[acx] failed to free tx buffers - maybe card too hot

Also getting something similar - If I leave the PC running for a couple of hours idle, I lose all connectivity through the ACX111 card. A reboot gets things back to normal. I've attached a section of my kern.log with all the errors, including the one above (the whole log file grew to 1.3GB!). The card runs without trouble in Windows and has done for over a year, perhaps an ACX111 Linux driver issue?

thanks for the bug report . which ubuntu version are you using?

Have encountered this issue in both Ubuntu 6.10 and Kubuntu 6.10 using the generic kernel. Do you need any other information such as my hardware configuration etc?

Regards,

Neil.

> Do you need any other information such as my hardware configuration etc?

not me, but probably a devel will later on. Thanks a lot for the fast reply :)

I'm using 6.10, but i also tried to install 6.04 again, and i had the problem there too.

I just had some look at the source doe of the driver. After i found this comment:

 /* nothing cleaned, yet (almost) no free buffers available?
  * --> clean all tx descs, no matter which status!!
  * Note that I strongly suspect that doing emergency cleaning
  * may confuse the firmware. This is a last ditch effort to get
  * ANYTHING to work again...
  *
  * TODO: it's best to simply reset & reinit hw from scratch...
  */

I tried to unload the acx modules after this error, and then reload it. But it didn't work, the link did not get ready.

Here is the dmesg output:

[17179907.100000] ACPI: PCI interrupt for device 0000:00:0d.0 disabled
[17179907.116000] usbcore: deregistering driver acx_usb
[17179913.520000] acx: Loaded combined PCI/USB driver, firmware_ver=default
[17179913.520000] acx: compiled to use 32bit I/O access. I/O timing issues might occur, such as non-working firmware upload. Report them
[17179913.540000] ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:0d.0[A] -> GSI 18 (level, low) -> IRQ 169
[17179913.540000] acx: found ACX111-based wireless network card at 0000:00:0d.0, irq:169, phymem1:0xFAC00000, phymem2:0xFAB00000, mem1:0xf8ac0000, mem1_size:8192, mem2:0xfa540000, mem2_size:131072
[17179914.276000] acx: form factor 0x01 ((mini-)PCI / CardBus), radio type 0x16 (Radia), EEPROM version 0x05, uploaded firmware 'Rev 1.2.1.34' (0x03010101)
[17179914.276000] acx v0.3.21: net device wlan0, driver compiled against wireless extensions 20 and Linux 2.6.17-10-generic
[17179914.276000] usbcore: registered new driver acx_usb
[17179914.576000] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlan0: link is not ready
[17179967.356000] acx: BUG: no free txdesc left
[17179969.856000] acx: BUG: no free txdesc left
[17179972.356000] acx: BUG: no free txdesc left
[17179974.856000] acx: BUG: no free txdesc left
[17179977.356000] acx: BUG: no free txdesc left
[17179979.856000] acx: BUG: no free txdesc left
[17179990.872000] acx: BUG: no free txdesc left
[17179992.372000] acx: BUG: no free txdesc left
[17179994.872000] acx: BUG: no free txdesc left
[17179997.372000] acx: BUG: no free txdesc left

Sounds your card has locked up on it's firmware. Will look into it.

I believe I've come to some sort of a solution with this issue. I noticed that the card was sharing an interrupt with the USB controller on my motherboard, and moving it to a different slot where it has its own exclusive IRQ seems to have stopped this from happening. I haven't seen anything in the kernel log since doing this and leaving the PC idle for a few hours, whereas before the log would fill with these entries. It's worth a try..

Regards,

Neil.

The observations on this forum thread seem to back up your claim, neilius:
  http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=303846

By the way, I too am seeing this issue -- or a similar one. I'm using an ACX111-based wireless card (a Netgear card, identified by `lspci` as "Texas Instruments ACX 111 54Mbps Wireless Interface"). I am not seeing any messages like "Driver using old /proc/net/wireless support, please fix driver !" in my syslog, however, I am seeing lots of lines like "acx: BUG: no free txdesc left". I am able to see wireless access points through network-manager, but I was not able to connect (using network-manager) to my WEP-encrypted access point. I could do more extensive testing if it'd be helpful (for instance, trying to connect via the command-line wireless tools).

encountering this issue too, I found this bug report, but on a "2.6.20-16-generic" kernel (ubuntu 7.04), not a 2.6.20-17 kernel...
what I can "say" (sorry for low-level technical information, but may help, never know) :
* I have an ATI video card (3D Rage Pro AGP 1X/2X), no nVidia (see link in Chris Wagner's Post)
* It not an "OS-shared PC" : 100% linux on it, no double-boot.
* IRQ 11 is shared betw. this PCI card ("Texas Instruments ACX 111 54Mbps Wireless Interface" just like Chris Wagner's one) and my Ethernet Card (Realtek RTL8029(AS) PCI)
* I've got this problem since ... tonight ... never got any kind of disconnection before (well, just when playing with wep settings, but nothing to do with it, is it ?)
* This PC has been under Ubuntu 6.10 upgr. to 7.04 and is up to date.
* No software installed betw. yesterday and tonight
* I see all my neighborhood wireless networks (incl. mine)
* I can connect to my essid from a laptop which gets good signal when placed besides the 1st PC.
* This problem came up from 1st boot today (eg. probably not a question of temperature)
If needed, I can spend time on contributing... but (sorry again) please be rather explicit for tests to do (eg which command,
which switches, etc..), for I am a quite young penguin for now...

Kindest Regards,
Damien

I am assigning this bug to the 'ubuntu-kernel-team' per their bug policy. For future reference you can learn more about their bug policy at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelTeamBugPolicies .

The 18 month support period for Edgy Eft 6.10 has reached it's end of life. As a result, we are closing the linux-source-2.6.17 Edgy Eft kernel task.

Hardy Heron 8.04 was recently released. It would be helpful if you could test the new release and verify if this is still an issue - http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download . You should be able to test your bug using the LiveCD. Please let us know your results. Thanks.

The Ubuntu Kernel Team is planning to move to the 2.6.27 kernel for the upcoming Intrepid Ibex 8.10 release. As a result, the kernel team would appreciate it if you could please test this newer 2.6.27 Ubuntu kernel. There are one of two ways you should be able to test:

1) If you are comfortable installing packages on your own, the linux-image-2.6.27-* package is currently available for you to install and test.

--or--

2) The upcoming Alpha5 for Intrepid Ibex 8.10 will contain this newer 2.6.27 Ubuntu kernel. Alpha5 is set to be released Thursday Sept 4. Please watch http://www.ubuntu.com/testing for Alpha5 to be announced. You should then be able to test via a LiveCD.

Please let us know immediately if this newer 2.6.27 kernel resolves the bug reported here or if the issue remains. More importantly, please open a new bug report for each new bug/regression introduced by the 2.6.27 kernel and tag the bug report with 'linux-2.6.27'. Also, please specifically note if the issue does or does not appear in the 2.6.26 kernel. Thanks again, we really appreicate your help and feedback.

Unfortunately this bug report is being closed because we received no response to the last inquiry for information. However, the Intrepid Ibex 8.10 Beta release was most recently announced - http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/intrepid/beta . If you are able to confirm this is still an issue with this most recent release please feel free to reopen this report. To reopen the bug report you can click on the current status, under the Status column, and change the Status back to "New".

Thanks,
Markus

Per a decision made by the Ubuntu Kernel Team, bugs will longer be assigned to the ubuntu-kernel-team in Launchpad as part of the bug triage process. The ubuntu-kernel-team is being unassigned from this bug report. Refer to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelTeamBugPolicies for more information. Thanks.