Re: A couple of minor issues with NM

["Darren Albers" <dalbers gmail com>]

On 12/24/06, Timothy Murphy <tim birdsnest maths tcd ie> wrote:
> On Monday 25 December 2006 00:53, Darren Albers wrote:
>
> > Ok so lets narrow the focus to just the issues you are having, next
> > time you reboot and it does not see your access point if you run the
> > command iwlist <interfacename> scanning does it show all the access
> > points after a few runs?
>
> I think I've made a little progress.
> If the main LED on the PCMCIA card is not on,
> I will get nowhere until I physically eject the card,
> and re-insert it.
> Then, if the light goes on, and I do nothing,
> NetworkManager is quite likely to connect me
> after a delay of  a minute or so.

If the light isn't on then the card is probably not active, does this
always happen or just once and awhile?

> I find the output of "sudo iwlist eth0 scan"
> mirrors the results shown by the knetworkmanager icon in the panel.
> If this shows me one or two networks then so does iwlist.
>
> At the moment, for example, I see two networks
> and iwlist gives me:
> -------------------------------------------------------
> [tim martha ~]$ sudo iwlist eth0 scan
> eth0      Scan completed :
>           Cell 01 - Address: 00:16:B6:DA:56:B4
>                     ESSID:"dd-wrt"
>                     Mode:Master
>                     Frequency:2.457 GHz (Channel 10)
>                     Signal level:-59 dBm  Noise level:-98 dBm
>                     Encryption key:off
>           Cell 02 - Address: 02:02:2D:4A:52:80
>                     ESSID:"maths.tcd.ie"
>                     Mode:Ad-Hoc
>                     Frequency:2.457 GHz (Channel 10)
>                     Signal level:-57 dBm  Noise level:-98 dBm
>                     Encryption key:on
> -------------------------------------------------------
>
> I think I've increased the times NM works OK
> from 30% to 85%.

Those two AP's are on the same channel, this will likely cause
interference if they are within range of each other.   If you control
one change the channel to something like 1 or 6 to get it away from
the other AP.

So if I remember properly your primary issues were not being able to
connect reliably, not all SSID's being seen, not automatically
connecting to one AP and Not holding a connection.

Issue 1 Not connecting:  It looks like your card is not coming active
all the time, check dmesg to see if there is any errors why it is not
being activated properly everytime.

Issue 2 Not Holding a connection:  Both AP's are on the same channel,
you should move one so it doesn't conflict.   If I remember properly
most of the channels overlap so you should use 1, 6, or 11 to avoid
any overlaps.

Issue 3 All AP's are not seen:   I think this is the result of the
AP's being on the same channel, it could also be a result of your card
not scanning properly.  If you do an iwlist and it shows the same AP's
as NM then the card just is not seeing them.   This can be caused by a
large number of things but the most obvious right now is interference
from the AP's being on the same channel.

Issue 4 Not connecting automatically: NM (Dan correct me if I am
wrong) will not automatically connect to an unencrypted access point,
so if you want to connect to that AP automatically you should enable
WEP on it.   My instructions from earlier worked for me with a WRT-54G
running DD-WRT and NM so hopefully they will get you started.