Re: issues to bring up two VSC8531 PHYs

[Florian Fainelli <f.fainelli@gmail.com>]

On 4/21/2023 3:55 PM, Ron Eggler wrote:
> 
> On 4/21/23 09:35, Andrew Lunn wrote:
>>>> You can also try:
>>>>
>>>> ethtool --phy-statistics ethX
>>> after appliaction of the above patch, ethtool tells me
>>>
>>> # ethtool --phy-statistics eth0
>>> PHY statistics:
>>>       phy_receive_errors: 65535
>>>      phy_idle_errors: 255
>> So these have saturated. Often these counters don't wrap, they stop at
>> the maximum value.
>>
>> These errors also indicate your problem is probably not between the
>> MAC and the PHY, but between the PHY and the RJ45 socket. Or maybe how
>> the PHY is clocked. It might not have a stable clock, or the wrong
>> clock frequency.
> 
> The man page (https://www.man7.org/linux/man-pages/man8/ethtool.8.html) 
> does not give any details about what phy_receive_errors or 
> phy_idle_errors refer to exactly, is there any documentation about it 
> that I could not find?

The statistics are inherently PHY specific and how a driver writer 
choses to map a name to a specific PHY counter is backed within the driver.
-- 
Florian