Re: [PATCH v2 1/3] wifi: ath12k: fixes to improve MLO station stability

[Baochen Qiang <baochen.qiang@oss.qualcomm.com>]

On 10/17/2026 4:04 PM, Jose Ignacio Tornos Martinez wrote:
> Hi Baochen,
> 
> I agree that per-callback guards don't scale well long-term. Johannes
> can comment better because both alternatives need mac80211 changes,
> but let me share my thoughts.
> 
> Option 1 (recovery inside .start()) holds rtnl for ~1.3s, that seems
> too long to hold.
> 
> Option 2 (split ieee80211_restart_hw() into early barrier + deferred
> restart) looks like the right direction. It would benefit any driver
> with async recovery, not just ath12k. But it is a mac80211 core change
> and a bigger effort, and it still needs in_reconfig checks added to
> callbacks that don't have them today (scan, for one), so the guarding
> moves to mac80211 rather than disappearing.
> 
> In the meantime, the crashes this series fixes are real: without it,
> an MLO firmware crash gives NULL derefs and 20+ second recovery. The
> guards here cover the callbacks that actually run during that window,
> not a speculative list.
> 
> I am happy to work on the mac80211 side (option 2), but would it make

Johannes doesn't like option 2, let's forget it now. Instead, are you interested in
(working on) option 1?

> sense for you to land this series as an interim fix while that is
> worked out as a follow-up?

Jeff can make the call.

> 
> Thanks
> 
> Best regards
> José Ignacio
>