Missing firmware for Broadcom AP6255/AP6212 on Z83

[marcfehling]

A fresh installation of the latest stable release does not list the WiFi/BT module Broadcom AP6255/AP6212 in my Mini-PC AZW Z83-II.

Common Linux distributions do not come with the proper firmware according to this thread. The missing file may be added via

wget -O /lib/firmware/brcm/brcmfmac43455-sdio.txt https://github.com/khadas/android_hardware_amlogic_wifi/raw/b6709758755568e4a0ff6e80993be0fc64c77fb9/bcm_ampak/config/6255/nvram.txt

Be careful to update the MAC address by adjusting the line starting with macaddr=.

However, LibreELEC does not allow access to /usr/lib as stated in this thread. A custom build is mandatory to provide the file.

I would like to ask you if you would either add the missing firmware (if legal), or could provide a hint on where to place the missing firmware for a custom build.

Meanwhile, I'll give a nightly build try...

[marcfehling]

Grr, just stumbled over this commit c3841e5 which was part of the Christmas release, thus should be fixed upstream.

I'll check the nightly build and will let you know about the results. Sorry for any inconvenience.

[marcfehling]

Nope. Even in the latest nightly build, the Broadcom network adapter is missing in lspci.

The required firmware brcmfmac43455-sdio.txt is not available in /usr/lib/firmware/brcm. The folder is not empty, but this particular file is missing.

So I have to give a custom build a try. Do you know where to place the missing firmware? Would adding the wget line from above work, when I place it at the same position as changes were made in c3841e5 ?

[gouchi]

We will have to enable wlan-firmware-aml for Generic platform.

I will try to provide testing image ASAP.

Thank you.

[gouchi]

Hi,

Please try this testing build.

Thank you.

[marcfehling]

I'll give it a try next week. Sorry for the delay.

[marcfehling]

I installed your testing build on my device. Unfortunately, there is still no WiFi/BT module available, i.e. none is listed in lspci :-(

[marcfehling]

A guy named Liam Ryan managed to get WiFi running on this device with Ubuntu and published a manual in his blog.

I would like to give it a try with a custom build. Do you have a hint on how to supply individual firmware?

[marcfehling]

/lib/firmware/brcm/ contains several files related to bcm43455, but none is related to the SDIO device that seems to be installed. /sys/firmware/efi/efivars/ is empty.

# find /lib/firmware/brcm/ -name "*43455*"
/lib/firmware/brcm/fw_bcm43455c0_ag.bin
/lib/firmware/brcm/fw_bcm43455c0_ag_apsta.bin
/lib/firmware/brcm/fw_bcm43455c0_ag_p2p.bin

---

I took a closer look on this thread. The author had similar issues with ubuntu running on kernel 4.13. His dmesg output differs from mine.

# dmesg | grep -i sdio
[    0.990906] mmc1: new ultra high speed SDR104 SDIO card at address 0001

The custom build of Lakka you provided runs on kernel 4.11.12-rt4. Maybe this issue has been addressed in a more recent kernel? Would an update to the latest LibreELEC 9.0.1 release be worth a try?

[marcfehling]

I may try out your other custom build based on LE 9 that was related to a different issue #631 (comment).

[marcfehling]

Hooray! The custom build based on LE 9 #631 (comment) did the trick! Correct firmware seems to be loaded, and there are wireless networks showing up in the XMB menu. I'll check whether Bluetooth controllers connect soon.

# dmesg | grep "brcm"
[   10.653962] bluetooth hci0: Direct firmware load for brcm/BCM4345C0.hcd failed with error -2
[   10.653971] Bluetooth: hci0: BCM: Patch brcm/BCM4345C0.hcd not found
[   12.723950] brcmfmac: brcmf_fw_alloc_request: using brcm/brcmfmac43455-sdio for chip BCM4345/6
[   12.724113] usbcore: registered new interface driver brcmfmac
[   12.838390] brcmfmac: brcmf_fw_alloc_request: using brcm/brcmfmac43455-sdio for chip BCM4345/6
[   12.838490] brcmfmac mmc1:0001:1: Direct firmware load for brcm/brcmfmac43455-sdio.clm_blob failed with error -2
[   12.838498] brcmfmac: brcmf_c_process_clm_blob: no clm_blob available (err=-2), device may have limited channels available
[   12.838928] brcmfmac: brcmf_c_preinit_dcmds: Firmware: BCM4345/6 wl0: Mar  1 2015 07:29:38 version 7.45.18 (r538002) FWID 01-6a2c8ad4

Even audio seems to be supported now.

[    2.375947] [drm] HDaudio controller not detected, using LPE audio instead
[    2.507736]   No soundcards found.
[   10.419948] input: Intel HDMI/DP LPE Audio HDMI/DP,pcm=0 as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:02.0/hdmi-lpe-audio/sound/card0/input6
[   10.420132] input: Intel HDMI/DP LPE Audio HDMI/DP,pcm=1 as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:02.0/hdmi-lpe-audio/sound/card0/input7
[   10.420264] input: Intel HDMI/DP LPE Audio HDMI/DP,pcm=2 as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:02.0/hdmi-lpe-audio/sound/card0/input8
[   10.804090] input: bytcr-rt5651 Headset as /devices/pci0000:00/808622A8:00/bytcr_rt5651/sound/card1/input9

I'll let you know once I performed some tests on WiFi/BT (and audio).

[marcfehling]

WiFi/BT works. The kernel update did the trick :)

I connected a DS4 controller via BT. However, inputs were duplicated once wireless. I guess one is able to fix this following this manual.

Audio via HDMI works when I pick hdmi:CARD=HDMI,DEV=2 as the audio device.

However, the output via the audio jack does not. There is no sound ouput via default:bytcrrt5651 or sysdefault:bytcrrt5651 as audio devices, and I cannot change the audio device automatically via the GUI anymore after a reboot. I'll investigate further and would open a different issue, since this has nothing to do with the original topic.

Are you planning to use LE9 for future releases?

EDIT: Maybe this issue (plbossart/UCM#13 (comment), plbossart/UCM#13 (comment), plbossart/UCM#13 (comment)) would be a good starting point to tackle the audio jack problem.

[gouchi]

Thank you for the feedback.

Maybe it needs a kernel more up to date than the one we are currently using.

Yes, we will use LE9 for Lakka version 3 as per this ticket.

I will close this issue as it is fixed using Lakka based on LE9.