Re: wpi0: fatal firmware error

[Robert Elz <kre%munnari.OZ.AU@localhost>]

    Date:        Wed, 06 Nov 2013 04:38:35 +0100
    From:        =?UTF-8?B?QsOpbGE=?= <bela.nam.bsd%gmail.com@localhost>
    Message-ID:  <5279B9BB.5030901%gmail.com@localhost>

I have a Dell laptop with that card...

  | sysctl hw.firmware.path outputs: hw.firmware.path =
  | 
/libdata/firmware:/usr/libdata/firmware:/usr/pkg/libdata/firmware:/usr/pkg/libdata
  | 
  | the iwlwifi-3945.ucode firmware file is in /usr/pkg/libdata/if_wpi

but I put (manually copied/moved) the firmware to /libdata/firmware/if_wpi

The reason is that /usr/pkg (for me) isn't mounted when the firmware load
is performed, so it doesn't get found there.   If your /usr/pkg isn't on
the root filesystem, and you don't have its filesytem (and any others needed,
which would mean /usr if /usr/pkg is separatly mounted) listed in
critical_filesystems_local in /etc/rc.conf then you'll most likely need
to do the same - it can be the easy way to be safe anyway (stuff needed
to make the hardware work is better placed on the root filesystem than
anywhere else, regardless of how you attempt to force early mounting.)

You can verify if this is likely to be the problem easily, just

ls -lu /usr/pkg/libdata/if_wpi

then reboot, and repeat the ls.   If the access time (which is the time shown
with ls -lu) hasn't altered, then the file is not being accessed, which almost
certainly means that it isn't present when the access is attempted.

kre

ps: for me with that card (and often slightly flakey wireless access - I
push the distance limits sometimes) I tend to need to restart wpa_supplicant
from time to time, I have a script that watches if the wireless network
is connected, and if not, restarts wpa_supplicant, and if needed dhclient
(dhcpcd would probably notice the link down/up and do its thing itself,
but I haven't switched that system to dhcpcd yet.)