# RTL8192SE not loading firmware

## Atle

I have a problem with my RealTek wifi card. It appears it doesn't load the firmware.

Here's some relevant info.

From lspci:

```

03:00.0 Network controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. Device 8171 (rev ff)

   Kernel driver in use: rtl819xSE

   Kernel modules: r8192se_pci

```

From emerge showing installed packages:

```

*  net-wireless/rtl8192se

      Latest version available: 2.6.0019.1207.2010

      Latest version installed: 2.6.0019.1207.2010

      Size of files: 1,976 kB

      Homepage:      http://www.realtek.com.tw/

      Description:   RTL8191SE/8192SE wireless chipset driver

      License:       GPL-2

*  net-wireless/rtl8192se-firmware

      Latest version available: 2.6.0019.1207.2010

      Latest version installed: 2.6.0019.1207.2010

      Size of files: 1,976 kB

      Homepage:      http://www.realtek.com.tw/

      Description:   RTL8191SE/8192SE wireless chipset firmware

      License:       freedist

```

And what lshw has to say about it:

```

  *-generic DISABLED

       description: Wireless interface

       product: Illegal Vendor ID

       vendor: Illegal Vendor ID

       physical id: 0

       bus info: pci@0000:03:00.0

       logical name: wlan0

       version: ff

       serial: e0:91:53:2b:bc:39

       width: 32 bits

       clock: 66MHz

       capabilities: bus_master vga_palette cap_list ethernet physical wireless

       configuration: broadcast=yes driver=rtl819xSE driverversion=0019.1207.2010 firmware=0 latency=255 link=no maxlatency=255 mingnt=255 multicast=yes wireless=802.11bg

       resources: irq:19 ioport:e800(size=256) memory:febfc000-febfffff

```

What seems wrong is that it is categorized as "*-generic DISABLED" and firmware=0, instead of "*-network" and firmware=[numbers] lika another working computer shows.

wpa_supplicant only reports "Operation not permitted".

What could be wrong? Why is it not loading firmware?

----------

## cach0rr0

possibly blocked by RFKILL? 

easiest way to find out - fire up menuconfig, search for RFKILL, disable it in your kernel altogether, rebuild kernel, reboot into new kernel

----------

## Atle

RFKILL was compiled into the kernel, but removing it unfortunately didn't help. Just to make sure I also rebuilt the driver.

Also want to mention that I'm using wext as driver for wpa_supplicant, and ifconfig -a shows wlan0.

----------

## Atle

I also installed wireless-tools to test. iwconfig lists the device, but I'm not able to set essid, set power, use iwlist to scan or anything else I've tried.

----------

## cach0rr0

emerge net-wireless/iw

then do:

```

ifconfig wlan0 up

iw dev wlan0 scan

```

if the ifconfig command throws an error, check dmesg output for errors

if the scan using iw works, however, try wpa_supplicant with -Dnl80211

----------

## Gusar

What does dmesg say? And is the driver a module or compiled statically into the kernel? If statically, compile it as module instead. Or also compile the firmware into the kernel.

----------

## Atle

When booting, dmesg says (grep'ed on rtl or 819):

```

Linux kernel driver for RTL8192 based WLAN cards

rtl819xSE 0000:03:00.0: PCI INT A -> GSI 19 (level, low) -> IRQ 19

rtl819xSE 0000:03:00.0: setting latency timer to 64

rtl819xSE:ERR!!! _rtl8192_sta_up(): initialization is failed!

```

After booting dmesg is filling up with: pwrdown, 0x6(BIT6)=ff  (which is related, I will google it some more and see if I can find something)

ifconfig wlan0 up gives the error: SIOCSIFFLAGS: Operation not permitted

No messages in dmesg other than more pwrdown...

iw dev wlan0 scan reports: nl80211 not found

-Dnl80211 reports: 'nl80211' generic netlink not found

The drivers are compiled as modules. And I don't know how to compile the firmware into the kernel, since it comes in an ebuild and not the kernel itself.

----------

## cach0rr0

"SIOCSIFFLAGS: Operation not permitted "

this still looks like rfkill issue to me. 

if you have rfkill included in your kernel, and have already emerged the rfkill package, you might try:

```

rfkill block all

rfkill unblock all

```

and see if that doesnt free things up

----------

## Atle

I've recompiled with rfkill in the kernel, and modprobed rfkill, but rfkill does nothing.

```

# rfkill list

# rfkill unblock all

# ifconfig -a

....

wlan0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr e0:91:53:2b:bc:39

          BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1

          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0

          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0

          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000

          RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)

          Interrupt:19 Memory:f9498000-f9498100

```

Anyway, I've more or less given up and moved the box to a location where I have cabled net.

Maybe I'll try again a few kernel verisons later. Thanks for all the help though!

----------

## Abigail

I also have trouble the Realtek card. I have a Dell Inspiron mini 1018 (I used to consider Dells to be rather good computers but I _swear_ if I'm ever forced to use a Dell again I'll _kill_ someone! >_<) and as far as my research dug up I require the rtl8192ce driver. I found the one on Realtek's site, compiled and installed it, but it seems to not actually do anything. wlan0 doesn't show up or anything. Since then I tried three different kernels (2.6.3{6,8.1,9.1} respectively) each with the same amount of success, none. However digging through my logs (these are also a little wonky as I don't actually have any wired internet and only intermitted wireless so they're not well set up) I found that my kernel doesn't load the firmware. I tried using the firmware from the package I got from Realtek which I put in /lib/firmware, but that doesn't seem to make a difference. Any advice on what I could try next?

As a note on the above, I do definitely apologize for the sketchy details and lack of logs and all. But I can't find the logs on my Windows partitions and I don't have the time to reboot at the moment. So if anybody could give some suggestions on what I could try in the mean time I'll have logs when I get back online next time.

----------

## b0nafide

Wheeee Realtek wireless drivers

I discovered I had to make a symlink in /lib/firmware to make the firmware load. 

```
# ln -s /lib/firmware/RTL8192SE /lib/firmware/RTL8192SU
```

But that was a while ago...

----------

## chithanh

The problem is most likely rfkill related. The out-of-tree Realtek driver does not handle rfkill very well.

Try the rtl8192se driver which is included in kernel >=3.0_rc1, it uses firmware from the linux-firmware package.

----------

