Strange boot issue with ath5k wifi driver

[bart3005]

Hi

I am using the ath5k driver for my Atheros AR2413 chip WiFi card.

At boot it fails to bring up the wifi link. If I do a 'service network restart' and 'service wpa_supplicant restart' it all works fine till the next reboot.

I am sure everything is set up correctly, if I swap to the madwifi driver by swapping the blacklisted driver it works fine at boot.

I am using the ath5k driver because it provides far better speed on a weak link that I have to work with.

I am seeing this at boot

ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlan0: link is not ready
wlan0: authenticate with AP 00:1e:e5:95:d0:b6
wlan0: authenticated
wlan0: associate with AP 00:1e:e5:95:d0:b6
wlan0: RX AssocResp from 00:1e:e5:95:d0:b6 (capab=0x471 status=0 aid=1)
wlan0: associated
ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): wlan0: link becomes ready
wlan0: no IPv6 routers present
ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlan0: link is not ready
wlan0: deauthenticating by local choice (reason=3)
ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlan0: link is not ready

So it appears that the link is not ready to bring up networking on the wlan0 interface? Strangely it seems to be authenticating with access point OK.

Anyone come across this and/or can suggest a solution? Grateful for any info.

Regard
Daniel

[nyjetshead]

Hi Danial,

Try blacklisting ath9k, I assume you unloaded madwifi.
You must be getting an error in dmesg on boot, what is getting reported?

[bart3005]

Hi

The only details in dmesg is:

[root@mediabox ]# dmesg | grep ath5k
ath5k_pci 0000:01:07.0: PCI INT A -> Link[APC4] -> GSI 19 (level, low) -> IRQ 19
ath5k_pci 0000:01:07.0: registered as 'phy0'
ath5k phy0: Atheros AR2413 chip found (MAC: 0x78, PHY: 0x45)

And as above:

[root@mediabox wpa_supplicant]# dmesg | grep wlan0
ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlan0: link is not ready
wlan0: authenticate with AP 00:1e:e5:95:d0:b6
wlan0: authenticated
wlan0: associate with AP 00:1e:e5:95:d0:b6
wlan0: RX AssocResp from 00:1e:e5:95:d0:b6 (capab=0x471 status=0 aid=1)
wlan0: associated
ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): wlan0: link becomes ready
wlan0: no IPv6 routers present
ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlan0: link is not ready
wlan0: deauthenticating by local choice (reason=3)
ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlan0: link is not ready
wlan0: authenticate with AP 00:1e:e5:95:d0:b6
wlan0: authenticated
wlan0: associate with AP 00:1e:e5:95:d0:b6
wlan0: RX AssocResp from 00:1e:e5:95:d0:b6 (capab=0x471 status=0 aid=1)
wlan0: associated
ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): wlan0: link becomes ready
wlan0: no IPv6 routers present

The last bit above where the link becomes ready is when I manually restart networking and the wpa supplicant.

As stated the madwifi driver works fine with this hardware but the ath5k driver provideds far better speed with a week link for me which i have to work with. If it wasn't for the week link I would be using the madwifi driver.

It is almost as if the ath5k driver has not enough time to initialise at boot or something and by the time I get to restart it manually all is OK.

Doing a straight swap to the madwifi driver and everything works.

Very strange.....

Regards

[stoat]

Hello bart3005,

If you are using NetworkManager, a harmless and reversible thing to try is to disable the network and wpa_supplicant services. Leave NetworkManager enabled, of course. For me, booting is cleaner that way. And NetworkManager starts them later when it needs them anyway. Even if you are not using NetworkManager to manage your connection, this idea may still help booting. I believe it helps me by preventing an attempt to acquire an IP address from the router during booting.

[nyjetshead]

Curious, can you bring the link up by using the NM tray icon without restarting network and wpa supplicant?

Also, using the right click on the nm tray icon> edit connections,check to see that you have connect automatically set for your connection.

If you want the link to come up automatically wpa supplicant must not be set to start on boot, NM will control it but it must be enabled.

Under System>Administration>Network>General.
Set controlled by NM and uncheck activate device when computer starts.

Similar to what Stoat suggested the interface will be activated after the boot process is finished and it will still connect automatically.