sudo fails and Kernel bug

**TheFu** · August 24th, 2020

Code:

Aug 22 09:27:33 Arctic kernel: [ 3070.906282]  ? ath9k_wmi_cmd+0x1a5/0x1c0 [ath9k_htc]
Aug 22 09:27:33 Arctic kernel: [ 3070.906287]  skb_release_all+0x26/0x30
Aug 22 09:27:33 Arctic kernel: [ 3070.906293]  kfree_skb+0x32/0xa0
Aug 22 09:27:33 Arctic kernel: [ 3070.906301]  ath9k_wmi_cmd+0x1a5/0x1c0 [ath9k_htc]
Aug 22 09:27:33 Arctic kernel: [ 3070.906311]  ath9k_regread+0x48/0x70 [ath9k_htc]
Aug 22 09:27:33 Arctic kernel: [ 3070.906332]  ar9285_hw_pa_cal+0x317/0x520 [ath9k_hw]
Aug 22 09:27:33 Arctic kernel: [ 3070.906348]  ar9002_hw_pa_cal+0x36/0x60 [ath9k_hw]
Aug 22 09:27:33 Arctic kernel: [ 3070.906362]  ar9002_hw_calibrate+0x102/0x440 [ath9k_hw]
Aug 22 09:27:33 Arctic kernel: [ 3070.906372]  ath9k_htc_ani_work+0x118/0x1a0 [ath9k_htc]

Is the crash.
ath9k is the driver for that wifi USB device. So, yes, the driver or kernel has a bug that is causing the crash. Drivers are loaded into the kernel for performance reasons, but a mistake that bring down the entire machine.

There could be other issues in other drivers, but this is certainly one. From memory, the bug link above says the kernel is accessing the driver memory that has been freed already. Usually, kernel code wouldn't be specialized for loading, using, unloading and driver, so any problem for this device would be expected to impact every other similar device too. That doesn't appear to be the situations, so I'm strongly guessing the problem is in the driver software and the kernel you have just happens to do things in a way that causes this bug to crash the system.

Those are my guesses. I could be wrong. My memory could be off, but the fix is a newer kernel which seems to be available, just not in the distribution yet.