WPI (Intel wireless 3945ABG) strange behaviour

[Chris Van Steenlandt]

Adrian,

I'll file a bug but I do not know if this is only related to the 5ghz band.

I reconfigured my NIC and added the parameter "mode 11g" to the ifconfig 
command. If I'm correct only the 2.4 Ghz band is used then. Even in this 
scenario my NIC looses connection and then reconnects. Ifconfig shows me 
my NIC is associated to my ssid and that everything should be ok. 
However, a ping to another computer on my local network says 'No route 
to host' ...

Regards,

Chris

On 23-08-14 23:18, Adrian Chadd wrote:
> (and please file a separate bug for the 5ghz problem with wpi, so I
> can dump this into the bug.0
>
> thanks!
>
> -a
>
>
> On 23 August 2014 14:02, Adrian Chadd <adrian at freebsd.org> wrote:
>> Yeah, that's the same problem at iwn - the firmware rejects any frames
>> being transmitted to 5ghz passive channels until a beacon is received.
>>
>> It's likely some buffering in net80211 and/or the driver(s) is required.
>>
>> It's not breaking regulatory - the NIC already scanned the channel and
>> heard a beacon. But then the firmware is reset to associate to the
>> channel (rather than scan) and it "loses" knowledge that the channel
>> is fine to transmit on. So net80211 associating with one frame which
>> is instantly rejected by the firmware. Something needs to buffer that
>> and other frames until the firmware sees a beacon - then if it retries
>> the frame(s), it'll successfully be transmitted.
>>
>> I've known about the problem for a while. I've just been too busy /
>> distracted to sit down and fix it. It's not a conceptually difficult
>> thing to fix - someone just has to do it. :P
>>
>>
>> -a
>>
>>
>>
>> On 23 August 2014 13:59, Chris Van Steenlandt
>> <chris.vansteenlandt at telenet.be> wrote:
>>> Adrian,
>>>
>>> - ifconfig step (creation of pseudo device) completed successfully
>>> - wpa_supplicant gives the following type of output (I can't paste it here,
>>> but I'll describe the structure of the output) :
>>>
>>> 1st message : Initialization successfull
>>>
>>> Then the following blocks of messages (they alternate or repeat)
>>> Block 1 :
>>>
>>> Trying to associate with <mac address> (SSID='myssid' freq=5180 Mhz)
>>> wlan0 : Authentication with <mac address> timed out.
>>> wlan0 : CTRL_EVENT_DISCONNECTED bssid =<mac address> reason=3
>>> locally_generated=1
>>> ioctl[SIOCS80211, op=20, val=0, arg_len=7] : Can't assign requested adress
>>>
>>> Block 2 :
>>> Trying to associate with <mac address> (SSID='myssid' freq=2412 Mhz)
>>> wlan0 : Associated with <mac address>
>>> wlan0 : WPA: Key negotiation completed with <mac address>  [PTK=CMP
>>> GTK=TKIP]
>>> wlan0 : CTRL_EVENT_CONNECTED - Connection to <mac address> completed [id=0
>>> id_str=]
>>>
>>>
>>> Block 2 is sometines followed by :
>>> wlan0 : CTRL_EVENT_DISCONNECTED bssid =<mac address> reason=0
>>> and then followed by block 1
>>>
>>> For as far as I understand, the driver switches between the 2.4 GHz and 5
>>> Ghz band of my wireless network. Indeed my wifi router is configured to
>>> support both bands but apparently my wifi driver can only handle the 2.4Ghz
>>> one.
>>>
>>>
>>> On 23-08-14 22:19, Adrian Chadd wrote:
>>>
>>> Ok.
>>>
>>> Just try it manually -
>>>
>>> * comment out stuff from /etc/rc.conf and reboot
>>> * ifconfig wlan0 create wlandev wpi0 -bgscan
>>> * wpa_supplicant -i wlan0 -c /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf &
>>> * ifconfig wlan0 list scan - you haven't pasted that here, so we have
>>> no idea what APs it is seeing
>>>
>>> then see.
>>>
>>> If you compiled in IEEE80211_DEBUG in your kernel config, then
>>> 'wlandebug +scan' and see what is spat out to the kernel config.
>>>
>>>