Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 1292423
current linux-firmware causes system to lockup
Last modified: 2015-12-28 10:23:36 EST
Description of problem: linux-firmware-20151214-60.gitbbe4917c.fc23.noarch causes screen, mouse, and keyboard to freeze. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): linux-firmware-20151214-60.gitbbe4917c.fc23.noarch How reproducible: always Steps to Reproduce: 1. dnf update to install above version of linux-firmware 2. Use system for up to an hour or 2. 3. Actual results: freeze Expected results: normal use Additional info: The hardware is an Intel NUC5i5RYH. The keyboard and mouse are USB wireless made by Havic 2.4GHz Wireless. The screen is a Samsung on HDMI. When the system freezes I can ssh into the system from another machine and operation seems normal. But, "shutdown -r now" disconnects the remote login but the system does not reboot. Power cycle is requires. Reverting to: linux-firmware-20150904-56.git6ebf5d57.fc23.noarch (Done by using dnf downgrade) brings the system back to normal. When I ran the dnf update that updated linux-firmware, many iwlxx packages were installed. I left these installed and this has worked. So, the problem definitely seems to be in linux-firmware. Also, my NUC system is at the current BIOS level and this has most recently been updated about a week or 2 ago. I use this machine for my daily work and normally have no problems.
Can you attach the output of dmesg or the journal output from the working and non-working boots? It is rather rare to have linux-firmware prevent a system from booting, particularly if you left the iwlwifi subpackages at the most recent release.
I should add one fact: When the system is "frozen" the monitor is still being refreshed. I can unplug it or power it off and when turned back on the frozen screen reappears. Only powering off the computer itself clears the screen.
Created attachment 1106722 [details] dmesg from current (good) system Here is the dmesg from the current system with the "good" linux-firmware. I will try to find a window for going through the install the failing linux-firmware, capture dmesg after hang, etc. ... Tell me if the attached is sufficient. I do think that the fact that the system is driving the monitor when hung is possibly useful.
Created attachment 1106723 [details] dmesg from current system second attempt to provide attachment
Today I installed the latest kernel: Linux pbdsl4 4.2.8-300.fc23.x86_64 but first ran it with the old linux-firmware. This worked without problems. Now I have just updated to the latest linux-firmware: linux-firmware-20151214-60.gitbbe4917c.fc23.noarch The system has run normally for about an hour. It may be a bit early to say that the hang problem is gone, but it seems likely. One thing to note. In the dmesg after booting back to the old linux-firmware the line: [drm:gen8_irq_handler [i915]] *ERROR* The master control interrupt lied (SDE)! appeared. No *ERROR* have appeared in any of the other dmesg outputs. So, one possibility is that something went wrong in the BIOS which was cleared at some point. I think that I power cycled the Intel box at some point, but I did no keep a record of exactly when. In any case, the hangs could have been caused by some IRQ failure in the BIOS. I am not attaching any of the dmesgs that I captured since they look normal. I will post another report after a day or so, or if there is another hang. In the meantime it appears that this was a transient BIOS-related failure.
I rebooted, checked dmesg, up for several hours. It is clear that this was not a problem in linux-firmware. So, OK to close this report. Thanks.