can't find Intel wifi firmware files

[hammondo]

Context: running Debian 12.4 on brand new ASUS Zenbook 14. My error log says I need to install a file with name iwlwifi-ma-a0-gf-a0-NN.ucode where NN can be from 39 through 72. I have non-free-firmware in sources.list. Suggestions on how to find these files? It looks like they go in /lib/firmware....

Suggestions on where I might find these files?

[bbbhltz]

Hi. You could take a look here

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en ... eless.html
and here too
https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/ke ... .git/tree/

Can you give us the model of the network adapter in your computer? There might be another thread about that model with a solution that doesn't involve copying microcode off the web.

[Aki]

Help @hammondo,

Can you give us the model of the network adapter in your computer? There might be another thread about that model with a solution that doesn't involve copying microcode off the web.

If it can help, this is the terminal command to acquire informations about your network adapter:

Code: Select all

lspci -vnn -d ::02xx

Any way, you can get Intel iwlwifi firmware files package from here (for Debian Bookworm):

• Package: firmware-iwlwifi (20230210-5) [non-free-firmware]

If you have a working wired NIC, you can use the following commands (as root user):

Code: Select all

wget http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/pool/non-free-firmware/f/firmware-nonfree/firmware-iwlwifi_20230210-5_all.deb
dpkg -i firmware-iwlwifi_20230210-5_all.deb

[hammondo]

Hi. You could take a look here

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en ... eless.html
and here too
https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/ke ... .git/tree/

Can you give us the model of the network adapter in your computer? There might be another thread about that model with a solution that doesn't involve copying microcode off the web.

The adapter model as shown in the UEFI diagnostic test is “Intel® Wi-Fi 6E AX211 160MHz”. This matches info from Intel website so must be right.

I should probably add that the adapter fails the UEFI diagnostic test for Tx/Rx. This is a concern, although I think separate from the issue of the firmware file.

[hammondo]

Help @hammondo,

Can you give us the model of the network adapter in your computer? There might be another thread about that model with a solution that doesn't involve copying microcode off the web.

If it can help, this is the terminal command to acquire informations about your network adapter:

Code: Select all

lspci -vnn -d ::02xx

Any way, you can get Intel iwlwifi firmware files package from here (for Debian Bookworm):

• Package: firmware-iwlwifi (20230210-5) [non-free-firmware]

If you have a working wired NIC, you can use the following commands (as root user):

Code: Select all

wget http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/pool/non-free-firmware/f/firmware-nonfree/firmware-iwlwifi_20230210-5_all.deb
dpkg -i firmware-iwlwifi_20230210-5_all.deb

Output from lspci cmd is:

Code: Select all

0000:00:14.3 Network controller [0280]: Intel Corporation Device [8086:7e40] (rev 20)
	DeviceName: WLAN
	Subsystem: Intel Corporation Device [8086:0094]
	Flags: fast devsel, IRQ 18, IOMMU group 12
	Memory at 50232d4000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
	Capabilities: <access denied>
	Kernel modules: iwlwifi

6E AX211 in UEFI diagnostics page.

[hammondo]

(non-free-firmware pkg already installed)

[hammondo]

Hi. You could take a look here

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en ... eless.html
and here too
https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/ke ... .git/tree/

Would these two links be going to files that are necessarily part of bookworm non-free-firmware? I have looked a bit without finding any matches and I do have bookwowrm non-free-firmware included in sources.list. None of the usable files are in the /lib/firmware tree. I suppose they must be around somewhere if they have names... TIA

[bbbhltz]

Hi @hammondo

I also looked as best I could. The Kernel supports your adapter but the iwlwifi firmware package does not include the microcode (I may be reading the file contents incorrectly). I personally prefer solutions where I can apt install a package, or tweak an existing setting. You could always try copying one of those files to the directory as a test?

The other place has some things to try

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Networ ... ss#iwlwifi

[Aki]

Hello @hammondo,

May you report the full message log from the kernel about missing firmware ? You can use the command (root password required):

Code: Select all

su -l -c "journalctl -b --no-pager -g iwlwifi"

Does the WiFi network adapter regularly works ?
Thanks.

[wizard10000]

The firmware you need hasn't been backported yet but is in Testing.

firmware-iwlwifi has no dependencies so I'd suggest downloading it from Testing repos and manually installing it. You can grab it from here - https://packages.debian.org/trixie/all/ ... i/download

cd to where you downloaded the firmware and as root:

Code: Select all

apt install ./irmware-iwlwifi_20230625-2_all.deb

Reboot and your wireless should work just fine.

Good luck -

[hammondo]

Hello @hammondo,

May you report the full message log from the kernel about missing firmware ? You can use the command (root password required):

Code: Select all

su -l -c "journalctl -b --no-pager -g iwlwifi"

Does the WiFi network adapter regularly works ?
Thanks.

Here goes: (the adapter did work at time of purchase of machine)

Code: Select all

Feb 12 11:39:44 deb-zen kernel: iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: enabling device (0000 -> 0002)
Feb 12 11:39:44 deb-zen kernel: iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: firmware: failed to load iwlwifi-ma-a0-gf-a0-72.ucode (-2)
Feb 12 11:39:44 deb-zen kernel: iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: firmware: failed to load iwlwifi-ma-a0-gf-a0-72.ucode (-2)
Feb 12 11:39:44 deb-zen kernel: iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: Direct firmware load for iwlwifi-ma-a0-gf-a0-72.ucode failed with error -2

[last 3 lines repeated for 71, 70, ... , 39]

Feb 12 11:39:44 deb-zen kernel: iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: minimum version required: iwlwifi-ma-a0-gf-a0-39
Feb 12 11:39:44 deb-zen kernel: iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: maximum version supported: iwlwifi-ma-a0-gf-a0-72
Feb 12 11:39:44 deb-zen kernel: iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: check git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/firmware/linux-firmware.git

Thanks

[hammondo]

The firmware you need hasn't been backported yet but is in Testing.

firmware-iwlwifi has no dependencies so I'd suggest downloading it from Testing repos and manually installing it. You can grab it from here - https://packages.debian.org/trixie/all/ ... i/download

cd to where you downloaded the firmware and as root:

Code: Select all

apt install ./irmware-iwlwifi_20230625-2_all.deb

Reboot and your wireless should work just fine.

Good luck -

Thanks, this looks like a promising approach but I am not there yet.

The page for download is for 25 June 2023. I installed the .deb but still got the errors on reboot; none of the needed files was installed in /lib/firmware tree. The page also suggests putting trixie non-free-firmware in sources.list and this did not help either. I seem to be going in circles! The set of .ucode files that would solve the problem, according to the error log, all have names beginning with "iwlwifi-ma-a0-gf-a0-NN" where NN goes from 39 to 72 inclusive. If you have a suggestion as to where I can go in the Testing area to find these files that would be terrific. Thanks-

[Aki]

Hello,

Here goes: (the adapter did work at time of purchase of machine)

Code: Select all

Feb 12 11:39:44 deb-zen kernel: iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: enabling device (0000 -> 0002)
Feb 12 11:39:44 deb-zen kernel: iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: firmware: failed to load iwlwifi-ma-a0-gf-a0-72.ucode (-2)
Feb 12 11:39:44 deb-zen kernel: iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: firmware: failed to load iwlwifi-ma-a0-gf-a0-72.ucode (-2)
Feb 12 11:39:44 deb-zen kernel: iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: Direct firmware load for iwlwifi-ma-a0-gf-a0-72.ucode failed with error -2

[last 3 lines repeated for 71, 70, ... , 39]

Feb 12 11:39:44 deb-zen kernel: iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: minimum version required: iwlwifi-ma-a0-gf-a0-39
Feb 12 11:39:44 deb-zen kernel: iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: maximum version supported: iwlwifi-ma-a0-gf-a0-72
Feb 12 11:39:44 deb-zen kernel: iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: check git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/firmware/linux-firmware.git

Unfortunately, firmware files starting with "iwlwifi-ma-a0*" do not actually exist, neither in [1] nor in the Debian repositories as far I know.

I suppose these kernel messages can be ignored if the WiFi adapter is regularly working.

Please add in the subject of the first post the "iwlwifi-ma-a0-gf-a0-*" string to make it more informative to other users/readers with the same question; for example:

Can't find Intel wifi firmware files named "iwlwifi-ma-a0-gf-a0-*.ucode"

note: please, use code tags to include commands and/or their logs in the body of a message. I did it for you in previous posts.

--
[1] https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/firmware/linux-firmware.git/tree/

[wizard10000]

Unfortunately, firmware files starting with "iwlwifi-ma-a0*" do not actually exist, neither in [1] nor in the Debian repositories as far I know.

I couldn't find AX211 firmware on Intel's site either.

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en ... eless.html

[fu7zed]

Hi, has anyone found a fix for this ?

I have the same problem as OP.

- my machine wants the iwlwifi-ma-a0-gf-a0-... files (from errors listed in `dmesg`)
- current installed version of firmware-iwlwifi is 20230210-5 (from fresh debian 12.6 install), does not contain the files https://packages.debian.org/bookworm/al ... i/filelist
- not even available in the sid version 20240610-1: https://packages.debian.org/sid/all/fir ... i/filelist
- or even listed in the actual repo either... https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/ke ... .git/tree/

[bbbhltz]

that driver is referenced in the backport tree for iwlwifi here, in the "next" Kernel git here and the fixes too.

(This is all over my head, but I like searching for things)

Unfortunately, as everyone has reported, it is not included in the firmware-iwlwifi (even in sid). Does the card work on other distros? That card is from 2021 so there must be people out there with Linux that use it.

[fu7zed]

Well, Debian 12 simply does not support my new PC

- I ended up on an ubuntu forum post where the issue was solved with a newer kernel (6.5)
- bookworm has 6.1.99-1 and bookworm-backports has 6.9.7-1~bpo12+1: amd64, so I tried the upgrade
- I had a new set of iwlwifi file errors in `dmesg` (iwlwifi-ma-b0-gf4-a0-*), and figured out they were available in trixie https://packages.debian.org/trixie/all/ ... i/filelist
- so I upgraded to trixie and everything works as expected.

Unfortunately, as everyone has reported, it is not included in the firmware-iwlwifi (even in sid). Does the card work on other distros? That card is from 2021 so there must be people out there with Linux that use it.

One really strange thing is why the files needed changed when changing the kernel ... `ma-a0-gf-a0` to `ma-b0-gf4-a0`.
Looks like some naming convention was adopted then abandoned in later kernel versions.

Anyway thanks for the time you have spent searching on my issue

[Aki]

Hello,

Thank you for the feedback.

Please update the subject of the first post to make it useful to other users and forum readers, e.g.:

[Solved] Can't find Intel wifi firmware files iwlwifi-ma-a0-gf-a0-NN.ucode (where NN can be from 39 through 72)

Thanks.

[dnichel]

Hi all,

What was the fix for this issue? I see the same problem on a ThinkPad T16 Gen3 with Ubuntu 20.04.6 with kernel 5.15.0.125-generic.

>lsmod | grep wifi
iwlwifi 512000 0
cfg80211 958464 1 iwlwifi
compat 16384 2 iwlwifi,cfg80211

I also installed firmware-iwlwifi_20240909-2_all.deb but still there is no firmware found:

kernel: iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: Direct firmware load for iwlwifi-ma-a0-gf-a0-39.ucode failed with error -2
kernel: iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: no suitable firmware found!
kernel: iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: minimum version required: iwlwifi-ma-a0-gf-a0-39
kernel: iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: maximum version supported: iwlwifi-ma-a0-gf-a0-73
kernel: iwlwifi 0000:00:14.3: check git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/firmware/linux-firmware.git

There are no iwlwifi-ma-a0-gf* in /lib/firmware or in the linux-firmware.git.

Where are these files located?

Thank you!

[sunrat]

@dnichel Ubuntu doesn't have the same packages as Debian. You need to ask on Ubuntu forums.
From fu7zed post above:

- I ended up on an ubuntu forum post where the issue was solved with a newer kernel (6.5)...
- I had a new set of iwlwifi file errors in `dmesg` (iwlwifi-ma-b0-gf4-a0-*), ...
One really strange thing is why the files needed changed when changing the kernel ... `ma-a0-gf-a0` to `ma-b0-gf4-a0`.
Looks like some naming convention was adopted then abandoned in later kernel versions.

As your computer appears to be a current model with 14th Gen Intel processor, you likely need a newer operating system than Ubuntu 20.04.6