Bug 515029 - wpa_supplicant craps out under heavy load.
Summary: wpa_supplicant craps out under heavy load.
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED WORKSFORME
Alias: None
Product: Fedora
Classification: Fedora
Component: wpa_supplicant
Version: 11
Hardware: All
OS: Linux
low
high
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Dan Williams
QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2009-07-31 21:57 UTC by Justin P. Mattock
Modified: 2009-11-19 19:16 UTC (History)
1 user (show)

Fixed In Version:
Doc Type: Bug Fix
Doc Text:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 2009-11-19 18:50:46 UTC
Type: ---
Embargoed:


Attachments (Terms of Use)

Description Justin P. Mattock 2009-07-31 21:57:54 UTC
Description of problem: wpa_supplicant disconnects, and reconnects under heavy load, causing the system to become sluggish, and internet timeout.


Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
0.6.*
(whatever fedora 11 comes with)
How reproducible:
load a radio station online, then watch anything in flash longer than ten minuetes
(watch a movie on hulu).

Steps to Reproduce:
1.login
2.open mplayer play your favorit streamed radio.
3.open firefox watch a movie on hulu.
  
Actual results:
hulu stops playing radio stops playing,
system becomes sluggish.

Expected results:
watch a streamed movie, and if you would like mute the video, and play radio
(kind of like watch old silent flicks!)

Additional info:
temporary fix:
download the source code of wpa_supplicant and compile the source using
the default .config should work.

Comment 1 Justin P. Mattock 2009-11-16 17:27:22 UTC
not sure where this is at. I guess you can close this, since there seems to be no comments/complaints on this bug. As for a fix like above I just recompile wpa_supplicant, and all is good.(keep in mind the.defconfig is as is, nothing added/or removed).

Comment 2 Dan Williams 2009-11-17 08:50:13 UTC
This is probably more the driver than anything else.  Does the kernel 'dmesg' logs say anything interesting from the driver?

Comment 3 Justin P. Mattock 2009-11-17 18:04:25 UTC
well, with the two machines I've seen this on both, 
one machine is a macbook pro(using ath9k) and the other is an imac using broadcom sta.

There is nothing in dmesg. the only way to really see anything
is to manually run wpa_supplicant in a terminal(no networkmanager/wicd...)
(usually will fire off under heavy load).

Comment 4 Dan Williams 2009-11-17 19:44:49 UTC
When you say heavy load, you mean heavy network load, not heavy CPU load, right?

What is the supplicant output when this happens?  When you manually run the supplicant, can you run it iwth the "-dddt" option to increase the logging verbosity for me?

Comment 5 Justin P. Mattock 2009-11-17 20:31:31 UTC
keep in mind I don't have the issue in front of me right now. But I do remember what wpa does.

basically I would do this:(in a terminal)
wpa_supplicant -Dwext -i wlan0 -c /etc/*
(wpa_supplicant starts, then I use /sbin/dhclient wlan0)

then wpa will print out connected.
then I turn on an internet radio station then open firefox ant turn on a video
i.g.normally go to hulu.com and watch a movie(while the radio is playing as well).

then after a few minuets I would see wpa_supplicant  in the terminal
saying disconnect/connect
(during that period, is when the music starts to die out, as well as the movie).

Comment 6 Dan Williams 2009-11-17 20:44:22 UTC
Ok, if you get a chance to reproduce the issue, if you could use "-dddt" with the supplicant's command line, and also when you get the dropout, grab the last 20 or so lines of /var/log/messages for me.  Thanks!

Comment 7 Justin P. Mattock 2009-11-18 03:38:34 UTC
sure..
right now I don't have fedora installed, but I do have the livecd,
What I can try is load the livecd hopefully get the wireless driver compiled
and then try and grab the debug message.

Comment 8 Dan Williams 2009-11-18 20:05:25 UTC
Ok, let me know!

Comment 9 Justin P. Mattock 2009-11-18 23:19:42 UTC
man I feel so stupid. just loaded the livecd got the wireless working with flash, and mplayer running, and to my surprise the system had no issues at all, leading me to believe that this was something done wrong on my behalf i.g. the only thing I can think of is my .config is missing/configured in a way to fire this off.

I apologize for filing this report without really testing this.

Comment 10 Dan Williams 2009-11-19 18:50:46 UTC
No problem; I more suspect driver problems too though.  If this happens again, please reopen.  Thanks!

Comment 11 Justin P. Mattock 2009-11-19 19:16:27 UTC
Thanks for being patient with me..


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