wifi disconnects when nm scans (iwlagn - intel 5100 AGN)

[Floris Bruynooghe]

network-manager seems to be disconnecting my wifi link very often, (every 2 minutes or so). When looking at "iwevent" output this seems to be each time nm does a scan. This is the iwevent output starting from wifi disabled in nm and then enabling it, stopping after the first re-connect:

Waiting for Wireless Events from interfaces...
19:16:38.889686 wlan0 Set Mode:Managed
19:16:52.155658 wlan0 Scan request completed
19:16:52.156326 wlan0 Set Mode:Managed
19:16:52.156356 wlan0 Set Frequency:2.462 GHz (Channel 11)
19:16:52.163892 wlan0 Custom driver event:ASSOCINFO(ReqIEs=00066465766f726b010802040b160c12182432043048606cdd160050f20101000050f20201000050f20201000050f202 RespIEs=010882840b160c12182432043048606c)
19:16:52.166435 wlan0 New Access Point/Cell address:00:0E:2E:EB:C1:94
19:17:03.301311 wlan0 Scan request completed
19:17:03.301374 wlan0 New Access Point/Cell address:Not-Associated
19:17:03.326480 wlan0 New Access Point/Cell address:Not-Associated
19:17:03.326529 wlan0 New Access Point/Cell address:Not-Associated
19:17:03.326546 wlan0 New Access Point/Cell address:Not-Associated
19:17:03.326552 wlan0 New Access Point/Cell address:Not-Associated
19:17:03.326558 wlan0 New Access Point/Cell address:Not-Associated
19:17:03.326565 wlan0 New Access Point/Cell address:Not-Associated
19:17:03.326571 wlan0 New Access Point/Cell address:Not-Associated
19:17:03.326577 wlan0 New Access Point/Cell address:Not-Associated
19:17:03.326584 wlan0 New Access Point/Cell address:Not-Associated
19:17:03.326590 wlan0 New Access Point/Cell address:Not-Associated
19:17:03.326597 wlan0 New Access Point/Cell address:Not-Associated
19:17:03.326603 wlan0 New Access Point/Cell address:Not-Associated
19:17:03.326610 wlan0 New Access Point/Cell address:Not-Associated
19:17:03.326616 wlan0 New Access Point/Cell address:Not-Associated
19:17:03.326622 wlan0 New Access Point/Cell address:Not-Associated
19:17:03.326629 wlan0 New Access Point/Cell address:Not-Associated
19:17:03.326635 wlan0 New Access Point/Cell address:Not-Associated
19:17:03.326641 wlan0 New Access Point/Cell address:Not-Associated
19:17:04.922468 wlan0 New Access Point/Cell address:Not-Associated
19:17:08.751045 wlan0 Scan request completed
19:17:08.752014 wlan0 Set Mode:Managed
19:17:08.752051 wlan0 Set Frequency:2.462 GHz (Channel 11)
19:17:09.352184 wlan0 New Access Point/Cell address:Not-Associated
19:17:16.948128 wlan0 Scan request completed
19:17:16.948173 wlan0 Set Mode:Managed
19:17:16.948188 wlan0 Set Frequency:2.462 GHz (Channel 11)
19:17:17.562482 wlan0 New Access Point/Cell address:Not-Associated
19:17:22.488111 wlan0 Scan request completed
19:17:22.488149 wlan0 Set Mode:Managed
19:17:22.488164 wlan0 Set Frequency:2.462 GHz (Channel 11)
19:17:23.092096 wlan0 New Access Point/Cell address:Not-Associated
19:17:30.699724 wlan0 Scan request completed
19:17:30.700822 wlan0 Set Mode:Managed
19:17:30.700847 wlan0 Set Frequency:2.462 GHz (Channel 11)
19:17:31.302122 wlan0 New Access Point/Cell address:Not-Associated
19:17:38.895412 wlan0 Scan request completed
19:17:47.083300 wlan0 Scan request completed
19:17:47.084040 wlan0 Set Mode:Managed
19:17:47.084074 wlan0 Set Frequency:2.462 GHz (Channel 11)
19:17:47.682102 wlan0 New Access Point/Cell address:Not-Associated
19:17:55.278943 wlan0 Scan request completed
19:17:55.279925 wlan0 Set Mode:Managed
19:17:55.279956 wlan0 Set Frequency:2.462 GHz (Channel 11)
19:17:55.883364 wlan0 New Access Point/Cell address:Not-Associated
19:18:03.519360 wlan0 Scan request completed
19:18:03.520023 wlan0 Set Mode:Managed
19:18:03.520050 wlan0 Set Frequency:2.462 GHz (Channel 11)
19:18:03.537587 wlan0 Custom driver event:ASSOCINFO(ReqIEs=00066465766f726b010802040b160c12182432043048606cdd160050f20101000050f20201000050f20201000050f202 RespIEs=010882840b160c12182432043048606c)
19:18:03.562037 wlan0 New Access Point/Cell address:00:0E:2E:EB:C1:94

At 19:17:03 it lost the connection which it re-gained at 19:18:03 (very last line)

ProblemType: Bug
AplayDevices:
 **** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
 card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: AD198x Analog [AD198x Analog]
   Subdevices: 1/1
   Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
Architecture: amd64
ArecordDevices:
 **** List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices ****
 card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: AD198x Analog [AD198x Analog]
   Subdevices: 2/2
   Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
   Subdevice #1: subdevice #1
AudioDevicesInUse:
 USER PID ACCESS COMMAND
 /dev/snd/controlC0: flub 4530 F.... pulseaudio
Card0.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:0 'Intel'/'HDA Intel at 0xd8900000 irq 17'
   Mixer name : 'Analog Devices AD1984A'
   Components : 'HDA:11d4194a,103c3614,00100400 HDA:11c11040,103c1378,00100200'
   Controls : 22
   Simple ctrls : 14
Date: Sat Oct 24 19:07:23 2009
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
HibernationDevice: RESUME=/dev/mapper/signy-swap0
MachineType: Hewlett-Packard HP Compaq 6730s
Package: linux-image-2.6.31-14-generic 2.6.31-14.48
ProcCmdLine: root=/dev/mapper/hostname-root ro quiet splash
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_GB.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-14.48-generic
RelatedPackageVersions:
 linux-backports-modules-2.6.31-14-generic N/A
 linux-firmware 1.24
SourcePackage: linux
Uname: Linux 2.6.31-14-generic x86_64
WpaSupplicantLog:

dmi.bios.date: 09/18/2008
dmi.bios.vendor: Hewlett-Packard
dmi.bios.version: 68PZU Ver. F.07
dmi.board.name: 30E8
dmi.board.vendor: Hewlett-Packard
dmi.board.version: KBC Version 94.1A
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: CNU84954F6
dmi.chassis.type: 10
dmi.chassis.vendor: Hewlett-Packard
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnHewlett-Packard:bvr68PZUVer.F.07:bd09/18/2008:svnHewlett-Packard:pnHPCompaq6730s:pvrF.07:rvnHewlett-Packard:rn30E8:rvrKBCVersion94.1A:cvnHewlett-Packard:ct10:cvr:
dmi.product.name: HP Compaq 6730s
dmi.product.version: F.07
dmi.sys.vendor: Hewlett-Packard
---
AlsaVersion: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version 1.0.21.
AplayDevices:
 **** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
 card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: AD198x Analog [AD198x Analog]
   Subdevices: 1/1
   Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
Architecture: amd64
ArecordDevices:
 **** List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices ****
 card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: AD198x Analog [AD198x Analog]
   Subdevices: 2/2
   Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
   Subdevice #1: subdevice #1
AudioDevicesInUse:
 USER PID ACCESS COMMAND
 /dev/snd/controlC0: ubuntu 2980 F.... pulseaudio
CRDA: Error: [Errno 2] No such file or directory
Card0.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:0 'Intel'/'HDA Intel at 0xd8900000 irq 17'
   Mixer name : 'Analog Devices AD1984A'
   Components : 'HDA:11d4194a,103c3614,00100400 HDA:11c11040,103c1378,00100200'
   Controls : 18
   Simple ctrls : 11
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
LiveMediaBuild: Ubuntu 10.04 "Lucid Lynx" - Beta amd64 (20100318)
MachineType: Hewlett-Packard HP Compaq 6730s
Package: linux (not installed)
ProcCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/casper/vmlinuz file=/cdrom/preseed/hostname.seed boot=casper initrd=/casper/initrd.lz quiet splash --
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-16.25-generic
Regression: Yes
RelatedPackageVersions: linux-firmware 1.32
Reproducible: Yes
Tags: lucid needs-upstream-testing regression-release
TestedUpstream: No
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-16-generic x86_64
UserGroups: adm admin cdrom dialout lpadmin plugdev sambashare
dmi.bios.date: 09/18/2008
dmi.bios.vendor: Hewlett-Packard
dmi.bios.version: 68PZU Ver. F.07
dmi.board.name: 30E8
dmi.board.vendor: Hewlett-Packard
dmi.board.version: KBC Version 94.1A
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: CNU84954F6
dmi.chassis.type: 10
dmi.chassis.vendor: Hewlett-Packard
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnHewlett-Packard:bvr68PZUVer.F.07:bd09/18/2008:svnHewlett-Packard:pnHPCompaq6730s:pvrF.07:rvnHewlett-Packard:rn30E8:rvrKBCVersion94.1A:cvnHewlett-Packard:ct10:cvr:
dmi.product.name: HP Compaq 6730s
dmi.product.version: F.07
dmi.sys.vendor: Hewlett-Packard

---
Architecture: amd64
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
Package: linux (not installed)
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_GB.utf8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
Tags: lucid
Uname: Linux 2.6.33-02063303-generic x86_64
UnreportableReason: The running kernel is not an Ubuntu kernel
UserGroups: adm admin cdrom dialout dip kvm libvirtd lpadmin netdev plugdev pulse-access root sambashare staff sudo

[David Benjamin (davidben)]

I am also getting similar data from iwevent and it seems to be related to the wireless problems I have been having.

[Floris Bruynooghe (flub)]

Also I should have mentioned that this is a regression I'm seening from testing the karmic RC, in jaunty it worked perfectly fine.

[bodwick (bodwick)]

Same bug, network-manager causes wifi disconnection. Solved by installing wicd, now runs ok.

[tbnorris (tbnorris)]

it looks like wicd is a fix for me as well. it was so bad that i could only get my access point to connect for about 5 seconds before it would disconnect. basically before the notification would fade out the network panel would show it dropped.
-t

[tbnorris (tbnorris)]

my wi-fi card has not been up for almost a day straight with out any issues. Also, this is the only thing i have changed and now resuming from a suspend event seem to be working. That has not work in ubuntu since i have run it on this laptop (9.04 and not 9.10) I am still of the impression that this is a driver issue, but for whatever reason the wicd interface seems to not piss off the iwlagn driver as much as as the network-manager does, and especially the current version that is on 9.10
(network-manager version 0.8~a~get.20091013t193206
678d548-0ubuntu1)

i am going to run with this wicd workaround for right now, as i have not dropped the connection, and i have been xferring gigabytes of data from my server to this laptop, in hopes to trigger the drop out and no such occurrence and i have moved about 30gb before if i got a single gb to xfer without it killing the connection and locking up samba to the point where i had to reboot the laptop AND the xp server, i was lucky. I thank you @bodwick for the heads up on wicd, i did not even know about it, and would never have thought that network-manager could be at least helping the problem happen.
-t

[Jeremy Foshee (jeremyfoshee)]

Hi Floris,

This bug was reported a while ago and there hasn't been any activity in it recently. We were wondering if this is still an issue? Can you try with the latest development release of Ubuntu? ISO CD images are available from http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/releases/ .

If it remains an issue, could you run the following command from a Terminal (Applications->Accessories->Terminal). It will automatically gather and attach updated debug information to this report.

apport-collect -p linux 459933

Also, if you could test the latest upstream kernel available that would be great. It will allow additional upstream developers to examine the issue. Refer to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelMainlineBuilds . Once you've tested the upstream kernel, please remove the 'needs-upstream-testing' tag. This can be done by clicking on the yellow pencil icon next to the tag located at the bottom of the bug description and deleting the 'needs-upstream-testing' text. Please let us know your results.

Thanks in advance.

    [This is an automated message. Apologies if it has reached you inappropriately; please just reply to this message indicating so.]

[Floris Bruynooghe (flub)]

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[Floris Bruynooghe (flub)]

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[Floris Bruynooghe (flub)]

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[Floris Bruynooghe (flub)]

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[Floris Bruynooghe (flub)]

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[Floris Bruynooghe (flub)]

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[Floris Bruynooghe (flub)]

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[Floris Bruynooghe (flub)]

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[Floris Bruynooghe (flub)]

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[Floris Bruynooghe (flub)]

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[Floris Bruynooghe (flub)]

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[Floris Bruynooghe (flub)]

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[Floris Bruynooghe (flub)]

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[Floris Bruynooghe (flub)]

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[Floris Bruynooghe (flub)]

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[Floris Bruynooghe (flub)]

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[Floris Bruynooghe (flub)]

The above information is with lucid beta 1 where the problem persists.

The last kernel version where this was fine was from 9.04 (according to a packages.ubuntu.com that was likely to be 2.6.15-53).

Since the lucid beta1 test was from life-cd I'll try to install beta1 on a spare lvm partition before I can try the last mainline kernel, I'll get back on that.

[Floris Bruynooghe (flub)]

Sorry, jaunty seems like it was 2.6.28.

[Floris Bruynooghe (flub)]

Hello,

I'm sorry but I won't be able to test the upstream kernel. My system is luks->lvm->partitions and I only have spare space in the lvm volume group and no where else on the disk. Installing on lvm-on-luks works with the expert installer and some manual commands in the installer, but the bootloader shipped with karmic doesn't support luks yet (not that surprising, it's pretty new) so I can't boot that system. This being a "production" laptop I can't just upgrade the main system and I haven't got spare drives either.

Regards
Floris

[Floris Bruynooghe (flub)]

Hi

I've now tested with the mainline kernel and the problem persists exactly as described before.

Regards
Floris

[Jeremy Foshee (jeremyfoshee)]

This bug report was marked as Incomplete and has not had any updated comments for quite some time. As a result this bug is being closed. Please reopen if this is still an issue in the current Ubuntu release http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download . Also, please be sure to provide any requested information that may have been missing. To reopen the bug, click on the current status under the Status column and change the status back to "New". Thanks.

[This is an automated message. Apologies if it has reached you inappropriately; please just reply to this message indicating so.]

[Floris Bruynooghe (flub)]

This is still an issue in lucid kernels. I'm unaware of any information I haven't provided, so please let me know if there's more I can do.

[rdesfo (rdesfo)]

having the same problem

[boggiano (boggiano-redhat-bugs)]

Description of problem:
Every 120 seconds my connection stops for about 2 seconds.
It disconnects from AP then reconnects immediately.

Kernel is 2.6.34.7-56.fc13.i686.PAE.
NetworkManager-0.8.1-6.git20100831.fc13

How reproducible:
Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Start networkmanager
2. Looks into logs

Actual results:

Expected results:

Additional info:
The connection is "insecure" (not WPA or WEP).
120 is the "max time", sometimes even less. (as you can see in the attach file iwevent.txt).
If I stop NW and I use iwconfig by hand, this problem stops but I need a "ping -c www.google.com" in background or the connection drops.

If I lunch the command:
while : ; do iwconfig wlan0|grep 'Freq' ;sleep 1; done
this is the output during the "disconnects":

Mode:Managed Frequency:2.412 GHz Access Point:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.412 GHz Access Point:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.412 GHz Access Point: Not-Associated
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.412 GHz Access Point: Not-Associated
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.412 GHz Access Point: Not-Associated
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.412 GHz Access Point:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.412 GHz Access Point:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx

[boggiano (boggiano-redhat-bugs)]

Created attachment 453591
Output of iwevent command

[Floris Bruynooghe (flub)]

This seems to be finally fixed in the kernel shipped with maveric (2.6.35-22-generic).

I hope the "Fix released" status is appropriate.

[Dan (dan-redhat-bugs)]

This is due to periodic scanning. If you don't want periodic scanning (which allows intra-SSID roaming and faster reassociation on connection loss) then you can disable it by "locking" your connection to a specific BSSID in the connection editor.

Right-click on the network applet and choose Edit Connections... or run 'nm-connection-editor', click the Wireless tab, double-click on your wifi connection, and in the Wireless tab in that edit window, enter your AP's MAC address. Then click Apply, and re-select your wifi network from the applet's menu.

NM will then tell the supplicant and driver to lock the connection to that specific AP, and will no longer request periodic scans.

[boggiano (boggiano-redhat-bugs)]

Yes!!
It works very well!
Thanks a lot!!!

[Steven (steven-redhat-bugs)]

I've just tried the above fix on a HP 6730b laptop running Fedora 14 and the machine is still re-connecting to the same BSSID Mac address every 20 minutes.

[Dan (dan-redhat-bugs)]

Just because *NM* isn't asking for scans doesn't mean something else like the supplicant itself isn't asking for them. Believe it or not, there are valid reasons to do a scan while connected. Like if the driver decides to disconnect for some reason, or if the AP timed out because somebody turned on a microwave, etc. Take a look at 'dmesg' output from that time, and it's likely that the AP failed to respond to probe requests, which causes a disconnect, which causes the supplicant to scan for an AP to reconnect to.

The fix above just means that *NM* isn't asking for periodic scans, it doesn't suppress *all* scans by the wireless stack entirely, because there's often good reason why they are done.

[Steven (steven-redhat-bugs)]

Problem is when the scan kicks in I loose my wireless connection for 2-3 seconds which is a real pain if I'm using ssh into a server and can no longer type.

[Maciej (maciej-redhat-bugs)]

I'm having the same problem. My connection is interrupted every few minutesduring iwevent showing "Scan request completed". When using SSH, synergy or any other 'live connection' the work is troublesome.

I don't care if NM scans, but I think the connection shouldn't be interrupted during that. The workaround with setting exact BSSID MAC address in NM configuration works, but is the connection interrupted by design?
Maybe it's iwlagn module/firmware bug? or NetworkManager's fault?

Detailed info:
- hardware: 03:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation Centrino Advanced-N 6200 (rev 35)
- OS Fedora 14 (with latest updates)
- kernel: 2.6.35.14-95.fc14.x86_64 #1 SMP Tue Aug 16 21:01:58 UTC 2011 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
- iwlagn module srcversion: 683C5EFF5AC57D530DD7FC4
- iwlagn firmware version 9.221.4.1 build 25532
- NetworkManager version: 0.8.4-2.git20110622.fc1