published February 14, 2026
In the Linux kernel, the following vulnerability has been resolved:
wifi: ath12k: fix dead lock while flushing management frames
Commit [1] converted the management transmission work item into a
wiphy work. Since a wiphy work can only run under wiphy lock
protection, a race condition happens in below scenario:
1. a management frame is queued for transmission.
2. ath12k_mac_op_flush() gets called to flush pending frames associated
with the hardware (i.e, vif being NULL). Then in ath12k_mac_flush()
the process waits for the transmission done.
3. Since wiphy lock has been taken by the flush process, the transmission
work item has no chance to run, hence the dead lock.
>From user view, this dead lock results in below issue:
wlp8s0: authenticate with xxxxxx (local address=xxxxxx)
wlp8s0: send auth to xxxxxx (try 1/3)
wlp8s0: authenticate with xxxxxx (local address=xxxxxx)
wlp8s0: send auth to xxxxxx (try 1/3)
wlp8s0: authenticated
wlp8s0: associate with xxxxxx (try 1/3)
wlp8s0: aborting association with xxxxxx by local choice (Reason: 3=DEAUTH_LEAVING)
ath12k_pci 0000:08:00.0: failed to flush mgmt transmit queue, mgmt pkts pending 1
The dead lock can be avoided by invoking wiphy_work_flush() to proactively
run the queued work item. Note actually it is already present in
ath12k_mac_op_flush(), however it does not protect the case where vif
being NULL. Hence move it ahead to cover this case as well.
Tested-on: WCN7850 hw2.0 PCI WLAN.HMT.1.1.c5-00302-QCAHMTSWPL_V1.0_V2.0_SILICONZ-1.115823.3