Bug 236828

Created attachment 152850 [details]
dmesg output

Looks like there is a problem queueing messages from iwlwifi to the firmware 
on the ipw3945...

This is a regression, by the way.  I have one successful kernel: 3056.  Nothing
before could associate at all, and everything since has failed after about 20 to
30 seconds.

This is also a problem on i386. I've been sent here from
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=235207

There's details of error messages I've been getting there.

This still seems to be happening with kernel 2.6.20-1.3104.fc7.

This was still not working (after 20-30 sec of success) with 2.6.21-1.3116.fc7.

For what it's worth, I tried manually installing mac80211-7.0.4 and
iwlwifi-0.0.13 and everything works GREAT.

I tried mac80211-7.0.8 and iwlwifi-0.0.14 and found I wasn't getting any traffic
at all again; NetworkManager yeilded a message:

NetworkManager: <WARN>  request_and_convert_scan_results(): card took too much
time scanning.  Get a better one.

(In reply to comment #6)
> This was still not working (after 20-30 sec of success) with 2.6.21-1.3116.fc7.
> 
> For what it's worth, I tried manually installing mac80211-7.0.4 and
> iwlwifi-0.0.13 and everything works GREAT.
> 
> I tried mac80211-7.0.8 and iwlwifi-0.0.14 and found I wasn't getting any traffic
> at all again; NetworkManager yeilded a message:
> 
> NetworkManager: <WARN>  request_and_convert_scan_results(): card took too much
> time scanning.  Get a better one.

I've jumped to 2.6.21-1.3121 (and up) and I've had really great, out-of-the box
performance!  No problems that I can find after about 2GB of transfers... :)

Where is kernel 3121. I've just upgraded and I only got 3116. In any case
/var/log/messages gives me this for 3116.

May  1 23:28:01 garlaptop kernel: BUG: warning at
include/asm/dma-mapping.h:25/dma_map_single() (Not tainted)
May  1 23:28:01 garlaptop kernel:  [<c04061e9>] show_trace_log_lvl+0x1a/0x2f
May  1 23:28:01 garlaptop kernel:  [<c04067ad>] show_trace+0x12/0x14
May  1 23:28:01 garlaptop kernel:  [<c0406831>] dump_stack+0x16/0x18
May  1 23:28:01 garlaptop kernel:  [<f8b08708>] d_tx+0x7f2/0xd69 [iwlwifi]
May  1 23:28:01 garlaptop kernel:  [<f8ada759>] __ieee80211_tx+0x20/0xec [mac80211]
May  1 23:28:01 garlaptop kernel:  [<f8adc61b>]
ieee80211_master_start_xmit+0x410/0x50e [mac80211]
May  1 23:28:01 garlaptop kernel:  [<c05b41b2>] dev_hard_start_xmit+0x1ce/0x22b
May  1 23:28:01 garlaptop kernel:  [<c05c1cee>] __qdisc_run+0xdb/0x195
May  1 23:28:01 garlaptop kernel:  [<c05b4ee5>] net_tx_action+0xc2/0xeb
May  1 23:28:01 garlaptop kernel:  [<c042bfa7>] __do_softirq+0x6f/0xe2
May  1 23:28:01 garlaptop kernel:  [<c0407420>] do_softirq+0x61/0xd0
May  1 23:28:01 garlaptop kernel:  [<c042bdd2>] local_bh_enable_ip+0xb9/0xdf
May  1 23:28:01 garlaptop kernel:  [<c06160bd>] _spin_unlock_bh+0x25/0x28
May  1 23:28:01 garlaptop kernel:  [<f8ae8c9e>]
ieee80211_scan_completed+0xdf/0x109 [mac80211]
May  1 23:28:01 garlaptop kernel:  [<f8aea0ef>]
ieee80211_sta_scan_work+0x63/0x199 [mac80211]
May  1 23:28:01 garlaptop kernel:  [<c043510f>] run_workqueue+0x89/0x14e
May  1 23:28:01 garlaptop kernel:  [<c0435b25>] worker_thread+0xf8/0x124
May  1 23:28:01 garlaptop kernel:  [<c043832b>] kthread+0xb3/0xdc
May  1 23:28:01 garlaptop kernel:  [<c0405cd3>] kernel_thread_helper+0x7/0x10
May  1 23:28:01 garlaptop kernel:  =======================
May  1 23:28:03 garlaptop ntpd[2512]: sendto(195.244.96.13) (fd=21): Invalid
argument
May  1 23:28:05 garlaptop ntpd[2512]: sendto(193.190.138.82) (fd=21): Invalid
argument

Along with the original 

May  1 23:28:01 garlaptop kernel: iwlwifi: Error sending RXON: ipw_queue_tx_hcmd
failed: -28
May  1 23:28:01 garlaptop kernel: iwlwifi: Error clearing ASSOC_MSK on current
configuration (-28).
May  1 23:28:01 garlaptop kernel: iwlwifi: No space for Tx
May  1 23:28:01 garlaptop kernel: iwlwifi: Error sending RXON_ASSOC:
ipw_queue_tx_hcmd failed: -28
May  1 23:28:01 garlaptop kernel: iwlwifi: Error setting non-tune configuration
(-28).

and the one above about card took too much time scanning.

Davej's latest kernel is at:

http://people.redhat.com/davej/kernels/Fedora/

I think this should be re-opened.  It was only last night with a newer
wireless-tools package that I was able to see any wireless networks.  Although I
could associate and authenticate, the connection dropped after a minute or so
and in fact interfered with use of the keyboard.  I'll post the relevant logs
this evening.

Created attachment 154877 [details]
Relevant dmesg output when network association lost

The iwl3945 driver seemed to be affecting the system when it lost association
with the network - the load went up to over 6 and I was unable to restart
NetworkManager, having to reboot in the end.

As reported in bug 238603, the driver is still pretty unreliable with kernel
2.6.21-1.3167.fc7 and the latest firmware downloaded directly from Intel.

Created attachment 155135 [details]
Excerpt from /var/log/messages

This excerpt covers the most recent connection to my WPA network.  When it
failed, 
the keyboard became non-responsive - possibly the result of interrupt problems
with the iwl3945 driver?

Just re-tested with 2.6.21-1.3190.  The driver still doesn't seem to be able to
hold an association, though at least the keyboard is responsive when it fails. 
I should clarify that the association fails functionally, in that pings do not
work.  I shall add the relevant log files separately.

Created attachment 155280 [details]
dmesg output encompassing failure of wireless connectivity

Things seem to be a lot better with kernel 1.3194 - the connection has stayed up
for several hours now.  However, I'm getting lots of these messages:

iwl3945: REPLY_ADD_STA failed

and media playback over NFS is quite jittery at times.

Driver seems tolerable - moving to FC7Target

I think tolerable is fair - throughput is very much slower than with ipw3945 but
it does work for browsing, downloading updates etc.  For me, anyway,

Please try the kernels from here:

   http://koji.fedoraproject.org/koji/buildinfo?buildID=10941

Do they work any better for you?

Unfortunately, they're actually worse.  Here's the dmesg from the 2.6.22-8 kernel:

iwl3945: Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 3945ABG/BG Network Connection driver for Linux,
0.0.36kd
iwl3945: Copyright(c) 2003-2007 Intel Corporation
iwl3945: Detected Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection
iwl3945: Could not read microcode: -22
iwl3945: probe of 0000:06:00.0 failed with error -22

Is a new firmware package needed?

I've gone back to ipw3945 for the moment as the iwl driver reliably fails during
NFS/SMB streaming.

Yes, new firmware is needed. You can get iwlwifi-3945 firmware from here:
http://intellinuxwireless.org/index.php?n=Downloads

The wireless interface does come up now I've installed the firmware.  I'll test
it a bit more to see how stable it is.

Closing under the presumption that new firmware resovled the issue...please 
reopen if this is not the case.