Missing dkms.conf file, prevents dkms autoinstall from workin (included on kernel updates)

[KayJay7]

Version of xpadneo

v0.9-135-g5df12b2
v0.9-137-g13dd267
v0.9-143-g5970c4c
unclear

Version of other software

dkms: 3.0.11
fedora: 38
kernel: 6.3.x

Severity / Impact

• [ ] I've read the docs and the bug reporting instructions
• [ ] I've applied the latest firmware update to the controller
• [ ] I've tried disabling or running without above mentioned software
• [ ] It does not work at all
• [x] It used to work in a previous version
• [ ] It mostly works but sometimes it doesn't
• [x] I found a work-around
  • You can still manually install with sudo ./install.sh
• [ ] I probably didn't figure it all out but it's too early to give up
• [ ] I don't know how to ...
• [ ] It's too complicated
• [ ] Fantastic work but ...
• [ ] I can code and I want to help

Describe the Bug

When running dkms autoinstall (either manually or at kernel update) the command fails with output:

Error! Could not locate dkms.conf file.
File: /var/lib/dkms/hid-xpadneo/v0.9-135-g5df12b2/source/dkms.conf does not exist.

the latest version installed is 143, but there are still files from versions 135 and 137 in my system. I guess autoinstall stops at the first error. Anyway, running tree /var/lib/dkms/hid-xpadneo/ I can see the dkms.conf file is missing in the other versions as well.

I could try deleting older versions, but I don't think it will make a difference. And I'd rather not manually touch those files, as I don't know if they are also "tracked" in some dkms' database or something.

Autoinstall used to work on some previous version of kernel/dkms/driver. I cannot pinpoint which one is to blame. My best bet is a mixture of dkms and driver. Older versions still on my system did not have the file, but maybe older versions of dkms didn't care.

Steps to Reproduce

Run dkms autoinstall.
Error.

Expected Behavior

I expected the module to be automatically installed.

System Information

# uname -a
Linux thinkpad-alvise 6.3.7-200.fc38.x86_64 #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Fri Jun  9 15:21:11 UTC 2023 x86_64 GNU/Linux

# xxd -c20 -g1 /sys/module/hid_xpadneo/drivers/hid:xpadneo/0005:045E:*/report_descriptor | tee >(cksum)
xxd: /sys/module/hid_xpadneo/drivers/hid:xpadneo/0005:045E:*/report_descriptor: No such file or directory
4294967295 0

This doesn't look informative

Additional Context

Installation output:

Error! Could not locate dkms.conf file.
File: /var/lib/dkms/hid-xpadneo/v0.9-135-g5df12b2/source/dkms.conf does not exist.
* creating dkms.conf
* adding hid-xpadneo-v0.9-143-g5970c4c folder to /usr/src
* installing module (using DKMS)
Sign command: /lib/modules/6.3.7-200.fc38.x86_64/build/scripts/sign-file
Signing key: /var/lib/dkms/mok.key
Public certificate (MOK): /var/lib/dkms/mok.pub
Creating symlink /var/lib/dkms/hid-xpadneo/v0.9-143-g5970c4c/source -> /usr/src/hid-xpadneo-v0.9-143-g5970c4c

Building module:
Cleaning build area...
make -j8 KERNELRELEASE=6.3.7-200.fc38.x86_64 -C /lib/modules/6.3.7-200.fc38.x86_64/build M=/var/lib/dkms/hid-xpadneo/v0.9-143-g5970c4c/build/src VERSION=v0.9-143-g5970c4c modules...
Signing module /var/lib/dkms/hid-xpadneo/v0.9-143-g5970c4c/build/src/hid-xpadneo.ko
Cleaning build area...

hid-xpadneo.ko.xz:
Running module version sanity check.
 - Original module
   - This kernel never originally had a module by this name
 - Installation
   - Installing to /lib/modules/6.3.7-200.fc38.x86_64/extra/

Running the post_install script:
Not disabling ERTM, kernel version doesn't require it...
Installing modalias database...
Installing udev rules...
Reloading udev...
depmod.....

It looks like it's creating the file, but there is no file in the folder

[kakra]

xpadneo does not have a static dkms.conf. It will be created by the install.sh script. I'm not sure if we could avoid that somehow in the future. I'll leave this opened as a reminder.

[KayJay7]

The problem I had with autoinstall was solved by removing the old v0.9-135 files, apparently the source directory for the older (with it's conf file) was deleted from /usr/src but the files in /var/lib/dkms weren't. So the file wasn't missing, the whole folder was. I think there's some issue with the cleanup of older versions.

Running ./uninstall.sh removes the source but not the other files.

Leaving this open as a reminder, should probably rename the issue to the real problem.

[kakra]

Yeah, I think I've seen this before that older versions weren't cleaned up properly but I'm not sure why. Last time I checked, it seems because dkms changed how versions are listed, and our uninstaller could no longer properly get the list of versions. When that happened, even the fixed version couldn't clean up: The folder structure was somehow broken.