[gutsy] ipw3945-based wireless doesn't work after booting with wireless switch off

[Bogdan Butnaru]

Hello!

I'm using a Dell Latitude D620 laptop, running Gutsy. It has a ipw3945-based wireless card (I'm not sure where to look for exact details). The laptop has a "wireless switch".

The bug: if I boot up the laptop with the switch in the OFF position, the wireless is not available at all, even after toggling the switch to ON. The NetworkManager and NetworkManagerDispatcher are running, the restricted drivers manager shows the driver as loaded, and the /sbin/ipw3945d-[kernel version] daemon is running. However, ifconfig doesn't show an entry for the wireless card (wired works), nor does the nm-applet.

I tried toggling the switch several times (it triggers a "keyboard event" but that's all), and I tried disabling and re-enabling the driver in the restricted manager, but I can't get it to work.

After a reboot with the switch ON, it works correctly. It also works correctly when I toggle the switch _after_ the boot, as long as it booted with the switch ON (when I first installed Feisty, this wasn't true.)

$ uname -a
Linux cimer 2.6.22-6-generic #1 SMP Fri Jun 1 19:24:12 GMT 2007 i686 GNU/Linux

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

Confirmed on a HP DV6245US laptop with ipw3945 running Gutsy with kernel version 2.6.22-6. The fact the kill switch was toggled is not registered in the kernel log or dmesg.

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

Powering the laptop on with the killswitch off (wireless enabled) allows you to turn it on and off.

[Bogdan Butnaru (bogdanb)]

True, I just realized that the wording can be confusing (killswitch on/wireless off).

If the wireless is disabled at boot by the killswitch, it can't be enabled at all.
If the wireless is enabled at boot, the killswitch works normally and you can disable/enable the wireless until you shut down.

[Peter Clifton (pcjc2)]

Also seems to happen after resume from suspend on HP Compaq nc6320.

sudo killall ipw3945f-2.6.22-6-generic
sudo rm /var/run/ipw3945d.pid
sudo rmmod ipw3945
sudo modprobe ipw3945

seems to get it lively again for me (Although I do recall having to restart some core bits of network manager for it to notice the new interface.)

Unfortunatly, the regulatory daemon stops you just doing rmmod ipw3945 directly (the module is in use). I wonder if there is some way the module can not flag its self as being "in use" with the regulatory daemon as its only user, but instead kill the daemon when the module is unloaded.

[martinlanghoff (martin-langhoff)]

I could repro this prob with 2.6.22-6-generic on an HP/Compaq 6710b but with 2.6.22-7-generic it works correctly.

$ lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile Memory Controller Hub (rev 0c)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 0c)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 0c)
00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI #4 (rev 03)
00:1a.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI #5 (rev 03)
00:1a.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI #2 (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 03)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 03)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 03)
00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 3 (rev 03)
00:1c.4 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 5 (rev 03)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI #1 (rev 03)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI #2 (rev 03)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI #3 (rev 03)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI #1 (rev 03)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev f3)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile LPC Interface Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation Mobile IDE Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation Mobile SATA AHCI Controller (rev 03)
02:04.0 CardBus bridge: Ricoh Co Ltd RL5c476 II (rev b6)
02:04.1 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Ricoh Co Ltd Unknown device 0832 (rev 02)
03:00.0 USB Controller: NEC Corporation USB (rev 43)
03:00.1 USB Controller: NEC Corporation USB (rev 43)
10:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection (rev 02)
18:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetLink BCM5787M Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express (rev 02)

~$ uname -a
Linux aporo2 2.6.22-7-generic #1 SMP Mon Jun 25 17:33:14 GMT 2007 i686 GNU/Linux

$ lsmod | grep ipw
ipw3945 119712 1
ieee80211 35656 1 ipw3945

$ dmesg | grep ipw
[ 13.228000] ipw3945: Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 3945 Network Connection driver for Linux, 1.2.1mp
[ 13.228000] ipw3945: Copyright(c) 2003-2006 Intel Corporation
[ 13.232000] ipw3945: Detected Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection
[ 15.500000] ipw3945: Radio Frequency Kill Switch is On:
[ 107.900000] ipw3945: Detected geography ABG (13 802.11bg channels, 4 802.11a channels)
[ 198.000000] ipw3945: Detected geography ABG (13 802.11bg channels, 4 802.11a channels)
[ 358.792000] ipw3945: Detected geography ABG (13 802.11bg channels, 4 802.11a channels)
[ 478.936000] ipw3945: Detected geography ABG (13 802.11bg channels, 4 802.11a channels)
[ 479.768000] ipw3945: Error sending ADD_STA: time out after 500ms.
[ 599.312000] ipw3945: Detected geography ABG (13 802.11bg channels, 4 802.11a channels)

[Phil Homewood (pdh++)]

I'm seeing the same behaviour on a D620 with Feisty (2.6.20-16-generic); it worked fine on Dapper.

[Sarah Kowalik (hobbsee-deactivatedaccount)]

"I could repro this prob with 2.6.22-6-generic on an HP/Compaq 6710b but with 2.6.22-7-generic it works correctly."

Okay, so we've got one user who sees this fixed in gutsy - is anyone else in current gutsy still seeing this?

[Bogdan Butnaru (bogdanb)]

I'm still getting this at least sometimes. I don't use the killswitch very often because of that, but it seems that the behavior changes from time to time.

Before Gutsy, nm-applet would display the "disconnected" status when I killed the wireless, and automatically re-connected when I reset the switch.

Right now, it can't tell the wireless is off, it just shows the "no signal" icon. After I reset the switch it doesn't do anything, and when I try to manually reconnect it can't (it tries for a while then stops with the "No network connection"). I just noticed that iwconfig says "eth1 no wireless extensions." after on/offing the killswitch --- but eth1 is my wireless card. So it might not be nm-applet's fault.

[Bogdan Butnaru (bogdanb)]

Just to clarify: when I filed this bug, the killswitch worked as long as wireless was enabled at boot.

Now it just permanently disables wireless.

[martinlanghoff (martin-langhoff)]

On 7/17/07, Sarah Hobbs <email address hidden> wrote:
> "I could repro this prob with 2.6.22-6-generic on an HP/Compaq 6710b but
> with 2.6.22-7-generic it works correctly."
>
> Okay, so we've got one user who sees this fixed in gutsy - is anyone
> else in current gutsy still seeing this?

After a bit more usage, I have to revise the above statement: it works
better, but not entirely correct. With 2.6.22-7 and 2.6.22-8 what I am
seeing is that if I

 - boot w wireless off
 - no wireless device in gnome network manager!
 - suspend to disk
 - wakeup enabling wireles very early
 - I have a wireless device!

cheers,

m

[Bogdan Butnaru (bogdanb)]

That would be very helpful if only suspend worked :)

Time for another bug report...

[Ben Collins (ben-collins)]

Tim, perhaps check if there is a new ipw3945 driver to put into lum.

[Bogdan Butnaru (bogdanb)]

I noticed something weird: the failure, whatever may be causing it, appears to be intermittent.

Yesterday I accidentally booted up with the wireless disabled via the switch, and when I flicked the switch back the wireless turned on. It's totally weird, this never happened before _and_ I'm sure I haven't done upgrades since the last post.

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

Still ok for me to fix for Tribe 4, but not a showstopper.

[Henrik Nilsen Omma (henrik)]

Moving milestone.

[Alex Muntada (alex.muntada)]

Changed the subject to show that it's a ipw3945-based wireless issue.

[Henrik Nilsen Omma (henrik)]

Moving milestone to beta.

[Sevenissimo (seven.issimo)]

I've got a HP dv6540el with ipw3945.
I always boot with kill switch on (wireless off) but this is my experience:

- boot:
Sep 21 00:13:10 HPdv6540el kernel: [ 17.116000] ipw3945: Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 3945 Network Connection driver for Linux, 1.2.2mp.ubuntu1
Sep 21 00:13:10 HPdv6540el kernel: [ 17.116000] ipw3945: Copyright(c) 2003-2006 Intel Corporation
Sep 21 00:13:10 HPdv6540el kernel: [ 17.120000] ipw3945: Detected Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection
Sep 21 00:13:10 HPdv6540el kernel: [ 19.008000] ipw3945: Radio Frequency Kill Switch is On:
Sep 21 00:13:10 HPdv6540el kernel: [ 19.008000] Kill switch must be turned off for wireless networking to work.

- nm after boot show only wired connection (in context menu)

- activating wireless (moving switch to off):
Sep 21 00:21:38 HPdv6540el kernel: [ 528.420000] ipw3945: Detected geography ABG (13 802.11bg channels, 23 802.11a channels)
Sep 21 00:21:39 HPdv6540el kernel: [ 528.632000] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): eth1: link is not ready

- now nm show also wireless connection, according to iwconfig
          Mode:Managed Frequency=nan kHz Access Point: Not-Associated
          Bit Rate:0 kb/s Tx-Power:16 dBm
          Retry limit:15 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
          Power Management: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

$ uname -a
Linux HPdv6540el 2.6.22-11-generic #1 SMP Mon Sep 17 03:45:58 GMT 2007 i686 GNU/Linux

$ lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile PM965/GM965/GL960 Memory Controller Hub (rev 0c)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 0c)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 0c)
00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Contoller #4 (rev 03)
00:1a.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5 (rev 03)
00:1a.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 03)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 03)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 03)
00:1c.5 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 6 (rev 03)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 03)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev f3)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801HEM (ICH8M) LPC Interface Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801HBM/HEM (ICH8M/ICH8M-E) IDE Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Co...

[Jack McDowell (jack-mcdowell)]

I have a similar problem with a DV6000US, after installing gutsy, my wireless card disappeared. It is completely gone if I do an lspci. And starting with the switch on or off makes no position. BTW I also need to boot with noapic nolapic and irqpoll if I want the computer to boot up at all,
Cheers,
Jack

[mmm008 (lll007)]

I have exactly the same problem as Jack on Lenovo X61 tablet.

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

Jack and mmm008. You issue appears to be unrelated to this bug as you say that it doesn't make difference whether wireless is on of off during boot. Please file a new bug (use network-manager as package for now) and attach your /etc/network/interfaces as well as your /var/log/syslog to your _new_ bugs,

[Matthias Andree (matthias-andree)]

I'm still seeing the issue in 2.6.22-12-generic (Gutsy first beta) on a Fujitsu-Siemens Lifebook T4210 (tablet PC, i945GM/Centrino Duo stuff):

- boot with killswitch on (= wireless off) and there will be no scan results when disabling killswitch, and after /etc/init.d/network reload not even wireless extensions
- unloading and reloading the module while the killswitch is disabled (=wireless on) resolves the problem for me

wildest guess: might there be something inside the ipw3945 module or deamon caching the killswitch state or not updating some internal variable properly?
Note I haven't read a single line of driver source code...

$ uname -a
Linux FORGETTHEHOSTNAME 2.6.22-12-generic #1 SMP Sun Sep 23 18:11:30 GMT 2007 i686 GNU/Linux

$ lspci -nn
00:00.0 Host bridge [0600]: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/PM/GMS, 943/940GML and 945GT Express Memory Controller Hub [8086:27a0] (rev 03)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:27a2] (rev 03)
00:02.1 Display controller [0380]: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS/GME, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:27a6] (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device [0403]: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) High Definition Audio Controller [8086:27d8] (rev 02)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 1 [8086:27d0] (rev 02)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 2 [8086:27d2] (rev 02)
00:1c.2 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 3 [8086:27d4] (rev 02)
00:1d.0 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 [8086:27c8] (rev 02)
00:1d.1 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 [8086:27c9] (rev 02)
00:1d.2 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 [8086:27ca] (rev 02)
00:1d.3 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 [8086:27cb] (rev 02)
00:1d.7 USB Controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller [8086:27cc] (rev 02)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge [8086:2448] (rev e2)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge [0601]: Intel Corporation 82801GBM (ICH7-M) LPC Interface Bridge [8086:27b9] (rev 02)
00:1f.1 IDE interface [0101]: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) IDE Controller [8086:27df] (rev 02)
00:1f.2 SATA controller [0106]: Intel Corporation 82801GBM/GHM (ICH7 Family) SATA AHCI Controller [8086:27c5] (rev 02)
00:1f.3 SMBus [0c05]: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) SMBus Controller [8086:27da] (rev 02)
02:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88E8055 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Controller [11ab:4363] (rev 12)
05:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection [8086:4222] (rev 02)
08:03.0 CardBus bridge [0607]: O2 Micro, Inc. OZ711MP1/MS1 MemoryCardBus Controller [1217:7134] (rev 20)
08:03.1 CardBus bridge [0607]: O2 Micro, Inc. OZ711MP1/MS1 MemoryCardBus Controller [1217:7134] (rev 20)
08:03.2 Generic system perip...

[tmp (skrald)]

I can reproduce this bug in Gutsy/Beta1 on a Lenovo T60 laptop: Wireless does not work. :-(

[Alan Pope 🍺🐧🐱 🦄 (popey)]

I can reproduce this on a Toshiba Portege M400 with a physical switch.

Boot all the way to desktop with kill swich on (wireless turned off) then toggle the switch, wireless never works.

Boot with kill switch off (wireless on) it more or less works most of the time. I have yet to figure out why it sometimes doesn't, but that's for another bug report.

02:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection (rev 02)
02:00.0 0280: 8086:4222 (rev 02)

[Emiliano Parasassi (millallo)]

I've a similar problem with my Toshiba A100-155:
Test case:
- boot with killswitch=on (wireless=off) and lan connected
- lsmod returns the module loaded but not used
- no process running called /sbin/ipw3945d-2.6.22-12-generic
- nm-applet says nothing about wireless

[ 3.544000] ipw3945: Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 3945 Network Connection driver for Linux, 1.2.2mp.ubuntu1
[ 3.544000] ipw3945: Copyright(c) 2003-2006 Intel Corporation
[ 5.192000] ipw3945: Detected Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection
[ 5.192000] ipw3945: ipw3945.ucode load failed: Reason -2
[ 5.192000] ipw3945: Could not read microcode: -2
[ 5.192000] ipw3945: probe of 0000:05:00.0 failed with error -2

If i rmmod and modprobe manually everything goes fine...

[ 620.808000] ipw3945: Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 3945 Network Connection driver for Linux, 1.2.2mp.ubuntu1
[ 620.808000] ipw3945: Copyright(c) 2003-2006 Intel Corporation
[ 620.808000] ipw3945: Detected Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection
[ 622.680000] ipw3945: Detected geography ABG (13 802.11bg channels, 23 802.11a channels)
[ 870.016000] ipw3945: Radio Frequency Kill Switch is On:
[ 907.896000] ipw3945: Detected geography ABG (13 802.11bg channels, 23 802.11a channels)

[CypherDelic (maik-masling)]

Hardware: Sony VAIO Fe-31Z / IPW3945
Distribution: Ubuntu Hardy Heron (PreAlpha) but same error on Gutsy
Kernel: 2.6.22-14 AMD64

I can reproduce the same error:
Wireless device is not available at all, when booting up with wireless KILLswitch enabled (wireless switch off).

Wireless driver can be loaded with [QUOTE]sudo modprobe ipw3945[/QUOTE] AND disabling the kill switch (the order is insignificant for me). rmmod is not needed for me, too. Thanks

[cicoandcico (cicoandcico)]

Same problem with a Latitude d830, with ipw3945-based wireless.
When booting with hardware switch "on" network interface is recognized, and if I kill the wireless Nm-applet displays the "no signal" icon.
After I reset the switch it doesn't do anything.
I have also some random disconnection and a reboot is required to make the interface work again. Please increase bug priority, this problem should have been a showstopper.

[tiwag (tiwag-gmx)]

Same problem with a Dell Latitude d820, with ipw3945-wireless.

When booting with hardware switch "on" network interface is recognized, and if I kill the wireless Nm-applet displays the "no signal" icon.
After I reset the switch it doesn't do anything.
I had never some random disconnections

After resuming from hibernation with kill-switch on (wireless off)
a reboot is required to make the interface work again.

Please increase bug priority, this problem is a showstopper.

[Matthias Andree (matthias-andree)]

Problem persists for me in final Gutsy (7.10) release.

[zabbaskeema (zabbaskeema)]

Same problem here:
Linux zabba-K 2.6.22-14-generic #1 SMP Sun Oct 14 23:05:12 GMT 2007 i686 GNU/Linux
Patrick

[Tim Gardner (timg-tpi)]

Can you try using iwl3945 to see if it solves your problems? Intel no longer supports ipw3945. There is a test build in my PPA:

echo "deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/timg-tpi/ubuntu gutsy main" | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get -u upgrade

- or -

wget http://ppa.launchpad.net/timg-tpi/ubuntu/pool/main/l/linux-ubuntu-modules-2.6.22/linux-ubuntu-modules-2.6.22-14-generic_2.6.22-14.39_i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i linux-ubuntu-modules-2.6.22-14-generic_2.6.22-14.39_i386.deb

You'll have to add ipw3945 to /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist

[Emiliano Parasassi (millallo)]

Unfortunately i've the same problem at boot time...

[ 3.556000] iwl3945: Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 3945ABG/BG Network Connection driver for Linux, 1.2.0
[ 3.556000] iwl3945: Copyright(c) 2003-2007 Intel Corporation
[ 4.784000] iwl3945: Detected Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection
[ 4.788000] iwl3945: iwlwifi-3945-1.ucode firmware file req failed: Reason -2
[ 4.788000] iwl3945: Could not read microcode: -2
[ 4.788000] iwl3945: probe of 0000:05:00.0 failed with error -2

[cicoandcico (cicoandcico)]

installing the above package results in a breakage of my wireless. eth1 interface (the wireless one) disappeared. i was forced to go back to the old driver trough synaptic.

[Emiliano Parasassi (millallo)]

hello
I'm using the new iwl3945 module in this manner:

- I've blacklisted both modules (ipw3945 and iwl3945) in /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist, so they
will not included in the initrd under /boot dir which caused some startup problems.
- Executed sudo update-initramfs -uv
- Removed lines about old eth1 in /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules which lock the
macaddress of our wifi card.
- Added iwl3945 to /etc/modules
- Reboot

I hope this helps you

[Tim Gardner (timg-tpi)]

ipw3945 is deprecated in favor of iwl3945 in Hardy. Please test using that version.

[Adam Niedling (krychek)]

I have the same issue in Jaunty with a HP nw8440 laptop. Wifi only works if I turn it on before boot.

10:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 3945ABG [Golan] Network Connection (rev 02)

Should I open a new bug report?

[Adam Niedling (krychek)]

I don't have this issue anymore, it got fixed. I'm surprised and happy.