In kernel support for rtw88_8821cs driver to enable NOVA BT and WiFi Fails on boot load?

[Jibun-no-Kage]

Explicit unload and reload works...

# lsmod | grep rtw88
rtw88_8821cs           16384  0
rtw88_8821c            90112  1 rtw88_8821cs
rtw88_sdio             24576  1 rtw88_8821cs
rtw88_core            163840  2 rtw88_8821c,rtw88_sdio
# rmmod rtw88_8821cs
# rmmod rtw88_8821c
# rmmod rtw88_sdio
# rmmod rtw88_core
# lsmod | grep rtw88
# modprobe rtw88_core
# modprobe rtw88_8821cs
# lsmod | grep rtw88
rtw88_8821cs           16384  0
rtw88_8821c            90112  1 rtw88_8821cs
rtw88_sdio             24576  1 rtw88_8821cs
rtw88_core            163840  2 rtw88_8821c,rtw88_sdio

# ifconfig wlan0
wlan0: flags=4099<UP,BROADCAST,MULTICAST>  mtu 1500
        ether xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx  txqueuelen 1000  (Ethernet)
        RX packets 0  bytes 0 (0.0 B)
        RX errors 0  dropped 0  overruns 0  frame 0
        TX packets 0  bytes 0 (0.0 B)
        TX errors 0  dropped 0 overruns 0  carrier 0  collisions 0

Load of firmware is also required... but package is missing from image?

# apt install firmware-realtek

Issue is already documented here...
https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/CA+fyA4SqT4jgpWeq_ipp7i3ZM7s=gQkSdtsPw6x+zeJdGcXvqw@mail.gmail.com/T/

Apparently this has been a documented bug for almost 18 months but no action taken by maintainer that integrated driver to kernel? Documented here so others will find the work-around.

Maybe this image could be updated to include a workaround until fixed? Maybe a one time system unit file that unloads and reloads driver at end of boot sequence?

[Jibun-no-Kage]

Well, looks like something is still not working, scanning for networks none are found. Humm.

[Jibun-no-Kage]

The scan in the UI just spins forever... the scan from the CLI it working now, but not sure why... I plugged in a few different WIFI dongles and tested and at some point the scanning started working, going to have to start with a clean image and try again, so see which step/change got the scanning working.

I also tried a few github drivers, the morrownr variant installed and uninstalled fine, but same issue, as initial post, would not seem to scan, so I removed it. It was after removing the out of band driver and unblacklisting the kernel driver that the scanning started working.

The big issues, are UI cannot scan but CLI does? And... I cannot seem to get NetworkManager to use any WIFI interface. All WIFI interfaces are NOT BLOCKED, but still show UNAVAILABLE... at the moment I am stumped. Hence going back to a clean copy and testing again.

As to the nmcli or even nmtui just not seeing the WIFI interfaces (as available) I did set managed=true in the conf file for NetworkManager, that usually is an obvious issue, but in this case no joy.

I explicitly added the correct firmware image for the WIFI IC native to NOVA, so resolved that issue. Progress, but still not 100%.

[Jibun-no-Kage]

OK I think I got it...

1. Add firmware-realtek package
2. Add wpasupplicant package
3. If SDIO errors in dmesg, may have to rmmod and modprobe rtw88_8821cs module

I still have one issue, the MAC randomization under NetworkManager.... is really an issue if you have DHCP with reservations when I have. But that is not a 'build' or 'image' issue.

Going to do one more test this weekend... if the results hold, think I got it figured out.

[Jibun-no-Kage]

So here is the latest...

Replaced older power supply with pretty much brand new Pi 5 supply, i.e. 5v 3a.

1. Have to do the rmmod/modprobe trick on 8821cs criver, as noted above
2. Have to load wpa supplicant for wlan0 to get IP address
3. Was not able to replicate the odd 'no scan' issue I had with the initial image test
4. Also came across the following:

[  729.129136] firmware failed to ack driver for entering Deep Power mode
[  729.129167] WARNING: CPU: 6 PID: 1656 at drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw88/ps.c:105 rtw_power_mode_change+0x138/0x140 [rtw88_core]
[  729.129195] Modules linked in: bnep binfmt_misc rtw88_8821cs rtw88_8821c rtw88_sdio rtw88_core aic8800_bsp input_leds joydev panfrost drm_shmem_helper gpu_sched uio_pdrv_genirq uio fuse dm_mod ip_tables ipv6 r8169 adc_keys
[  729.129222] CPU: 6 PID: 1656 Comm: kworker/u16:9 Tainted: G        W          6.1.0-1023-rockchip #24
[  729.129227] Hardware name: ameriDroid Indiedroid Nova/Indiedroid Nova, BIOS v0.12 12/24/2024
[  729.129230] Workqueue: phy0 rtw_watch_dog_work [rtw88_core]
[  729.129250] pstate: 60400009 (nZCv daif +PAN -UAO -TCO -DIT -SSBS BTYPE=--)
[  729.129254] pc : rtw_power_mode_change+0x138/0x140 [rtw88_core]
[  729.129273] lr : rtw_power_mode_change+0x138/0x140 [rtw88_core]
[  729.129291] sp : ffff80000bcebcf0
[  729.129293] x29: ffff80000bcebcf0 x28: 0000000000000000 x27: 0000000000000000
[  729.129297] x26: ffff0332c15889e0 x25: 0000000000000000 x24: 0000000000000000
[  729.129302] x23: 0000000000068dbc x22: 0000000000000001 x21: 0000000000000000
[  729.129306] x20: ffff0332c158a4e0 x19: 000000a2d6adf09b x18: 0000000000000000
[  729.129310] x17: 0000000000000000 x16: 0000000000000000 x15: 0000000000000000
[  729.129315] x14: 0000000000000000 x13: 65646f6d20726577 x12: 6f50207065654420
[  729.129319] x11: 676e697265746e65 x10: 20726f6620726576 x9 : ffffb3c694d1fd44
[  729.129324] x8 : 64206b6361206f74 x7 : 2064656c69616620 x6 : 657261776d726966
[  729.129328] x5 : 0000000000000000 x4 : 0000000000000000 x3 : 0000000000000000
[  729.129332] x2 : 0000000000000000 x1 : 0000000000000000 x0 : ffff0330b8fbcec0
[  729.129337] Call trace:

Wonder if this was what caused by reboots? Versus maybe a failing power supply? But no reboot in the above capture... humm.

I am going to set wlan0 power management to off. See if that avoids the above issue.

[Jibun-no-Kage]

One more.... missing package...

W: Possible missing firmware /lib/firmware/regulatory.db for built-in driver cfg80211
W: Possible missing firmware /lib/firmware/regulatory.db.p7s for built-in driver cfg8021

Need to install wireless-regdb as well.

[Jibun-no-Kage]

Third image test, and after power supply replacement, NOVA has been stable. So I am shifting into a 72 hour test window to confirm this. Then I will move on to installing QEMU/KVM and docker and push the system a bit.