From Bugzilla Helper: User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9b5) Gecko/2008043010 Fedora/3.0-0.60.beta5.fc9 Firefox/3.0b5 Description of problem: This problem happens most often when the connection quality is poor. The initial connection (e.g. from login to an account, after stopping and restarting both NetworkManager AND wpa_supplicant, etc.) is usually OK. After the wireless network looses connection, NetworkManager is often unable to reconnect. Kernel module used: ipw2200. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): NetworkManager-0.7.0-0.9.3.svn3623.fc9.i386 wpa_supplicant-0.6.3-5.fc9.i386 How reproducible: Sometimes Steps to Reproduce: 1. Establish a connection to a faraway access point, using WPA-PEAP. 2. Let it disconnect. For some reason, re-starting nm-applet produces the same effect - can be used to debug the problem without much wait. Actual Results: 10% of the time, connection re-establishes normally. There are 3 scenarios of reconnection failure: 1. wpa_supplicant doesn't even try to associate with an access point. wpa_supplicant.log only contains the lines CTRL-EVENT-SCAN-RESULTS CTRL-EVENT-SCAN-RESULTS CTRL-EVENT-SCAN-RESULTS CTRL-EVENT-SCAN-RESULTS CTRL-EVENT-SCAN-RESULTS CTRL-EVENT-SCAN-RESULTS ... Applet GUI shows 'connection in progress spinner', but supplicant seems idle. No GUI action (clicking "Connect" in a dialog asking to re-enter credentials, selecting the proper SSID from nm-applet menu) changes the situation. To work-around this problem, the following command must be executed as root: $ iwconfig eth1 essid <ESSID> key 0 After that, the supplicant starts to associate, and can even establish a connection, but more likely one of the other two scenarios happens. 2. Association/connection times out. NetworkManager has a very short connection timeout (20-30 seconds or so), which is too short to establish a connection over a poor link in some cases. This might also be a wpa_supplicant or kernel module issue. Restarting wpa_supplicant usually helps. 3. Authentication fails. Once it failed once, re-trying the connection always fails. The workaround is to restart both wpa_supplicant and NetworkManager daemons (applet can keep running), OR uncheck "Enable Networking" box in applet menu, then check it back again. Expected Results: NM should be able to reconnect with the same pass/fail ratio as initial connection. Connection timeout should be either longer by default, or configurable. Ideally, NM shouldn't even ask for credentials to re-attempt failed connection (see bug 447620), only giving a warning status to the user. Additional info: It seems that wpa_supplicant state machine and NM state machine are becoming out of sync. One hint at this is that ESSID is lost - looks like wpa_supplicant drops ESSID, while NM thinks that ESSID has already been sent and doesn't re-send it. Sections of wpa_supplicant.log and NM debug printouts for good and bad conditions will be attached.
Please advise if separate bugs should be opened for each failure scenario, and this one kept as a tracker.
Created attachment 307274 [details] A good sequence in wpa_supplicant.log Note that 'trying to associate' happens twice. In bad wireless weather it can happen many more times before the connection is established, so increased/configurable timeout will help.
Created attachment 307277 [details] NetworkManager info printouts of successfull connection
Created attachment 307278 [details] NetworkManager info printouts when no association happens The supplicant state changes 0->3->0->3... ad infinitum.
Created attachment 307279 [details] A sequence in wpa_supplicant.log when it fails to associate
Created attachment 307280 [details] A sequence in wpa_supplicant.log when it fails to authenticate
sounds like the supplicant either can't find the network or can't reconnect to it; as you've discovered the supplicant direct scan patches and the ipw2200 direct scan patches should help. Let me know how they work when you've had a chance to apply the ipw2200 direct scan patch.
Updates to fix this have been around for a long time; please re-open if latest updates don't work. Thanks!