Minix u9-h, wifi + tethering, connman

1st Official Post

    Hello people,


    I have a problem with tethering on the internal wifi chip of a minix u9-h box.

    The release is LibreELEC-S912.arm-8.2.5.1-444-1000nits.tar

    Using the kodi gui I can connect to an existing wifi network.

    Using connmanctl however doesn't.

    Bash
    connmanctl
connmanctl> tether wifi off
connmanctl> enable wif
connmanctl> scan wifi
(... waiting ...)
connmanctl> services

    services just shows the wired connection:

    *AO Wired ethernet_a01e0b0a3835_cable

    After a while I receive:

    Error /net/connman/technology/wifi: Did not receive a reply. Possible causes include: the remote application did not send a reply, the message bus security policy blocked the reply, the reply timeout expired, or the network connection was broken.

    Repeating the whole procedure with an external wifi adapter works without problems!

    Tethering also works with the adapter using "connmanctl tether wifi on ssid_xyz secretpsk"

    If I enable tethering on the internal wifi (usb adapter disconnected), the access point appears, but if I try to connect my android phone stops showing "waiting for ip ..." and my laptop does also not connect (even if I set its IP manually).

    At this point I have no idea where to continue.

    I bough the minix u9-h mainly because of the good wifi and the large heatsink.

    It shouldn't be a driver issue, since connecting via gui perfectly works. Help would be really great <3. Could upgrading to libreelec 9 be a solution?

    Here is my dmesg log during the tethering procedure.

    After enableing tethering:

    [ 847.322751@7] CFG80211-ERROR) wl_cfg80211_del_station : Disconnect STA : ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff scb_val.val 3

    [ 847.324165@5] wl_iw_event: Link Down with BSSID=ac:83:f3:b4:49:2e

    [ 847.361595@5] wl_host_event: Invalid ifidx 0 for wl0

    [ 847.361789@5] wl_host_event: Invalid ifidx 0 for wl0

    [ 847.362366@7] CFG80211-ERROR) wl_cfg80211_set_mgmt_vndr_ies : vndr ie set error : -30

    [ 847.362375@7] CFG80211-ERROR) wl_cfg80211_clear_per_bss_ies : vndr_ies clear failed. Ignoring..

    [ 847.362704@7] CFG80211-ERROR) wl_cfg80211_set_mgmt_vndr_ies : vndr ie set error : -30

    [ 847.362710@7] CFG80211-ERROR) wl_cfg80211_clear_per_bss_ies : vndr_ies clear failed. Ignoring..

    [ 847.808079@2] CFG80211-ERROR) wl_cfg80211_disconnect : Reason 3

    [ 847.809540@2] CFG80211-ERROR) wl_cfg80211_del_station : Disconnect STA : ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff scb_val.val 3

    [ 847.814516@2] netdev_ifidx(3), chan_type(1) target channel(1)

    [ 847.853203@5] wl_host_event: Invalid ifidx 0 for wl0

    [ 847.917906@5] wl_iw_event: Link UP with BSSID=ac:83:f3:b4:49:2e

    [ 847.917954@6] CFG80211-ERROR) wl_notify_connect_status_ap : ** AP/GO Link up event **

    after trying to connect to the AP with my android phone

    [ 875.709644@6] wl_notify_connect_status_ap: connected device 44:81:eb:8e:df:f3

    [ 875.709906@4] CFG80211-ERROR) wl_cfg80211_change_station : WLC_SCB_AUTHORIZE sta_flags_mask not set

    after waiting some time

    [ 949.317149@6] CFG80211-ERROR) wl_notify_connect_status_ap : event WLC_E_DEAUTH_IND(6) status 0 reason 3

    [ 949.317170@6] wl_notify_connect_status_ap: deauthenticated device 44:81:eb:8e:df:f3

    [ 949.317237@6] CFG80211-ERROR) wl_notify_connect_status_ap : event WLC_E_DISASSOC_IND(12) status 0 reason 8

    [ 949.317249@6] wl_notify_connect_status_ap: disassociated device 44:81:eb:8e:df:f3

    [ 949.318527@7] CFG80211-ERROR) wl_cfg80211_del_station : Disconnect STA : 44:81:eb:8e:df:f3 scb_val.val 3

    I opened the box and it has a ap6356s module installed.

    The internal model number is: NEO U9-H 9CXB-C7926-162

    Which command could I use on libreelec to show driver and hardware information?

    #1

    dmesg | pastebinit

    http://ix.io/1naj

    #2

    ethtool -i wlan0

    driver: wl

    version: 0

    firmware-version:

    expansion-rom-version:

    bus-info:

    supports-statistics: no

    supports-test: no

    supports-eeprom-access: no

    supports-register-dump: no

    supports-priv-flags: no

    • Official Post

    AP6352S is a Broadcom BCM4356 device. It's hard to gauge what state support for that chipset is like on the 3.14 kernel but an educated guess is that it's using an older and mildly buggy hacked-into-kernel driver and outdated firmware. There isn't much we can do about that on the current codebase and it's not currently possible to run Kodi with newer kernels that probably improve things on S912 hardware (no Linux drivers for the Mali T820 chip). It's not the answer you'll want, but the best way forwards is using a cheap "proper router" as an Ethernet bridge.

    Okay, thank you very much chewitt!

    While doing my research before purchasing I got the impression,

    that the u9-h would be a future proof libreelec hardware with 10 bit hdr support.

    At this time I didn't pay attention to the Amlogic/S912 anti-support.

    By now it's also discussed in the sticky-thread a bit more clear:

    Choosing a S905 / S905X / S905D / S905W / S912 box guide

    So I will use ethernet for now and wait for amlogic change their mind or supported new devices with S905D2/X2 or S922

    ... and dream of a widely supported raspberry pi 4(k).

    • Official Post

    Amlogic are not going to license Linux mali for S912 as it's now an "old" chip (there are newer chips in their line-up). In the longer term we hope to use the panfrost open-source alternative to mali, but that initiative is still some way from having code that will be able to support Kodi.