Re: Frequent Disconnects

[Bill Moseley <moseley hank org>]

On Sun, Jul 15, 2007 at 09:17:15AM -0400, Dan Williams wrote:
> On Sun, 2007-07-15 at 08:52 -0400, Patrick Hi wrote:
> > Hi all,
> > I'm not sure if this question is exactly appropriate for this
> > mailinglist, but my computers experience frequent disconnects (and
> > sometimes reconnects) from my WPA network while they are booted into
> > linux and using nm. In windows they do not disconnect, leading me to
> > believe it's related to linux in some way. I've been looking
> > at /var/log/syslog, and it contains lots of information about the
> > disconnects, but I can't tell what it means or what to do about it.
> 
> What version of wpa_supplicant, and what card/driver are you using?

I too have been experiencing this a lot and when my laptop is just a
few feet from the AP, a Netgear WG302.  My laptop (Thinkpad T60p) is
just a few days old so have not had time to look at the problem -- I
was wondering if it was due to dhcp leases renewing, although that
sounds very unlikely.

I'll try and watch the logs more carefully next time I'm on the
wireless and see if I can capture anything interesting in the logs.

The little single strength meter in the nm-applet still shows strong
signal, although I also noted that it continued to show strong
strength after unplugging my AP.  It may not be quite real-time, I
guess.

Another difficulty I had initially was that my AP had no security
enabled -- but I had my ssid set to not broadcast.  My other two
laptops (iBook and Debian Woody) associated fine as long as I typed in
the essid.  The T60p would sometimes manage to connect but it was
rare.

I enabled broadcast and WPA-PSK and not it connects without problem.
I then disabled WPA-PSK and it still associated so my guess is the
non-broadcast ssid was the problem.

I tried to test that theory a bit by changing the ssid of the AP and
toggling ssid broadcast, but it seemed like the laptop was remembering
the AP by MAC address so it wasn't easy to test.

Sorry, this posting is a bit premature since I wasn't able to test
much.

NetworkManager is very cool other wise.


ii  wpasupplicant         0.5.7-0ubuntu2  Client support for WPA and WPA2 (IEEE 802.11
ii  network-manager       0.6.4-6ubuntu7  network management framework daemon
ii  network-manager-gnome 0.6.4-6ubuntu7  network management framework (GNOME frontend

03:00.0 Network controller: Atheros Communications, Inc. Unknown device 0024 (rev 01)
        Subsystem: Atheros Communications, Inc. Unknown device 0033
        Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR+ FastB2B-
        Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR-
        Latency: 0, Cache Line Size: 64 bytes
        Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 21
        Region 0: Memory at edf00000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
        Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 2
                Flags: PMEClk- DSI- D1+ D2- AuxCurrent=375mA PME(D0+,D1+,D2-,D3hot+,D3cold-)
                Status: D0 PME-Enable- DSel=0 DScale=0 PME-
        Capabilities: [50] Message Signalled Interrupts: Mask- 64bit- Queue=0/0 Enable-
                Address: 00000000  Data: 0000
        Capabilities: [60] Express Legacy Endpoint IRQ 0
                Device: Supported: MaxPayload 128 bytes, PhantFunc 0, ExtTag-
                Device: Latency L0s <512ns, L1 <64us
                Device: AtnBtn- AtnInd- PwrInd-
                Device: Errors: Correctable- Non-Fatal- Fatal- Unsupported-
                Device: RlxdOrd+ ExtTag- PhantFunc- AuxPwr- NoSnoop-
                Device: MaxPayload 128 bytes, MaxReadReq 512 bytes
                Link: Supported Speed 2.5Gb/s, Width x1, ASPM L0s L1, Port 0
                Link: Latency L0s <512ns, L1 <64us
                Link: ASPM L0s L1 Enabled RCB 128 bytes CommClk+ ExtSynch-
                Link: Speed 2.5Gb/s, Width x1
        Capabilities: [90] MSI-X: Enable- Mask- TabSize=1
                Vector table: BAR=0 offset=00000000
                PBA: BAR=0 offset=00000000

-- 
Bill Moseley
moseley hank org