Long delays in booting on 25.12.2

Installing and Using OpenWrt
1

I’m running a Linksys WRT32X with wifi turned off, the device is purely acting as a wired firewall/router. Since updating to 25.12.2 I’ve noticed significantly longer boot times.

Looking at dmesg output, there are appear to be three waits periods of ~60s each:
[ 20.400896] kmodloader: done loading kernel modules from /etc/modules.d/*
[ 20.467605] mwifiex_sdio mmc0:0001:1: Direct firmware load for nxp/rgpower_FR.bin failed with error -2
[ 20.477030] mwifiex_sdio mmc0:0001:1: Falling back to sysfs fallback for: nxp/rgpower_FR.bin
<FIRST WAIT>
[ 84.954124] mwifiex_sdio mmc0:0001:1: Direct firmware load for nxp/rgpower_US.bin failed with error -2
[ 84.963509] mwifiex_sdio mmc0:0001:1: Falling back to sysfs fallback for: nxp/rgpower_US.bin
<SECOND WAIT>
[ 146.391252] mwifiex_sdio mmc0:0001:1: Direct firmware load for nxp/rgpower_FR.bin failed with error -2
[ 146.400609] mwifiex_sdio mmc0:0001:1: Falling back to sysfs fallback for: nxp/rgpower_FR.bin
<THIRD WAIT>
[ 207.868189] mwifiex_sdio mmc0:0001:1: info: MWIFIEX VERSION: mwifiex 1.0 (15.68.7.p189)
[ 207.876371] mwifiex_sdio mmc0:0001:1: driver_version = mwifiex 1.0 (15.68.7.p189)
[ 210.045614] mvneta f1070000.ethernet eth0: Link is Down
[ 210.063226] mvneta f1070000.ethernet eth0: configuring for fixed/rgmii-id link mode
[ 210.071182] mvneta f1070000.ethernet eth0: Link is Up - 1Gbps/Full - flow control off

Is there any way to avoid this? I’m not sure if this came in with the general jump to 25.x, or more recently. I’ve only just really noticed it.

2

tried removing everything wifi related from the image ?

3

While I understand that would be a workaround for me, I wonder if it’s affecting anyone else who needs the wifi bits, and I don’t know how to do it.

Can you give me a pointer to a howto on removing the wifi components?

4

click the tiny arrow.
put a - if front of mwlwifi and mwlwifi-firmware-88w8964.
click request build, those packages will be excluded from the custom sysupgrade image generated for you.

there's also the kmod-mwifiex-sdio package, but I'm not 100% sure what it does exactly.

FYI, I don't own any Marvell hw, so this is all high level PowerPoint kind of stuff ,)

5

This kmod is for the third radio found on the Linksys WRT3200ACM and WRT32X devices that’s always been a bit of a thorn, remove it also.

6

Seems I’m not the only one, and it’s since 25.12.0:

I’ll try the solution mentioned in that post.

7

it does pretty much the same thing, but doesn't remove the modules, instead they're simply not loaded (blacklisted).

8

Only the outcome is similar, but blacklisting the modules is a better and cleaner way.

9

you do not need rebuild, just remove the kmods from command line or from web interface.

10

true, but rebuilding decreases the allocated flash space, removing/uninstalling them from a running system/image, doesn't.

11

sure but that packages are small, and also if he for some reason need wireless, he can reset to firstboot.

12

they could also install the packages, same same, but different.

13

Even if for some reason he needs wireless, he will still have issues with the third radio. It's cleaner to remove it forever.

14

well i do not have the wrt3200 here, but i never had problems with the third radio, ‘some tricks required’. now i’m not sure, something new on this version of wrt?

i even used that on 5ghz, for sure is a joke radio, but never had problem with that.

15

SDIO Marvell/NXP is a combo chip (Wi-Fi + Bluetooth) - OpenWrt doesn't normally use the SDIO Wi-Fi, but if it exists the driver still loads and tries to initialize it and that will incur delays for a device that most people will never use. That being said, it will continue to be built by default likely until EOL for the device for that extremely small category of niche users still needing a use for it.

FWIW, I haven't included it in any of my builds since 19.07. Mine is consigned as a bridged wireless AP running on Master. Anecdotal for sure, but I can't say I'm seeing noticable boot delays.

It is trivially easy to remove it with owut, ASU, and Firmware Selector.