[r8187] Netgear WG111v2 Wireless USB Adapter recognized but not functioning

[Konstantinos Togias]

I tried Netgear WG111v2 Wireless USB Adapter with Dapper Flight 5 (kernel 2.6.15-18-386).

When I plug WG111v2 into a usb port, r8187 module is loaded. I can see wlan0 interface with iwconfig wlan0. But the led on the adapter does not light.

Then I run iwlist wlan0 scan and get:
wlan0 Failed to read scan data : Operation not permitted

If I then run dhclient wlan0, dhclient fails to contact my dhcp server, but just after that iwlist wlan0 scan command manages to scan and detect my Access Point. It reports Signal level:0.

After that running dhclient fails to obtain an ip and even if i give a static ip the adapter fails to transmit any data. The same happens when configuring wlan0 through network-admin gui.

The specific adapter is not detected at all under breezy but works flawlessly with ndiswrapper under breezy.

I attach below the output of lshw, lsusb, lsmod, iwconfig, iwlist, dhclient and ifconfig.

Note: the original reporter indicated the bug was in package 'nic-usb-modules-2.6.15-18-386-di'; however, that package was not published in Ubuntu.

[Konstantinos Togias (ktogias)]

The wireless usb adapter is listed.

[Konstantinos Togias (ktogias)]

The Wirless USB adapter is listed

[Konstantinos Togias (ktogias)]

r8187 module is loaded

[Konstantinos Togias (ktogias)]

The card is reported as successfully associated with the Access Point.

[Konstantinos Togias (ktogias)]

Signal level 0 is reported

[Konstantinos Togias (ktogias)]

scan fails at first run, but if I run dhclient or use the network-admin it then detects my AP.

[Konstantinos Togias (ktogias)]

dhclient wlan0 fails

[Konstantinos Togias (ktogias)]

wlan0 is listed

[Konstantinos Togias (ktogias)]

The access point uses a wep key encryption, but according to dmesg it seems that the card manages to set the wep key and associate to the AP. So I think that the problem is not accossiated with the key.

[Konstantinos Togias (ktogias)]

I just reproduced the problem after the last upgrade. Now the version of the kernel is 2.6.15-19-386.

[Henk Koster (h-a-j-koster)]

The problem persists with final Dapper release (I'm running the AMD64 k8-kernel). Out of desperation, I downloaded the source code from RealTek and compiled the drivers -- this results in a set of five ieee80211.... drivers (no problems compiling) and a single r8187.ko driver (quite a few warning messages when compiling).

Clearly, four of the five ieee80211... modules are meant to be used for various encryption options. If you only want to use WEP, for example, the ieee80211_crypt_wep-rtl.ko module would be needed. This would be in addition to the ieee80211-rtl.ko module that is always needed in conjunction with r8187.ko.

My question: is/are one or more of the four encryption modules ieee80211_crypt_... not missing from the kernel ? Or does the available kernel module ieee80211_rtl.ko contain them (note that it is written slightly differently from the ieee80211-rtl.ko module compiled from RealTek sources). Questions, questions...

[Andrew Ash (ash211)]

Is it still broken in Dapper or Edgy?

[Sebastian Reichel (sre)]

I've got Problems with the "r8187" module, too.

elektranox@sonne:~$ ifconfig wlan0
wlan0 Protokoll:Ethernet Hardware Adresse 00:15:AF:04:66:25
          UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:4 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          Kollisionen:0 Sendewarteschlangenlänge:1000
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)

elektranox@sonne:~$ iwconfig wlan0
wlan0 802.11b/g Mode:Managed Channel=3
          Access Point: Invalid Bit Rate=11 Mb/s
          Retry:on Fragment thr:off
          Link Quality:0 Signal level:0 Noise level:0
          Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

elektranox@sonne:~$ sudo iwconfig wlan0 essid "Reichel"
elektranox@sonne:~$ sudo iwconfig wlan0 channel 6
Error for wireless request "Set Frequency" (8B04) :
    SET failed on device wlan0 ; Operation not supported.

elektranox@sonne:~$ sudo iwconfig wlan0
wlan0 802.11b/g ESSID:"Reiche"
          Mode:Managed Channel=1 Access Point: Invalid
          Bit Rate=11 Mb/s
          Retry:on Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:off
          Link Quality:0 Signal level:0 Noise level:0
          Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

Errors:
1. Couldn't set channel
2. ESSID was not insert completly -> can be fixed by inserting one additional letter

[Sebastian Reichel (sre)]

argh - I forgot to say, that my ubuntu version is feisty / unstable with kernel 2.6.19-generic @ 64 Bit

[Andrew Ash (ash211)]

Can you still confirm this on Feisty Beta or newer?

[Sebastian Reichel (sre)]

as I said in the main thread for this error: in the newest versions of feisty (I tested only 2.6.20-13 kernel, it works perfectly. I tested Network-Manager with WEP and Kismet successful ;)

[Andrew Ash (ash211)]

I'm closing this bug based on Elektranox's statements. If it's still a problem for you, Konstantinos, please let us know and we'll keep working on it.

Thanks