The scan-defer logic added in the previous patch ("bes2600: defer
scan and soften WARN on firmware reject") used a 10-second backoff
window and never cleared reject_count outside of a successful scan.
Field testing on a PineTab2 (linux-pinetab2 6.19.10-danctnix1) shows
two distinct mac80211 scan-retry cadences in practice:
* Idle background scans every ~5 minutes when associated -- well
outside any plausible backoff, the defer guard correctly falls
through to a real WSM scan attempt.
* Roam-evaluation bursts triggered when mac80211 wants to find a
candidate AP for handover (signal degradation, beacon loss,
locally-generated DEAUTH_LEAVING reason=3). Cadence is ~12 s, and
one boot reproduced 14 such rejected scans in 3 minutes during a
single burst, none of which engaged the defer guard because every
retry landed just outside the 10 s window.
Two-line behaviour change to fix that:
1. BES2600_SCAN_BACKOFF_JIFFIES grows from 10*HZ to 30*HZ, so a
12 s-cadence burst stays inside the window across consecutive
rejects and the third reject in the burst trips the threshold
guard. The 5 min idle case is still naturally past the window
and is unaffected.
2. bes2600_scan_should_defer() resets reject_count to 0 when
time_after(jiffies, backoff_until). Without this, reject_count
accumulated indefinitely across the slow-cadence rejects, so an
isolated reject after long quiet would have tripped the
threshold the moment it arrived. After the change, count is
latched only inside an active burst and decays cleanly when the
burst ends.
Net effect on a roam burst:
* t=0 reject #1 (count 1, backoff_until = t0 + 30s)
* t=12 reject #2 (count 2, backoff_until = t1 + 30s)
* t=24 reject #3 (count 3, threshold met, next scan deferred)
* t=36 defer fires, no WSM round-trip, reject not sent
* ... defers continue until the firmware-policy state clears
* scan succeeds -> reject_count = 0, normal cadence resumes
WSM 0x0007 confirm rejections in a burst drop from ~14 to ~3 (just
the scans needed to reach the threshold). wpa_supplicant's reason=3
locally-generated disconnects driven by exhausted roam candidates
during the same burst window also drop.
No new state, no new symbols, no change to mac80211-facing semantics:
the deferred scan still completes via the existing fail: path with
status=-EBUSY, the same response a real firmware-busy would produce.
Signed-off-by: Markus Fritsche <fritsche.markus@gmail.com>
On a BES2600-based PineTab2, mac80211's background-scan cadence
(about every 30 s when associated) triggers a two-step WARN splat
pattern, visible in dmesg roughly 30 times per 10 min of regular
WiFi use:
wsm_generic_confirm ret 2
WARNING: at wsm_handle_rx+0x8a4/0xf30 [bes2600]
... full stack trace ...
ieee80211 phy0: wsm_generic_confirm failed for request 0x0007.
WARNING: at bes2600_scan_work+0x5d4/0x810 [bes2600]
... full stack trace ...
ieee80211 phy0: [SCAN] Scan failed (-22).
0x0007 is the WSM start-scan request; status 2 is the firmware's
rejected-by-policy response, which it returns for at least two
conditions:
a) BT A2DP streaming in non-FDD coex mode -- the coex arbiter
in firmware won't grant an off-channel window while a SCO/
A2DP link is queued.
b) A firmware-internal busy state whose exact trigger the
driver cannot observe directly (confirmed on ohm with BT
disconnected -- rejection still fires). Likely transient
firmware-PM transitions.
Both are protocol-level policy responses, not kernel bugs, so the
full stack-trace WARN treatment is counterproductive: it buries
real problems and gets new users convinced the driver is broken.
Three-part fix:
1. struct bes2600_scan grows two fields -- reject_count and
backoff_until -- zero-initialised via the existing
ieee80211_alloc_hw()-provided kzalloc.
2. bes2600_scan_work() now consults bes2600_scan_should_defer()
before calling bes2600_scan_start(). The helper short-
circuits in two cases:
- coex_is_bt_a2dp() is true and coex is not in FDD mode,
since we already know the firmware will reject;
- BES2600_SCAN_REJECT_THRESHOLD (3) consecutive rejections
have fired and the BES2600_SCAN_BACKOFF_JIFFIES (10 s)
backoff window has not yet elapsed.
On defer or on a real firmware rejection, reject_count is
bumped and backoff_until is refreshed. A successful scan
clears reject_count.
3. The WARN_ON(hw_priv->scan.status) at the scan_start() call
site is replaced with a plain branch into the existing
fail: label. wsm_generic_confirm()'s WARN() becomes a
bes_devel() -- the per-request wiphy_warn in wsm_handle_rx
(which includes the offending request id) is kept, so real
debugging information is still on tape.
Net behaviour:
- Expected rejections no longer produce stack traces. The only
log line that remains on a rejected background scan is the
upstream-caller's wiphy_warn identifying request 0x0007 or
equivalent.
- The driver stops hammering the firmware with doomed scan
requests -- 3 rejections trigger a 10 s pause, during which
bes2600_scan_work() returns without issuing WSM 0x0007.
- The scan-completion path is unchanged; mac80211 sees the
scan complete with no results and reissues on its normal
cadence.
- Real protocol-layer bugs (unexpected underflow in the
confirm buffer) still WARN_ON at the 'underflow:' label.
Verified on ohm (PineTab2, linux-pinetab2 6.19.10-danctnix1-1):
WARN splat count dropped from 32 to 0 per 10 min uptime. WiFi
stays associated. No regression in other counters (KFENCE,
sdio_tx_work, RX failure, PS Mode Error, factory cali fail all
remain 0).
Signed-off-by: Markus Fritsche <fritsche.markus@gmail.com>
test0r
Julian