Bug 539878 - Wireless connections with Intel iwl4965 are not reliable
Summary: Wireless connections with Intel iwl4965 are not reliable
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED ERRATA
Alias: None
Product: Fedora
Classification: Fedora
Component: kernel
Version: 12
Hardware: x86_64
OS: Linux
low
high
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Stanislaw Gruszka
QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2009-11-21 12:52 UTC by Andrea Bruna
Modified: 2010-07-13 08:44 UTC (History)
6 users (show)

Fixed In Version: kernel-2.6.32.14-131.fc12
Doc Type: Bug Fix
Doc Text:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 2010-07-13 08:44:57 UTC
Type: ---
Embargoed:


Attachments (Terms of Use)
dmesg (75.00 KB, application/octet-stream)
2009-11-29 09:48 UTC, Andrea Bruna
no flags Details
iwevent (6.48 KB, application/octet-stream)
2009-11-29 09:49 UTC, Andrea Bruna
no flags Details

Description Andrea Bruna 2009-11-21 12:52:39 UTC
Description of problem:

In Fedora 12 Final, the wireless connection is unusable on my laptop with an Intel 4965agn card: the box loses the association to the ap every five/ten seconds and most of the times fails while completing the 4-way handshake.  

In the past I already had the same issue with some versions of the kernel (although never in such a "severe form") and the temporary solution has always been reverting back to a previous version of the kernel package. Unfortunately this time the problem probably resides in the default fedora 12 kernel and the package in updates-testing did not solve this issue.


Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
2.6.31.5-127.fc12.x86_64
2.6.31.6-134.fc12.x86_64

How reproducible:
Try to connect to an access point using a Intel 4965agn Wifi Card.

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Connect to an AP with the mentioned card
2. Wait a couple of seconds
3.
  
Actual results:
The wireless connection does not work for more than a couple of seconds and often fails to associate.

Expected results:
The wireless connection is established and works until the laptop is turned off or the connection is manually disabled.

Additional info:

Comment 1 John W. Linville 2009-11-23 16:12:39 UTC
Could you post the output of running iwevent during the association attempts?  Also, could you include the output of dmesg from the same period?

Comment 2 Andrea Bruna 2009-11-29 09:48:54 UTC
Created attachment 374532 [details]
dmesg

Comment 3 Andrea Bruna 2009-11-29 09:49:23 UTC
Created attachment 374533 [details]
iwevent

Comment 4 Andrea Bruna 2009-11-29 09:50:20 UTC
(In reply to comment #1)
> Could you post the output of running iwevent during the association attempts? 
> Also, could you include the output of dmesg from the same period?  

I'm sorry being late (I'm often on secondment) but please find attached the requested documents. 

I would like to add that the problem happens only with a Sitecom Wl-161 router; I tried with a different AP (Netgear DG834GT) and everything worked well.

Comment 5 Andrea Bruna 2009-11-29 09:52:00 UTC
(In reply to comment #1)
> Could you post the output of running iwevent during the association attempts? 
> Also, could you include the output of dmesg from the same period?  

I'm sorry being late (I'm often on secondment) but please find attached the requested documents. 

I would like to add that the problem happens only with a Sitecom Wl-161 router; I tried with a different AP (Netgear DG834GT) and everything worked well.

Comment 6 John W. Linville 2009-11-30 13:53:25 UTC
Please try creating a file in /etc/modprobe.d (e.g. /etc/modprobe.d/iwlagn) with the following contents:

   options iwlagn swcrypto=1

Then 'modprobe -r iwlagn ; modprobe iwlagn' (or simply reboot).  Does that help?

Comment 7 Andrea Bruna 2009-12-04 20:56:19 UTC
(In reply to comment #6)

> Does that help?  

Unfortunately, it does not.

Comment 8 Andrea Bruna 2009-12-13 09:17:48 UTC
Same problem with 2.6.31.6-166.fc12.x86_64

Comment 9 Stanislaw Gruszka 2010-01-06 09:52:41 UTC
Andrea,

(In reply to comment #5)
> I would like to add that the problem happens only with a Sitecom Wl-161 router;
> I tried with a different AP (Netgear DG834GT) and everything worked well.  

It's hard to tell if this problem because of bug in AP or this is problem of iwl 4965 that only happens with that router. Sitecom Wl-161 seems to be very old product. Perhaps it needs firmware upgrade or some configuration tweaks, did you tried that?

Comment 10 Stanislaw Gruszka 2010-01-11 09:06:32 UTC
I again read comment comment #0. Since things worked with older kernels, that's regression and definitely should by fixed in iwlwifi driver ...

Comment 11 Stanislaw Gruszka 2010-01-21 12:35:53 UTC
Hi Andrea,

Does 2.6.32 kernel help with the issue. You can install it with command:
yum --enablerepo="rawhide" update kernel

If it not helps, could you give a chance the current development kernel 2.6.33-rc, it can be downloaded from:
http://koji.fedoraproject.org/koji/buildinfo?buildID=152100

To be honest, I have no idea when bug can be. If it is not fixed in current upstream I going to get Sitecom router and try to reproduce problem locally.

Comment 12 Andrea Bruna 2010-01-24 23:33:02 UTC
(In reply to comment #11)

> Does 2.6.32 kernel help with the issue. You can install it with command:
> yum --enablerepo="rawhide" update kernel
> 
> If it not helps, could you give a chance the current development kernel
> 2.6.33-rc, it can be downloaded from:
> http://koji.fedoraproject.org/koji/buildinfo?buildID=152100
> 
  
Hi Stanislaw, 

by enabling rawhide, yum already proposes to install kernel 2.6.33-0.18.rc4.git7.fc13.x86_64 : I tried that but no luck. 

Of course, I also tried updating the firmware of the device, changing the channel, forcing 802.11b only... next time I will try without encryption to see if this helps: if not, I am going to discard this router in favour of something better and keep it only for testing.

Comment 13 Stanislaw Gruszka 2010-02-26 13:46:15 UTC
Hello Andrea

What is Sitecom Wl-161 configuration? I have it on my desk and I'm able to connect, I guess I have to setup it "properly" to reproduce the bug.

Comment 14 Andrea Bruna 2010-02-27 20:18:29 UTC
Hi,
my lan and wireless configuration is the following. If needed, I could provide you the complete configuration dat file (firmware 1.02), just let me know... 

SYSTEM STATUS

Lan Tab

IP Address: 192.168.0.1
Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.255
Default Gateway: 0.0.0.0
DHCP: Server
DHCP Client Range: 192.168.0.100 - 192.168.0.200
802.1d Spanning Tree: Disabled
Clone MAC Address: 000000000000

Log Tab

Enable Log: (enabled), system all
Enable Remote Log: (disabled)
Log Server IP Address: (empty)



WIRELESS SETTINGS


Basic tab

- Disable Wireless LAN Interface: (disabled)
- Band: 2.4 GHz (B+G)
- Mode: AP
- NetWork Type: Infrastructure
- Channel Number: 6
- Associated Clients: Show Active Clients
- Enable MAc Clone (Single Ethernet Client): (disabled)
- Enable Universal Repeater Mode (Acting as AP and client simultaneously): (disabled)
- SSID of Extended Interface: (empty)

Advanced Tab:

- Authentication Type: Auto
- Fragment Threshold: 2346
- RTS Threshold: 2347
- Bacon Interval: 100
- Data Rate: Auto
- Preamble Type: Long Preamble
- Broadcast SSID: Enabled
- IAPP: Enabled
- 802.11g Protection: Enabled

Security Tab:

- Encryption: WPA
- Use 802.1x Authentication: WEP 64bits
- WPA Authentication mode: Personal (Pre-Shared Key)
- WPA Cipher Suite: TKIP
- WPA2 Cipher Suite: AES
- Pre-Shared Key Format: Passphraset
- Enable Pre-Authentication: (disabled)
- Authentication RADIUS Server: Port (1812), IP Address (empty), Password (empty)


ACL tab:

- Wireless Access Control Mode: (disabled)
- Mac Address: (empty)
- Comment: (empty)

WDS:

- Enable WDS: (disabled)
- Add WDS AP: MAC Address (empty), Comment (empty)

Comment 15 Stanislaw Gruszka 2010-03-04 14:40:16 UTC
Thanks for detailed information Andrea.

Bug is not present on 2.6.30 kernel, so I did bisection and found commit that broke things. It is:

commit aa837e1d6bd1a71b3c30c7738b6c29d41512fe7d
Author: Johannes Berg <johannes>
Date:   Thu May 7 16:16:24 2009 +0200

    mac80211: set default QoS values according to spec

As far however I don't know why that commit introduce breakage, I have to dig more into it to find a fix.

Comment 16 Stanislaw Gruszka 2010-03-10 15:38:49 UTC
Hi Andrea

Could you check out kernel from here: http://koji.fedoraproject.org/koji/taskinfo?taskID=2044352 when it finish build. Does it fix the issue?

Comment 17 Andrea Bruna 2010-03-14 13:01:26 UTC
(In reply to comment #16)
> Hi Andrea
> 
> Could you check out kernel from here:
> http://koji.fedoraproject.org/koji/taskinfo?taskID=2044352 when it finish
> build. Does it fix the issue?    

Hi sg,
I confirm this build fixes the issue (I'm using it right now).

Comment 18 Stanislaw Gruszka 2010-06-17 08:42:19 UTC
Fixed in:
http://koji.fedoraproject.org/koji/buildinfo?buildID=177949

Comment 19 Stanislaw Gruszka 2010-07-13 08:44:57 UTC
kernel-2.6.32.16-141.fc12 has been pushed to the Fedora 12 stable repository. 
If problems still persist, please make note of it in this bug report.


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