Comment 98 for bug 291760

Revision history for this message
Nthalk (phocis) wrote : Re: [Bug 291760] Re: network-manager roams to (none) ((none)) - background scanning

I installed Lucid recently, on a work network with 3 other people. Every two
minutes, the network would go down for 10 seconds due to my MacBookPro 3,1's
Atheros card's background scanning. Again, I had to just install wicd.

The fact that it's broken on my system is not so bad as the fact that the
entire wireless network around me went down during those (now unsyslogged)
bgscans.

It's network manager's fault for triggering scans in a driver that has good
support for bad hardware or bad support for good hardware.

This could all be fixed with a network manager configuration file,
interface, or anything. But it won't. It's been a problem for years.

-Nthalk

On Thu, Apr 29, 2010 at 4:52 PM, Peter Zieba <email address hidden>wrote:

> I can confirm this problem across several models of Dell Laptop, across
> several brands of wireless NIC. The same behavior is exhibited on Karmic
> and the Lucid RC. Hence, this is likely not a driver problem.
>
> The problem manifests itself by constant disconnects at random times
> with similar messages related to roaming from "none".
>
> Also, our specific wireless deployment works properly for the same
> hardware platforms (Mostly various dell laptops), running WIndows XP and
> Fedora Core 12. OSX also works. Thus, RF and configuration issues of the
> wireless infrastructure are not likely.
>
> This particular deployment uses a Cisco 5508 Wireless LAN Controller
> with 1142 Access Points, configured with sane defaults for most things.
>
> Users authenticate via WPA2 / Enterprise, AES+TKIP, 802.1X
>
> Version information of Fedora Core 12 is being provided as a reference for
> a configuration that does work properly with Network-Manager:
> Network Manager: 0.7.998-2.git20100106.fc12.x86_64
> Netowrk Manager Gnome: 0.7.998-2.git20100106.fc12.x86_64
> wpa_supplicant: 0.6.8-8.fc12.x86_64
> kernel: 2.6.32.11-99.fc12.x86_64
>
> Working around this issue involves simply not using Network-Manager, and
> setting up wpa_supplicant manually on Debian/Ubuntu.
>
> This issue seems to have lingered for quite some time, and it seems that
> several other seemingly related issues may be making addressing this
> problem more difficult.
>
> It does, however, impact the usability of wireless in a very serious
> way, and seems to apply to a fairly diverse set of hardware.
>
> I am tempted to speculate that this issue may be more common for people
> using enterprise authentication, possibly explaining why it hasn't been
> caught/isolated and addressed earlier.
>
> Please let me know if there are any specifics I can provide beyond
> what's here.
>
> Many Thanks!
>
> --
> network-manager roams to (none) ((none)) - background scanning
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/291760
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