Rpi4 does not activate USB ports with firmware 20251208

[StuntsPT]

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name: Bug report
about: Create a report to help us fix your issue

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Describe the bug
Upgrading the firmware to 20251208 caused the OS to stop seeing the USB devices connected to the Rpi4's ports. Downgrading to 20251003 fixes the issue.

To reproduce
Update the firmware to 20251208 and an Rpi4 (8GB) and try using any USB port.

Expected behaviour
I expected the USB ports to be working as with 20251003.

Actual behaviour
I'm using Archlinux ARM (aarch64) on my Rpi4 (8GB). Last night I updated the OS to the latest packages, including the raspberrypi-bootloader package. The result was that with the 20251208 version, USB devices are not seen by the OS (an external, externally powered HDD, and a USB keyboard). Downgrading the package to 20251003 makes everything work again. Unfortunately I had not made any system updates since August, and as such I'm not sure where the bug came up. I was going to bisect it, but something else came up, and 20251003 was the latest version I tried that did not cause the bug (I did not test any version between 20251003 and 20251208).

System

• Which model of Raspberry Pi?
  • Rpi4 8Gb
• Which OS and version
  • Archlinux ARM (aarch64)
• Which firmware version
  • 20251208
• Which kernel version (uname -a)?
  • Linux pi4864 6.18.2-1-aarch64-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Sun Dec 21 18:20:45 UTC 2025 aarch64 GNU/Linux