Module loading problem since 5.3

From: Heiner Kallweit <hkallweit1@gmail.com>
To: Luis Chamberlain <mcgrof@kernel.org>
Cc: Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>,
	"netdev@vger.kernel.org" <netdev@vger.kernel.org>,
	Andrew Lunn <andrew@lunn.ch>,
	Florian Fainelli <f.fainelli@gmail.com>
Subject: Module loading problem since 5.3
Date: Thu, 10 Oct 2019 18:50:38 +0200	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <8132cf72-0ae1-48ae-51fb-1a01cf00c693@gmail.com> (raw)

Hi Luis,

as maintainer of the r8169 network driver I got user reports that
since 5.3 they get errors due to the needed PHY driver module
not being loaded. See e.g. following bug ticket:
https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=204343

As mentioned in comment 7 the PHY driver module should be loaded
at two places in the code:
1. phylib when probing the PHY (based on PHY ID)
2. r8169 driver uses the following to ensure PHY driver gets loaded before:
   MODULE_SOFTDEP("pre: realtek")

The issue doesn't exist on all systems, e.g. my test system loads
the PHY driver module normally. On affected systems manually adding
a softdep works around the issue and loads the PHY driver module
properly. Are you aware of any current issues with module loading
that could cause this problem?

Heiner