262
Idiot firmware is bored
(sh.itjust.works)
Running dmesg on PinePhone reveals that idiot firmware is bored.
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 19 Feb 2024
262 points (99.6% liked)
linuxmemes
21251 readers
1532 users here now
Hint: :q!
Sister communities:
- LemmyMemes: Memes
- LemmyShitpost: Anything and everything goes.
- RISA: Star Trek memes and shitposts
Community rules (click to expand)
1. Follow the site-wide rules
- Instance-wide TOS: https://legal.lemmy.world/tos/
- Lemmy code of conduct: https://join-lemmy.org/docs/code_of_conduct.html
2. Be civil
- Understand the difference between a joke and an insult.
- Do not harrass or attack members of the community for any reason.
- Leave remarks of "peasantry" to the PCMR community. If you dislike an OS/service/application, attack the thing you dislike, not the individuals who use it. Some people may not have a choice.
- Bigotry will not be tolerated.
- These rules are somewhat loosened when the subject is a public figure. Still, do not attack their person or incite harrassment.
3. Post Linux-related content
- Including Unix and BSD.
- Non-Linux content is acceptable as long as it makes a reference to Linux. For example, the poorly made mockery of
sudoin Windows. - No porn. Even if you watch it on a Linux machine.
4. No recent reposts
- Everybody uses Arch btw, can't quit Vim, and wants to interject for a moment. You can stop now.
Please report posts and comments that break these rules!
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
This indicates that the PinePhone is encountering issues with the anx7688 modem driver and is receiving a Hard Reset (HARD_RST). The "idiot firmware is bored" is likely a humorous or sarcastic remark about the perceived quality or stability of the modem firmware causing this issue.
Based on the "bored" remake, I assume it probably has to do with some sort of wake state, where after some time of not receiving signals the modem hardware turns off then doesn't wake when signals are sent, requiring a hard reset to power on, but that's just speculation.
The PinePhone uses a power management processor called "CRUST" to achieve great standby numbers, but it can lead to issues with the modem waking up after deep sleep, so I believe my speculation is plausible.
Maybe a possible fix would to be to send the modem dummy "do nothing" packets or signals at repeating intervals to keep the hardware awake.
Edit : my speculation here seems incorrect, thus the solution is incorrect as well.
See below.
Ah, that makes sense! I didn't realise that it was the modem. It runs proprietary firmware, which developers can't really replace.
Edit: I noticed this message when trying to plug in USB devices while the keyboard addon is attached. For some reason USB devices only work without the keyboard. But I couldn't find any mention of this other than some old bug that has already been fixed.
The modem does have issues with waking up from sleep and I sometimes have to restart it with a script. WiFi has a similar problem.
I see, with that in mind the other lines in the output make more sense.
They show the modem's power path being enabled, the BC 1.2 result indicating the USB charging mode, and the change in the charge controller status. These lines are related to the modem's power management and charging behavior.
Finally, the output :
Is related to the anx76880 USB Type-C controller on the PinePhone, indicating a change in the CC (Communication Channel) status, specifically stating that CC1 is now in the SRC (Source) state and CC2 is in the SRC.Open state.
My speculation then, doesn't seem quite right.
It seems that the modem is behaving improperly when the USB power management state is changed. When plugging in the keyboard along with the other USB devices, it triggers a USB power state change, which makes sense as it needs power from the USB port to work, but the modem firmware seems to improperly handle that change and probably hard crashes and turns off the hardware, then requires a hard reset to power back on which is detected by the "idiot firmware is bored" mechanism that sends the hard reset signal.
As for :
That seems unrelated to this specific output. This maybe tangentially related however, pointing to a possible underlying root cause. I recommend looking into the journald logs and see if you can find other related messages. For this, Kjournald is a really good GUI that can help sort the messages.
Just to clarify, this is the keyboard addon that I was talking about. It has a built-in battery. It has a button on the side that lets you toggle the battery on and off. When I disable the battery and plug in a USB mouse, it will work, just as it does without the addon. But not with the battery enabled. So the extra battery must be interfering with the power to the USB port somehow. Surprisingly the result is the same even when plugging in a powered USB-C hub with the mouse plugged into it.
When I disable the battery, then plug in the mouse and then enable the battery again, the mouse will keep working.
I don't know much about the hardware, though. I'm even surprised that the modem has something to do with delivering power to devices.
Edit: I guess misunderstood some things. anx7688 seems to be a USB controller. The modem is separate from the SoC and is connected internally via USB. But maybe it's not a problem with the modem in this case, but with the controller.
That's my bad, I should've specified that anx7688 is the USB-C bridge driver controlling all USB devices along with the modem.
In this case the modem is being effected by the USB charging state & USB-C peripherals over CC pins from anx7688.
Your other issues are very likely tangentially related to the modem error messages caused by an underlying issue within the anx7688 USB-C bridge driver's controller.
I guess that's a pinephone thing, to keep modem and phone separate? How is it usually connected, with all the things it can do on your phone?
Yeah, it's to isolate the modem and I think it's done the same way in Librem 5. Both phones also have a killswitch that lets you power off the modem. As far as I know other phones instead have the modem built into the SoC and there is some isolation too, but I don't really know how that works and I guess it's done by the chip's manufacturer (but I'm not sure).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PinePhone