We are still trying to track this down but want to reach out to the community and see if there is something obvious we are missing.  This happens to be a CentOS 7 based host with DPDK 22.11.1 in use.  We have obtained the latest compatible Intel drivers and DDP from https://sourceforge.net/projects/e1000/files/ice%20stable/ , at this time that is version 1.6.7 with DDP 1.3.26.0.  As best as we can tell, testpmd is still loading the OS default DDP 1.3.4.0.  The updated DDP package is located in /usr/lib/firmware/updates/intel/ice/ddp/ice.pkg.

I've added some additional log lines to ice_ethdev.c and ice_ddp.c to try and start debugging.  I've attached what I believe is the relevant information below.  Quickly jumping out at me is that the pkg_name going into `load_fw` in ice_ethdev.c appears to be the desired path however in `ice_download_pkg` says it does not include a signature.  The hex dump from the desired file appears to show a signature which makes us think this file isn't actually being loaded/utilized.

We will continue trying to debug this too but any additional assistance would be greatly appreciated.

----

EAL: Probe PCI driver: net_ice (8086:1593) device: 0000:ca:00.2 (socket 1)
1822 pkg: /lib/firmware/updates/intel/ice/ddp/ice-40a6b7ffff843810.pkg
1829 pkg: /lib/firmware/intel/ice/ddp/ice-40a6b7ffff843810.pkg
1835 pkg: /lib/firmware/updates/intel/ice/ddp/ice.pkg
1846 pkg: /lib/firmware/updates/intel/ice/ddp/ice.pkg
dl wo sig
ice_load_pkg_type(): Active package is: 1.3.4.0, ICE OS Default Package (single VLAN mode)

> ls -l /usr/lib/firmware/updates/intel/ice/ddp/
total 624
-rwxr-xr-x. 1 root root 635256 Jan 18 15:53 ice-1.3.26.0.pkg
lrwxrwxrwx. 1 root root     56 Jan 18 15:55 ice.pkg -> /usr/lib/firmware/updates/intel/ice/ddp/ice-1.3.26.0.pkg

> xxd /usr/lib/firmware/updates/intel/ice/ddp/ice.pkg | head -n 17
0000000: 0100 0000 0400 0000 1800 0000 6c00 0000  ............l...
0000010: d000 0000 4031 0000 0100 0000 0100 0000  ....@1..........
0000020: 5400 0000 476c 6f62 616c 204d 6574 6164  T...Global Metad
0000030: 6174 6100 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000  ata.............
0000040: 0000 0000 0103 1a00 ffff ffff 4943 4520  ............ICE
0000050: 4f53 2044 6566 6175 6c74 2050 6163 6b61  OS Default Packa
0000060: 6765 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0200 0000  ge..............
0000070: 0100 0000 6400 0000 4e6f 7465 7300 0000  ....d...Notes...
0000080: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000  ................
0000090: 0000 0000 0000 0000 496e 7465 6c28 5229  ........Intel(R)
00000a0: 2043 6f6e 6669 6775 7261 626c 6520 5069   Configurable Pi
00000b0: 7065 6c69 6e65 2054 6f6f 6c20 5665 7273  peline Tool Vers
00000c0: 696f 6e20 322e 312e 302e 3330 0a00 ffff  ion 2.1.0.30....
00000d0: 0010 0000 0100 0000 7030 0000 5253 412d  ........p0..RSA-
00000e0: 324b 2053 6967 6e61 7475 7265 2053 6567  2K Signature Seg
00000f0: 6d65 6e74 0000 0000 0000 0000 1000 0000  ment............
0000100: 0100 0000 0300 0000 0300 0000 0000 0000  ................