Qualcomm Atheros QCA6174 monitoring mode receiving no data

[Patrick Daume <patrick.daume@dedrone.com>]

I've an SparkLan WPEQ-261ACN(BT) Qualcomm Atheros QCA6174 chipset on an 4.4.1 Kernel.
If I bring the chip in moinitor mode some Data-, QoS-, Acknowledgment-packets are notably missing.
For comparison I used tcpdump in parallel wich an Intel Wireless 3160 chip.
Only Beacons, Probe Requests and Response were recorded.

I tried to update the kernel to '4.9.140' and the firmware to 'WLAN.RM.4.4.1-00079-QCARMSWPZ-1' resulting in the monitoring mode Interface receiving no data at all.
I also tried different version of the firmware in combination with backports on the 4.4.1 Kernel. 
All relevant backports starting from 'v4.14-rc2' show the same behaviour in monitor mode 
(including tests with the 'WLAN.RM.4.4.1-00079-QCARMSWPZ-1', '4.4.1.c3', '4.4.1.c2' firmware in combination with 'v4.14-rc2', 'v4.20.17', 'v5.0.5' 'v5.1-rc2' backports)       

Can anyone point out which patches may be relavant?
Is the monitoring mode no longer supported with a newer firmware/driver version?
Is the lower amount of packages a firmware limitation or possible to work around in the driver?

lshw >>
     *-pci
          description: PCI bridge
          product: NVIDIA Corporation
          vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
          physical id: 1
          bus info: pci@0000:00:01.0
          version: a1
          width: 32 bits
          clock: 33MHz
          capabilities: pci normal_decode bus_master cap_list
          configuration: driver=pcieport
          resources: irq:388 memory:50200000-503fffff
        *-network
             description: interface
             product: QCA6174 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter
             vendor: Qualcomm Atheros
             physical id: 0
             bus info: pci@0000:01:00.0
             logical name: wlan0
             version: 32
             serial: [REMOVED]
             width: 64 bits
             clock: 33MHz
             capabilities: bus_master cap_list logical
             configuration: broadcast=yes driver=ath10k_pci driverversion=4.4.38-6-dedrone firmware=WLAN.RM.2.0-00180-QCARMSWPZ-1 latency=0 link=yes multicast=yes
             resources: irq:452 memory:50200000-503fffff

lshw >>
     *-pci:0
          description: PCI bridge
          product: NVIDIA Corporation
          vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
          physical id: 100
          bus info: pci@0000:00:00.0
          version: a1
          width: 32 bits
          clock: 33MHz
          capabilities: pci normal_decode bus_master cap_list
          configuration: driver=pcieport
          resources: irq:130 memory:32200000-322fffff
        *-network
             description: interface
             product: Wireless 3160
             vendor: Intel Corporation
             physical id: 0
             bus info: pci@0000:01:00.0
             logical name: wlan0
             version: 83
             serial: [REMOVED]
             width: 64 bits
             clock: 33MHz
             capabilities: bus_master cap_list logical
             configuration: broadcast=yes driver=iwlwifi driverversion=3.10.40 firmware=25.30.13.0 latency=0 link=yes multicast=yes
             resources: irq:643 memory:32200000-32201fff



lshw after kernel and firmware update >>
     *-pci
          description: PCI bridge
          product: NVIDIA Corporation
          vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
          physical id: 1
          bus info: pci@0000:00:01.0
          version: a1
          width: 32 bits
          clock: 33MHz
          capabilities: pci normal_decode bus_master cap_list
          configuration: driver=pcieport
          resources: irq:381 memory:40200000-403fffff
        *-network
             description: Wireless interface
             product: QCA6174 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter
             vendor: Qualcomm Atheros
             physical id: 0
             bus info: pci@0000:01:00.0
             logical name: wlan0
             version: 32
             serial: [REMOVED]
             width: 64 bits
             clock: 33MHz
             capabilities: bus_master cap_list logical wireless
             configuration: broadcast=yes driver=ath10k_pci driverversion=4.9.140-tegra firmware=WLAN.RM.4.4.1-00079-QCARMSWPZ-1 latency=0 link=yes multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11
             resources: irq:446 memory:40200000-403fffff


dmesg >>
[    8.125163] ath10k_pci 0000:01:00.0: enabling device (0000 -> 0002)
[    8.128283] ath10k_pci 0000:01:00.0: pci irq msi oper_irq_mode 2 irq_mode 0 reset_mode 0
[    8.407814] ath10k_pci 0000:01:00.0: Direct firmware load for ath10k/pre-cal-pci-0000:01:00.0.bin failed with error -2
[    8.407817] ath10k_pci 0000:01:00.0: Falling back to user helper
[    8.410447] ath10k_pci 0000:01:00.0: Direct firmware load for ath10k/cal-pci-0000:01:00.0.bin failed with error -2
[    8.410450] ath10k_pci 0000:01:00.0: Falling back to user helper
[    8.425668] ath10k_pci 0000:01:00.0: qca6174 hw3.2 target 0x05030000 chip_id 0x00340aff sub 1dac:0261
[    8.425672] ath10k_pci 0000:01:00.0: kconfig debug 1 debugfs 1 tracing 0 dfs 0 testmode 0
[    8.426406] ath10k_pci 0000:01:00.0: firmware ver WLAN.RM.4.4.1-00079-QCARMSWPZ-1 api 6 features wowlan,ignore-otp crc32 fd869beb
[    8.493987] ath10k_pci 0000:01:00.0: board_file api 2 bmi_id N/A crc32 4ed3569e


sudo ifconfig wlan0 down
iw dev wlan0 set type monitor
ifconfig wlan0 up
iw dev wlan0 set freq 2412
tcpdump -i wlan0

>>>
tcpdump: verbose output suppressed, use -v or -vv for full protocol decode
listening on wlan0, link-type IEEE802_11_RADIO (802.11 plus radiotap header), capture size 262144 bytes
0 packets captured
0 packets received by filter
0 packets dropped by kernel
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