Realtek: Unknown symbol devm_phy_package_join (err -2) for kernel 7.2.9

Support Kernel
1

As the upgrade to the NVIDIA driver version 615.71.09 brought me to a blackscreen on the last LTS kernel 6.18.55 as described here Nvidia_drm: Unknown symbol drm_hdcp_update_content_protection (err -2) I installed kernel 7.2.9 with mhwd-kernel to test it.

That didn’t help, and when I wanted to revert to NVIDIA driver version 580, I noticed I don’t have any network!

Lookin in dmesg, I noticed:

kernel: realtek: Unknown symbol devm_phy_package_join (err -2)
kernel: r8169 0000:2a:00.0: no dedicated PHY driver found for PHY ID 0x001cc800, maybe realtek.ko needs to be added to initramfs?

Back in LTS kernel 6.18.55, here is how it looks in dmesg:

r8169 0000:2a:00.0 eth0: RTL8168h/8111h, xy:xy:xy:xy:xy:xy, XID 541, IRQ 76
r8169 0000:2a:00.0 eth0: jumbo features [frames: 9194 bytes, tx checksumming: ko]
r8169 0000:2a:00.0 enp42s0: renamed from eth0
Generic FE-GE Realtek PHY r8169-0-2a00:00: attached PHY driver (mii_bus:phy_addr=r8169-0-2a00:00, irq=MAC)
r8169 0000:2a:00.0 enp42s0: Link is Down
r8169 0000:2a:00.0 enp42s0: Link is Up - 1Gbps/Full - flow control rx/tx

So, that’s a second case of “Unknown symbol” in a very short time, when I never encountered one in many many years of using Manjaro, which is very weird…

Though I can’t know if this network problem was already present with the previous 7.2 kernel version (7.2.3), as I wasn’t using it, so mods please move this post to “Kernel” rather than “System Update”, if necessary…

2

Topic moved to Support Support > Kernel as requested.

@fsw

You know you can do that yourself, right?

Categories can be changed when needed by clicking the edit button (pencil icon) next to the topic title – from there you will clearly see the dropdown selector to change categories. Once selected, click the tick to save, and the category will change to your selection.

3

Just a quick checkup: do you have linux-firmware-realtek installed?

5

Hi, thanks for your reply.
Yes, I do have it installed:

$ pacman -Qs realtek
local/linux-firmware-realtek 20260916-1
Firmware files for Linux - Firmware for Realtek devices

It always worked perfectly, and do so with the LTS 6.18.55.
I never tested before this problem a kernel of the 7.x serie on Manjaro, but I believe the test Fedora install I also have on my PC has a 7.1 kernel where it works flawlessly, so it might be a regresssion or a compilation issue with the 7.2.9 here…

EDIT: just updated Fedora 44, which was actually already using a 7.2 series kernel, from 7.2.11 to 7.2.13 with the same Realtek network card, so it looks more and more like a Manjaro/Arch specific problem to me…

And with kernel 7.3, which I just tested for my other problem with NVIDIA driver 615…

It has the same “Unknown symbol” issue with my Realtek network card as kernel 7.2!
The relevant part of dmesg:

realtek: Unknown symbol devm_phy_package_join (err -2)
r8169 0000:2a:00.0: no dedicated PHY driver found for PHY ID 0x001cc800, maybe realtek.ko needs to be added to initramfs?
r8169 0000:2a:00.0: probe with driver r8169 failed with error -49

I missed somehow the last line in my initial report, but it’s also there in the dmesg of kernel 7.2.

Trying to load it manually didn’t help, and is also consistant with the error message of dmesg:

$ sudo modprobe realtek
modprobe: ERROR: could not insert ‘realtek’: Unknown symbol in module, or unknown parameter (see dmesg)

EDIT: here is the relevant part of dmesg concerning my network card on the kernel 7.3.3-200 of Fedora 44 updated today (12 November), also installed on my PC…

r8169 0000:2a:00.0 eth0: RTL8168h/8111h, 04:7c:16:0e:48:15, XID 541, IRQ 76
r8169 0000:2a:00.0 eth0: jumbo features [frames: 9194 bytes, tx checksumming: ko]
ee1004 3-0052: 512 byte EE1004-compliant SPD EEPROM, read-only
r8169 0000:2a:00.0 enp42s0: renamed from eth0
ee1004 3-0053: 512 byte EE1004-compliant SPD EEPROM, read-only
Generic FE-GE Realtek PHY r8169-0-2a00:00: attached PHY driver (mii_bus:phy_addr=r8169-0-2a00:00, irq=MAC)
r8169 0000:2a:00.0 enp42s0: Link is Down
r8169 0000:2a:00.0 enp42s0: Link is Up - 1Gbps/Full - flow control rx/tx

No “Unknown symbol” there, and a working network card, so again, that’s a pure Manjaro issue…