ipw2200 constantly disconnects, /var/log/syslog says ipw200: Firmware error detected. Restarting.

[puff]

I have a thinkpad t43p with ipw2200 wireless. For several years it has worked perfectly on unsecured wireless networks.

Recently I set up a home network with WPA2 encryption. I started seeing random disconnects every so often. Most of the time it reconnected and I restarted ssh, etc, and went on. Sometimes it did not reconnect at all.

When I checked the syslog, I saw multiple occurrences of:

     ipw2200: Firmware error detected. Restarting.

Previously (pre-Lucid), the connection would stay good for several hours at a time, or would disconnect and then reconnect every ten or twenty minutes. Sometimes it would disconnect and reconnect every couple of minutes, eventually becoming unable to reconnect at all. Usually at that point, no matter how many times I retried, I couldn't get a connection.

Sometimes, if I suspended and resumed, it seemed to start working again.

Since reinstalling to Lucid, some days I'm lucky and get 10-20 minutes of working network, and then it starts disconnecting and reconnecting constantly, eventually giving up and unable to reconnect for the rest of the day.

I have had problems, in the past, with ipw2200 not functioning when resuming from hibernate. In the past, I found that using modprobe to remove and reload the ipw2200 module would solve the problem. I tried that with this problem, e.g.:

----------------------------------------------------------------------
$ sudo modprobe -r ipw2200
$ sudo modprobe ipw2200
----------------------------------------------------------------------

But it had no visible effect.

In the 352150 comments, somebody suggested creating a file named /etc/modprobe.d/ipw2200.conf, containing this line:

----------------------------------------------------------------------
options ipw2200 hwcrypto=0
----------------------------------------------------------------------

The comments also suggested using the hwcrypto=0 argument on the modprobe line, e.g.:

----------------------------------------------------------------------
$ sudo modprobe -r ipw2200
$ sudo modprobe ipw2200 hwcrypto=0
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Neither of these had any visible effect.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
Package: linux-image-2.6.32-23-generic 2.6.32-23.37
Regression: No
Reproducible: Yes
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-23.37-generic 2.6.32.15+drm33.5
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-23-generic i686
AlsaVersion: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version 1.0.21.
Architecture: i386
AudioDevicesInUse:
 USER PID ACCESS COMMAND
 /dev/snd/controlC0: puff 1384 F.... pulseaudio
CRDA: Error: [Errno 2] No such file or directory
Card0.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:0 'ICH6'/'Intel ICH6 with AD1981B at irq 22'
   Mixer name : 'Analog Devices AD1981B'
   Components : 'AC97a:41445374'
   Controls : 26
   Simple ctrls : 18
Card29.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:29 'ThinkPadEC'/'ThinkPad Console Audio Control at EC reg 0x30, fw 1YHT29WW-1.06'
   Mixer name : 'ThinkPad EC 1YHT29WW-1.06'
   Components : ''
   Controls : 2
   Simple ctrls : 1
Card29.Amixer.values:
 Simple mixer control 'Console',0
   Capabilities: pvolume pvolume-joined pswitch pswitch-joined penum
   Playback channels: Mono
   Limits: Playback 0 - 14
   Mono: Playback 9 [64%] [on]
Date: Mon Jul 19 00:08:33 2010
HibernationDevice: RESUME=UUID=b3d0a5c0-5cc9-4a17-b9f5-61e2bab9bfaf
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.04 LTS "Lucid Lynx" - Release i386 (20100427.1)
MachineType: IBM 2668H2U
PccardctlIdent:
 Socket 0:
   no product info available
PccardctlStatus:
 Socket 0:
   no card
ProcCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-23-generic root=/dev/mapper/hostname-root ro quiet splash
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=en_US.utf8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
RelatedPackageVersions: linux-firmware 1.34.1
SourcePackage: linux
dmi.bios.date: 08/21/2006
dmi.bios.vendor: IBM
dmi.bios.version: 1YET65WW (1.29 )
dmi.board.name: 2668H2U
dmi.board.vendor: IBM
dmi.board.version: Not Available
dmi.chassis.asset.tag: No Asset Information
dmi.chassis.type: 10
dmi.chassis.vendor: IBM
dmi.chassis.version: Not Available
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnIBM:bvr1YET65WW(1.29):bd08/21/2006:svnIBM:pn2668H2U:pvrThinkPadT43p:rvnIBM:rn2668H2U:rvrNotAvailable:cvnIBM:ct10:cvrNotAvailable:
dmi.product.name: 2668H2U
dmi.product.version: ThinkPad T43p
dmi.sys.vendor: IBM

[Jeremy Foshee (jeremyfoshee)]

Hi puff,

If you could also please 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.]

[puff (puff)]

Jeremy,

On Wed, Jul 21, 2010 at 02:40:12PM -0000, Jeremy Foshee wrote:
> If you could also please 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.

     I'll be happy to test with the upstream kernel. I took a look at
that page when I filed the bug report, and at that point it was a bit
too ambiguous for me, I needed more of a step-by-step. I just took
another look at it and it makes more sense now, so I'll give it a
shot.

     Also, some new information... the problem seems to be varying
over time; sometimes it's nearly impossible to get/stay connected,
other times it seems to work okay. I'm beginning to suspect it has a
lot to do with the time of day, which means it's either sunspots or
that the amount of wireless network traffic in my neighborhood goes up
at certain times and provokes ipw2200 activity (repeated handshakes
maybe?).

--
Steven J. Owens
<email address hidden> / [phone] cell
| "I'm going to make broad, sweeping generalizations and strong,
| declarative statements, because otherwise I'll be here all night and
| this document will be four times longer and much less fun to read.
| Take it all with a grain of salt."
| - http://darksleep.com/notablog

[Rainer (drynwhyl)]

hi,
 i tested the latest upstream kernel, the connection still randomly disconnects on my thinkpad t43

[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 development release http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/daily-live/current/ . 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.]

[johny (johny454)]

Thanks Fabio for marking this new again.

[puff (puff)]

This problem persisted for me, even after numerous updates.

I eventually tried what one of the commenters on https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/331103 suggested. I reinstalled my router/WAP from DD-WRT to Tomato. This seems to have fixed the problem.

I still get a disconnect/reconnect, once or twice a day. Infrequently (perhaps 1-2 times a month) it disconnects and can't reconnect, but that generally occurs only when my laptop is very heavily loaded.

[puff (puff)]

I should clarify, the remaining disconnects give me the same error, "ip2200: Firmware error detected. Restarting."

Attached is grep results from my syslog, I grepped on both ipw2200 and WPA (since this problem seems to be related to WPA). The error only occurs 3 times in the past 6 days.

[johny (johny454)]

I'm observing quite the same as Puff is; Yesterday still the connection would brake very often, today it is stable.
What I see when the prblem shows up is the Wireless signal level indicator that starts to vary - I can see bares decreasing and raising all over then, eventually it will disconnect.
I'm attaching my wireless log so you can see it yourself.

[penalvch (penalvch)]

puff, thank you for reporting this bug and helping make Ubuntu better. 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 in the development release from a Terminal (Applications->Accessories->Terminal). It will automatically gather and attach updated debug information to this report.

apport-collect -p linux <replace-with-bug-number>

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.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for linux (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]

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