Direct firmware load for qat_4xxx_mmp.bin failed with error -2

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Environment

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP3

Situation

On a system with an Intel® Communications Chipset Series device, dmesg shows the following error messages:

[<timestamp>] 4xxx llll:mm:nn.f: Direct firmware load for qat_4xxx_mmp.bin failed with error -2

The <timestamp> will be the time since system start.
The llll, mm, nn and f will be numeric fields indicating the PCI bus position and device function.
The 4 in the 4xxx indicates the version of the device.
The error -2 indicates a file-not-found error for the qat_4xxx_mmp.bin firmware file for the QAT device.

SLES15 SP3 ships with the driver (qat driver) for all current versions of the device.
The error indicates that the QAT firmware isn't installed.

If PF/VF devices exist can be checked with:
# lspci -d 8086:4940 PF device
#lspci -d 8086:4941 VF device

The VF device will not be visible if the firmware is missing.

Another indication is if these two files don't exist:
/lib/firmware/qat_4xxx.bin
/lib/firmware/qat_4xxx_mmp.bin

Resolution

Please update to SLES 15 SP4 or a higher release as the required firmware files will be included in the kernel-firmware-intel package.

Disclaimer

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