireless
Cc: arend.vanspriel, brcm80211, brcm80211-dev-list.pdl, linux-kernel
brcmf_bss_connect_done() receives the firmware event in @e but discards it
on the failure path. Every failed connect is reported to cfg80211 as
WLAN_STATUS_AUTH_TIMEOUT (16), whatever the firmware actually said, so
userspace only ever sees:
wlan0: CTRL-EVENT-ASSOC-REJECT bssid=00:00:00:00:00:00 status_code=16
The all-zero BSSID comes from the same place: conn_params is memset to
zero and profile->bssid has not been filled in when the station never
associated.
status_code=16 therefore carries no information about the cause. It is not
an AP response and it does not mean "authentication timed out" - it is the
only failure value this driver can produce. This is a recurring source of
confusion: [1] has been open since 2023 with more than twenty follow-ups
and no explanation of the code, and covers BCM4345/6, BCM43430 and
CYW43455 across several kernel versions. It supersedes [2], filed against
the firmware repository a day earlier and closed in favour of it.
The firmware's own status (BRCMF_E_STATUS_*) is more specific - FAIL,
TIMEOUT, NO_NETWORKS, ABORT and so on - and it is already in hand. Log it
so the cause can be narrowed down without rebuilding the kernel.
bphy_err() is used rather than brcmf_dbg() or brcmf_info(): it is the form
the rest of this file uses, and of the three it is the only one that is
both visible in a distribution kernel and bounded. brcmf_dbg(CONN)
expands to no_printk() unless CONFIG_BRCMDBG is set, which is what makes
the reports in [1] and [2] impossible to act on - the people hitting this
run stock kernels. brcmf_info() expands to a plain pr_info() in a
non-debug build and is not rate limited, and wpa_supplicant retries the
association every few seconds, so it would flood the log. bphy_err() is
guarded by net_ratelimit() there, so a station retrying against an
unreachable AP prints at most a few lines per second.
All three fields are printed because only some of them are meaningful on
each path into the failure branch. brcmf_is_nonetwork() keys off @status,
so that is the useful field for a join that never associated - the case in
[1]. brcmf_is_linkdown() keys off @event_code and @flags and does not look
at @status at all, so @status can read 0 there; on those events it is
@reason which carries the 802.11 reason code, as the mapping in
brcmf_map_fw_linkdown_reason() shows. Printing the three together lets
the reader tell which path was taken instead of guessing from one number.
The status reported to cfg80211 is left alone; changing it would alter what
userspace sees.
[1] https://github.com/RPi-Distro/firmware-nonfree/issues/38
[2] https://github.com/raspberrypi/firmware/issues/1829
Signed-off-by: Ryohei Hashimoto <laurel.medalist12@gmail.com>
---
v2:
- use bphy_err() instead of brcmf_err(); it is what the rest of
cfg80211.c uses and it names the wiphy in the message
- correct the commit message: brcmf_is_linkdown() keys off @flags,
not @reason
- tag the target tree in the subject
v1: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-wireless/20260909064125.67844-1-laurel.medalist12@gmail.com/
drivers/net/wireless/broadcom/brcm80211/brcmfmac/cfg80211.c | 2 ++
1 file changed, 2 insertions(+)
diff --git a/drivers/net/wireless/broadcom/brcm80211/brcmfmac/cfg80211.c b/drivers/net/wireless/broadcom/brcm80211/brcmfmac/cfg80211.c
index 872c488..114dabb 100644
--- a/drivers/net/wireless/broadcom/brcm80211/brcmfmac/cfg80211.c
+++ b/drivers/net/wireless/broadcom/brcm80211/brcmfmac/cfg80211.c
@@ -6522,6 +6522,8 @@ brcmf_bss_connect_done(struct brcmf_cfg80211_info *cfg,
clear_bit(BRCMF_VIF_STATUS_ASSOC_SUCCESS,
&ifp->vif->sme_state);
conn_params.status = WLAN_STATUS_AUTH_TIMEOUT;
+ bphy_err(ifp->drvr, "connect failed: event %u status %u reason %u\n",
+ e->event_code, e->status, e->reason);
}
conn_params.links[0].bssid = profile->bssid;
conn_params.req_ie = conn_info->req_ie;
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