[ath9k-devel] ath9k not connecting to one particular network..

[Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>]

On Mon, Mar 25, 2013 at 3:12 AM, Jouni Malinen <jouni@qca.qualcomm.com> wrote:
>
> Did you happen to notice whether wpa_supplicant showed more than one
> attempt at associating with the AP?

According to the kernel messages, there seems to be just a single
quick association:

IOW, this is what happens with wpa_supplicant:

  [ 4219.297875] wlan0: authenticate with 50:46:5d:02:85:08
  [ 4219.312013] wlan0: send auth to 50:46:5d:02:85:08 (try 1/3)
  [ 4219.314029] wlan0: authenticated
  [ 4219.314099] wlan0: associate with 50:46:5d:02:85:08 (try 1/3)
  [ 4219.317809] wlan0: RX AssocResp from 50:46:5d:02:85:08
(capab=0x411 status=0 aid=16)
  [ 4219.317913] wlan0: associated
  [ 4219.317934] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): wlan0: link becomes ready

and everything is happy.

>> Presumably NetworkManager should do the same, but doesn't. Or
>> more likely, does something *more*, and that "something more" ends up
>> confusing the driver and resetting.
>
> It could be helpful to get wpa_supplicant debug output from both the
> successful case (running it with manual configuration) and with NM
> running it. I haven't done much debugging with NM, but this page seems
> to show some guidance on how to collect the latter:
> https://live.gnome.org/NetworkManager/Debugging
> (for the former, just add -ddt on wpa_supplicant command line)

Hmm. That points to /var/log/wpa_supplicant.log, which I hadn't
noticed before. That looks useful, except for the fact that it just
shows

  wlan0: SME: Trying to authenticate with 50:46:5d:02:85:08
(SSID='lodgecondo' freq=2412 MHz)
  wlan0: Trying to associate with 50:46:5d:02:85:08 (SSID='lodgecondo'
freq=2412 MHz)
  wlan0: Associated with 50:46:5d:02:85:08
  wlan0: Authentication with 50:46:5d:02:85:08 timed out.
  wlan0: CTRL-EVENT-DISCONNECTED bssid=00:00:00:00:00:00 reason=3

which looks pretty bogus, since wpa_supplicant on its own seems to
associate/authenticate pretty much immediately. There are no
timestamps in that log-file, so it's hard to tell, but that web page
tells me how to add them, so I'll do that (I obviously lose my network
when I try this, so I'm not doing it while writing this email ;)

                  Linus