8.0 regression: consecutive panics (iwi / wlan / zfs ?)

[martinko]

David Wolfskill wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 04, 2010 at 04:13:36PM +0100, martinko wrote:
>> ...
>>
>> I have used versions 5.3 to 6.4 on this laptop, the last one being the
>> most stable and smooth.  A few weeks ago I moved to 8.0 (fresh install)
>> and since then I've been experiencing funny issues.
>>
>> Last night I was writing an email when I noticed my wi-fi link was gone.
>>   I checked /var/log/messages and saw the following:
>>
>> wlan0: link state changed to DOWN
>> wlan0: link state changed to UP
>> wlan0: link state changed to DOWN
>> wlan0: link state changed to UP
>> wlan0: link state changed to DOWN
>> wlan0: link state changed to UP
>> ...
>
> While I do not currently use ZFS, the wireless NIC I have been using
> most often for the last several months has been iwi0 on my laptop, on
> which I track stable/6, stable/7, stable/8, and head on a daily basis.
>
> While I have seen the interface bounce dwn&  up repeatedly, and it
> refuses to communicate with an Apple Airport AP (while working with
> a Linksys WAP11) under head (but the Airport is OK for stable/6 and
> stable/7; not sure about stable/8), it has been (at least) several
> weeks since my last panic, so I am inclined to suggest that iwi(4)
> and wlan(4) are unlikely to be involved in the root cause of the
> panic.

Well, the panic points at iwi (see my screenshot pls).

And there are other wifi regressions I've already noticed.

On 6.x I had 2 issues with iwi:
Interface was changing down and up especially when signal was weaker. 
And there was the dreaded scan stuck.  Sometimes the only help was to 
reboot the machine.

On 8.0 I haven't noticed scan stuck and down&up happens a lot less.  But 
I guess this is due to newer iwi firmware (3.1 vs 3.0).

On the other hand wireless interface is too slow to associate during 
boot and I'm seeing connection errors from e.g. ntpd.

Also the following began appearing in the system log:
kernel: iwi0: need multicast update callback

And there have been other issues posted to the lists in last weeks.

I'd love these to be fixed and I'm willing to help investigate.

Regards,

Martin

PS:  I had the same panic today.  After reboot I kept losing connection 
after short time.  Restarting AP didn't help.  I switched laptop off&on 
and it's running happily since (uptime 10h).  Really weird.