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user9898

Member

Registered: 2020-06-26

Posts: 19  

[SOLVED] rtl8192cu firmware problems

Hello community,

My bananapi-r1 with beowolf is currently complaing about wifi firmware issues.

[   15.327210] rtl8192cu: Loading firmware rtlwifi/rtl8192cufw_TMSC.bin
[   15.329000] usb 2-1: firmware: failed to load rtlwifi/rtl8192cufw_TMSC.bin (-2)
[   15.345792] usb 2-1: Direct firmware load for rtlwifi/rtl8192cufw_TMSC.bin failed with error -2
[   15.346165] usb 2-1: firmware: failed to load rtlwifi/rtl8192cufw.bin (-2)
[   15.353159] usb 2-1: Direct firmware load for rtlwifi/rtl8192cufw.bin failed with error -2
[   15.353182] rtlwifi: Loading alternative firmware rtlwifi/rtl8192cufw.bin

First of all I would like to figure out which version the current firmware is.
Also I would like to know to which  package the firmware belongs to.

Usually this firmware should be part of the ' firmware-realtek' package, bur when I do a 'apt search for the package I get zero results for it.

Do I now need to compile a newer version of the firmware into my system ?

By using the 'make defconfig'  route ?

If yes, which version should I pick ?
Since the current kernel version is

Linux r1-devuan 4.19.0-17-armmp-lpae #1 SMP Debian 4.19.194-3 (2021-07-18) armv7l GNU/Linux

And the archive does not list a exact match for this patch version.

Thx for any responses.

Head_on_a_Stick

Member

From: London

Registered: 2019-03-24

Posts: 3,125  

Website

Re: [SOLVED] rtl8192cu firmware problems

$ apt-file search rtl8192cufw_TMSC.bin
firmware-realtek: /lib/firmware/rtlwifi/rtl8192cufw_TMSC.bin
$

The firmware is already installed and loaded onto the card, as indicated in the last line of your posted output.

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Brianna Ghey — Rest In Power

tuxd3v

Member

Registered: 2019-11-14

Posts: 183  

Re: [SOLVED] rtl8192cu firmware problems

hello user9898,

can you do a output of 'dmesg' to see if there are any problems loading the firmware on boot..?
also
a 'ls -l /lib/firmware' to see the firmware files you have..

does you have a initramfs?
if yes, maybe you need to update the initramfs( 'update-initramfs -u' )..

---

Best Regards,
tux

user9898

Member

Registered: 2020-06-26

Posts: 19  

Re: [SOLVED] rtl8192cu firmware problems

Here is the request dmesg output

sudo dmesg | grep wifi
[   15.327210] rtl8192cu: Loading firmware rtlwifi/rtl8192cufw_TMSC.bin
[   15.329000] usb 2-1: firmware: failed to load rtlwifi/rtl8192cufw_TMSC.bin (-2)
[   15.345792] usb 2-1: Direct firmware load for rtlwifi/rtl8192cufw_TMSC.bin failed with error -2
[   15.346165] usb 2-1: firmware: failed to load rtlwifi/rtl8192cufw.bin (-2)
[   15.353159] usb 2-1: Direct firmware load for rtlwifi/rtl8192cufw.bin failed with error -2
[   15.353182] rtlwifi: Loading alternative firmware rtlwifi/rtl8192cufw.bin

and here is the content of '/lib/firmware'

ls -al /lib/firmware/
insgesamt 60
drwxr-xr-x  7 root root  4096 Aug  8  2021 .
drwxr-xr-x 20 root root  4096 Aug  8  2021 ..
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root  4096 Aug  8  2021 av7110
-rw-r--r--  1 root root 13388 Aug 16  2015 carl9170-1.fw
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root  4096 Aug  8  2021 cis
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root  4096 Aug  8  2021 dsp56k
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root  4096 Aug  8  2021 isci
drwxr-xr-x  2 root root  4096 Aug  8  2021 keyspan_pda
-rw-r--r--  1 root root   999 Aug 16  2015 usbduxfast_firmware.bin
-rw-r--r--  1 root root  1770 Aug 16  2015 usbdux_firmware.bin
-rw-r--r--  1 root root  8192 Aug 16  2015 usbduxsigma_firmware.bin

and I did not yet compile any new firmware into this system.

tuxd3v

Member

Registered: 2019-11-14

Posts: 183  

Re: [SOLVED] rtl8192cu firmware problems

hello,

It seems that is ends loading it..

But you should have those files in '/lib/firmware', and from the listing you have done there, I don't see them there
find were they are..

find / -maxdepth 4 -name rtl8192cufw_TMSC.bin -o -name rtl8192cufw.bin

Probably in '/etc/firmware' ?

Have you installed the package 'firmware-realtek' ?
you will need 'non-free' in your '/etc/apt/sources.list'

apt-get update
apt-get install firmware-realtek

If nothing above solves it,
Sometimes the userpace helpers in devuan point to '/etc/firmware', so the symlink should work, but only if the above doesn't..
try to create a symbolic link in '/etc':

ln -s /lib/firmware /etc/firmware

Last edited by tuxd3v (2021-08-11 18:14:44)

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Best Regards,
tux

user9898

Member

Registered: 2020-06-26

Posts: 19  

Re: [SOLVED] rtl8192cu firmware problems

hi,
The ' / -maxdepth 4 -name rtl8192cufw_TMSC.bin -o -name rtl8192cufw.bin'
comes up with nothing.

And when I do a 'apt search' for the packag 'firmware-realtek' I also do get zero results back.

How should my 'sources list' look like

I changed to the following format.

# deb http://deb.devuan.org/merged beowulf main

deb http://deb.devuan.org/merged beowulf main contrib non-free
deb-src http://deb.devuan.org/merged beowulf main contrib non-free

deb http://deb.devuan.org/merged beowulf-security main contrib non-free
deb-src http://deb.devuan.org/merged beowulf-security main contrib non-free

# beowulf-updates, previously known as 'volatile'
deb http://deb.devuan.org/merged beowulf-updates main
deb-src http://deb.devuan.org/merged beowulf-updates main

Copying  the Debian format.
Hope that is correct.
But than I am also getting some strange error's when I am running a 'sudo apt update'

sudo apt update 
Holen:1 http://deb.devuan.org/merged beowulf InRelease [33,8 kB]
Holen:2 http://deb.devuan.org/merged beowulf-security InRelease [26,3 kB]
Holen:3 http://deb.devuan.org/merged beowulf-updates InRelease [26,7 kB]
Paketlisten werden gelesen... Fertig 
E: Release file for http://deb.devuan.org/merged/dists/beowulf/InRelease is not valid yet (invalid for another 18847 d 11 h 0 min 35 s). Updates for this repository will not be applied.
E: Release file for http://deb.devuan.org/merged/dists/beowulf-security/InRelease is not valid yet (invalid for another 18847 d 11 h 0 min 42 s). Updates for this repository will not be applied.
E: Release file for http://deb.devuan.org/merged/dists/beowulf-updates/InRelease is not valid yet (invalid for another 18847 d 11 h 0 min 42 s). Updates for this repository will not be applied.
blub@r1-devuan:~$ 

yeti

Member

From: I'm not here: U R halucinating

Registered: 2017-02-23

Posts: 335  

Re: [SOLVED] rtl8192cu firmware problems

$ date -d'2021-08-12 - 18847 days'
Mon  5 Jan 00:00:00 UTC 1970

No RTC?

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*𝚛𝚒𝚋𝚋𝚒𝚝!*

user9898

Member

Registered: 2020-06-26

Posts: 19  

Re: [SOLVED] rtl8192cu firmware problems

OH NO!!!
How could I miss that?!?
Yeah after installing ntp and ntpstat, the apt updates stopped complaining. And the 'apt search' also finally found the firmware-realtek package.

sudo dmesg | grep rtl
[sudo] Passwort für blub: 
[   14.608807] rtl8192cu: Chip version 0x11
[   14.693743] rtl8192cu: Board Type 0
[   14.693967] rtl_usb: rx_max_size 15360, rx_urb_num 8, in_ep 1
[   14.694120] rtl8192cu: Loading firmware rtlwifi/rtl8192cufw_TMSC.bin
[   14.699182] usb 2-1: firmware: direct-loading firmware rtlwifi/rtl8192cufw_TMSC.bin
[   14.730992] ieee80211 phy0: Selected rate control algorithm 'rtl_rc'
[   14.732495] usbcore: registered new interface driver rtl8192cu
[   14.751520] rtl8192cu 2-1:1.0 wlx3c330047d226: renamed from wlan0

Feeling like the idiot of the day here.aaarrghh!!!

tuxd3v

Member

Registered: 2019-11-14

Posts: 183  

Re: [SOLVED] rtl8192cu firmware problems

hello user9898,

Like yeti said above,
yeah, you need the date to be more or less updated to use apt..

Since you have installed 'ntp' package,
Any time that you loose the date( by any reason.. ), you can just update it, before using apt

ntpq -p

yeah your problem from the beginning was that you didn't had the 'firmware-realtek' package..
Don't worry,
The most important thing is that you already solved the problem

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Best Regards,
tux