From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-path: Received: from mail-gy0-f174.google.com ([209.85.160.174]:62618 "EHLO mail-gy0-f174.google.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1752087Ab0GJTkO (ORCPT ); Sat, 10 Jul 2010 15:40:14 -0400 Received: by gye5 with SMTP id 5so1993345gye.19 for ; Sat, 10 Jul 2010 12:40:13 -0700 (PDT) MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: <4C38BE1D.2020107@openwrt.org> References: <4C38BE1D.2020107@openwrt.org> Date: Sat, 10 Jul 2010 20:40:13 +0100 Message-ID: Subject: Re: Issues with ath9k dropping connectivity - now no connectivity From: Norman Henderson To: Felix Fietkau Cc: linux-wireless@vger.kernel.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Sender: linux-wireless-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: Thanks very much Felix for the quick comment. I'll follow up on it over the next few days as I get time to move to "bleeding edge" (something I've sworn from my youth to never do...). However I guess I was more concerned about the regression from an environment that worked (with disconnections) to one that doesn't connect at all - is that just the luck of the draw or did I do something stupid? (more precisely, what was it that I did stupid, because that's inevitably true :~ - Norm Henderson On Sat, Jul 10, 2010 at 7:38 PM, Felix Fietkau wrote: > On 2010-07-10 8:32 PM, Norman Henderson wrote: >> Hi, >> >> I'm a bit new to all of this - here's the short story. I would >> appreciate any help available! >> >> I was building a WAP using a PC Engines ALIX board (AMD Geode LX800), >> DNMA92 wireless card (Atheros 92xx) and Voyage Linux (based on Debian >> Lenny, 2.6.30 kernel with hostapd 0.6.9 and libnl1.1). It was all >> working but, the wireless card would drop connectivity for no apparent >> reason after an undetermined time (minutes to hours). Stations (Win or >> cellphone) would no longer see it at all, as if it was no longer >> transmitting. >> >> The Voyage maintainer advised that ath9k isn't that stable at 2.6.30. >> So, I upgraded the kernel to 2.6.32 using the Debian Lenny backport. I >> then installed the "stable" compat-wireless, 2.6.32.16. >> >> Hostapd appears to start OK. However, the wireless SSID is only >> visible to the Windows clients for a short time - seconds/minutes - >> and they aren't able to connect. There were no errors in the hostapd >> startup and it does its key rotations periodically. All that's logged >> from hostapd -dd during the actual time that the Win clients can see >> it and are trying to connect is: >> 1278785975.350851: STA 00:13:02:be:7b:f9 sent probe request for broadcast SSID >> 1278785975.353034: MGMT (TX callback) ACK >> 1278785975.353073: mgmt::proberesp cb >> (repeated a few times) >> >> The Win7 station used to connect automatically but now doesn't and >> when I click "connect" it fails and shortly thereafter the SSID >> disappears from the list. >> >> Nothing in /var/log. iw phy phy0 info and iw dev wlan0 info appear to >> report sensible info as does iwconfig. >> >> During boot I do get messages about "VIA Padlock Hash Engine not detected" and >> modprobe: FATAL: Error inserting padlock_sha >> (/lib/modules/2.6.32-bpo.5-686/kern...): No such device >> From googling it's not clear to me at least whether this is relevant. >> >> Suggestions? What further diagnostics could I do? > I'd suggest using a 'bleeding edge' compat-wireless along with hostapd > version 0.7.2. > > In OpenWrt we're using a compat-wireless based on wireless-testing > 2010-07-06, along with two ath9k patches that were merged in a later > version. > > According to my own testing and various user feedback, this is the most > stable version that we had so far. > > I think 2.6.36 is probably going to be the first Linux Kernel version > with ath9k working in AP mode *reliably*. > > - Felix >