Well, if I did a "modprobe -vv mac80211" with version 5.3.8 the command would never finish, just for starters.

It'd get to this part...

modprobe: INFO: custom logging function 0x55ecfdcdfcd0 registered

I'll give you the lsmod output in a few minutes, need to change kernel versions again for that.

EDIT:

lsmod | grep mac80211

Gave no output at all.

so then try adding 'mac80211' in MODULES array under /etc/mkinitcpio.conf and rebuild the initramfs (mkinitcpio -p linux-libre)

FWIW, there seems to be multiple problems with v5.3.8 - a number of people in the past few days have reported that they can not boot v5.3.8, some on IRC and on the mailing list - this is the only other detailed bug report so far:

https://lists.parabola.nu/pipermail/assist/2019-November/001419.html

so far everyone has been able to fix the problem by downgrading to 5.3.7 or using the LTS kernel

bill-auger wrote:

FWIW, there seems to be multiple problems with v5.3.8 - a number of people in the past few days have reported that they can not boot v5.3.8, some on IRC and on the mailing list - this is the only other detailed bug report so far:

https://lists.parabola.nu/pipermail/assist/2019-November/001419.html

so far everyone has been able to fix the problem by downgrading to 5.3.7 or using the LTS kernel

that's another problem, the LTS kernel has got many changes like the stable kernel (depmod hook is now in kmod package, mkinitcpio preset now in mkinitcpio package instead of being in each kernel) but those changes shouldn't affect.

https://git.archlinux.org/svntogit/packages.git/commit/trunk?h=packages/kmod&id=9e2016961cc34830957ceee0593a80bfa9e05ba9
https://git.archlinux.org/svntogit/packages.git/commit/trunk?h=packages/mkinitcpio&id=c26aa976821e4089993118fe484f76fabff5b876
https://git.parabola.nu/abslibre.git/commit/libre/linux-libre?id=b6f181e99f4b88fc54de24532601804b9c7f073e
https://git.parabola.nu/abslibre.git/commit/libre/linux-libre-lts?id=89e3b03b151ac6bc972f4777ce4db00224609f44

• kmod 26-3
• mkinitcpio 27-1

if you don't, upgrade them and reinstall linux-libre

My system is entirely up-to-date aside from the linux-libre kernel. I think the issue might be related to the issue where some people can't boot at all - I'm noticing more than just the wifi not working under 5.3.8 at this point (power-off also takes ridiculously long).

I think for now, I'm just going to blacklist the kernel from upgrading.

have you tried with other 5.3.8+ kernels? like linux-libre-pck, linux-libre-hardened (x86_64 specific) or linux-libre-xtreme (from [kernels] repo)

BTW, I assume that you are in x86_64 right?

Yeah, I have an x86_64 architecture.

Have not tried any of the "alternative" kernels. Will try that tomorrow - if any of them work, though, it'd be even weirder.

The linux-libre-hardened 5.3.8 kernel works without errors, so whatever problem is occurring for me is either fixed via some other dependency update or only present in the "normal" linux-libre kernel.

Could be specific to you specifically with the stable kernel. Weird. Try removing and installing linux-libre (not reinstalling, run pacman -R and then pacman -S)

That was literally the first thing I tried. If that had fixed it, I wouldn't have even reported it as a bug.

try the new linux-libre 5.3.13 to see if the issue continues