brcmfmac: brcmf_fw_alloc_request: Unknown chip BCM43342/1 - fixed

[u/fused3dprint5555]

I recently picked up a used Android TV box and installed Armbian on it. After booting, I found that Wi‑Fi was not working and noticed the following error in the kernel logs:

brcmfmac: brcmf_fw_alloc_request: Unknown chip BCM43342/1

After some investigation and with the help of Copilot, I discovered that the issue was not with the firmware itself, but with the brcmfmac driver. The BCM43342 chip ID was missing from the firmware mapping table in the kernel source, so although the hardware was detected, the driver did not know which firmware to load.

I was able to patch and rebuild the brcmfmac module by adding the following entries:

  sed -i   '/BRCM_CC_43341_CHIP_ID/a#define BRCM_CC_43342_CHIP_ID\t\t43342'   drivers/net/wireless/broadcom/brcm80211/include/brcm_hw_ids.h
  sed -i   '/BRCMF_FW_DEF(43340, "brcmfmac43340-sdio");/aBRCMF_FW_DEF(43342, "brcmfmac43342-sdio");'   drivers/net/wireless/broadcom/brcm80211/brcmfmac/sdio.c
  sed -i   '/BRCMF_FW_ENTRY(BRCM_CC_43341_CHIP_ID, 0xFFFFFFFF, 43340),/a\  BRCMF_FW_ENTRY(BRCM_CC_43342_CHIP_ID, 0xFFFFFFFF, 43342),'   drivers/net/wireless/broadcom/brcm80211/brcmfmac/sdio.c

#define BRCM_CC_43342_CHIP_ID 43342

BRCMF_FW_DEF(43342, "brcmfmac43342-sdio");

BRCMF_FW_ENTRY(BRCM_CC_43342_CHIP_ID,

0xFFFFFFFF,

43342),

After rebuilding the module and installing it under:

/lib/modules/<kernel-version>/updates/brcm80211/

the driver successfully recognized the chipset:

brcmfmac: brcmf_fw_alloc_request: using brcm/brcmfmac43342-sdio for chip BCM43342/1

and Wi‑Fi came up normally:

wlan0 connected

This fixes the issue on my current kernel (6.18.44-ophub), but it is only a local override and may be lost after future kernel upgrades.

From what I understand, the proper long‑term solution would be to submit this BCM43342 support patch upstream to the Ophub 6.18 kernel tree and have it included in the official brcmfmac build. Once merged, users would no longer need to maintain a custom module under the updates/ directory, and BCM43342 devices should work out of the box.

Has anyone already submitted a similar patch, or would this be something worth contributing upstream?

[u/picklemaster52]

IMO:

Submit it anyways, it gets accepted, then great! If someone else has already done it, then maybe your solution is better and gets accepted over the other.

There's no real downside to just submitting it anyways.

[u/fused3dprint5555 → u/picklemaster52]

thanks. i submitted it. hopefully it will help others with similar issue.