Re: 15.0-RELEASE boot panic when if_iwm_load="YES"

hi!

The firmware loading migrated from "build all firmware as kernel
modules' to 'support loading firmware as files'.
However, that's resulted in a couple behavioural changes:

* there's a known bug in the firmware loader where if it's invoked by
a driver before / is available, the kernel panics.
* .. and yes, since they're files now, but drivers have no way of
waiting cleanly until the filesystems are available,
  things go sideways.

Just add this to /etc/rc.conf :

kld_list="if_iwm"

(if you have an existnig kld_list line in there, add if_iwm to it instead)

Then run "fwget" to fetch the latest firmware needed, and then reboot.


-a

On Sat, 29 Nov 2025 at 08:01, Karlo Miličević <karlo98.m@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I know 15.0 is not released yet but the image is up and I wanted to try it out on real hardware.
>
> After I put if_iwm_load="YES" in /boot/loader.conf it fails to boot.
> After saying it's loading loader.conf and briefly flashing FreeBSD logo I get a panic:
>
> panic: page fault
> cpuid = 0
> time = 1
> KDB: stack backtrace:
> #0 0xffffffff80bbe1ed at kdb_backtrace+0x5d
> #1 0xffffffff80b71576 at vpanic+0x136
> #2 0xffffffff80b71433 at panic+0x43
> #3 0xffffffff81079f69 at trap_pfault+0x3c9
> #4 0xffffffff8104ff18 at calltrap+0x8
> #5 0xffffffff80c4f974 at namei+0xe4
> #6 0xffffffff80c768b2 at vn_open_cred+0x5b2
> #7 0xffffffff80bb9ef4 at loadimage+0x274
> #8 0xffffffff80bd4de2 at taskqueue_run_locked+0x182
> #9 0xffffffff80bd5fb2 at taskqueue_thread_loop+0xc2
> #10 0xffffffff80b2786b at fork_exit+0x7b
> #11 0xffffffff81050f3e at fork_trampoline+0xe
> Uptime: 1s
> Automatic reboot in 15 seconds - press a key on the console to abort
>
> Am I doing something wrong?
> IIRC this worked on 14.3 on the same hardware.