Upgrading to Jaunty breaks rt61pci wireless

[Andrew]

Binary package hint: linux-image-2.6.28-11-generic

My wireless was working great until upgrading from Intrepid to Jaunty last night. Unlike other bugs, this has nothing to do with pm (suspend / resume), it does not work on a fresh clean boot and 'modprobe -r' and then re-probing does nothing.

Kernel: linux-image-2.6.28-11-generic
Wireless card: EDIMAX EW-7128G IEEE 802.11b/g PCI Wireless Card

Symptoms:
wpa_supplicant starts, but wpa_cli does not start. No link strength at all, on my WPA2 with hidden SSID or even if I try to connect to a neighbor's unsecured router. It just refuses to associate with the SSID.

I have attached all the files I thought relevant

Since this is a internet problem, I cannot use ubuntu-bug to report the problem

Attached file contents:
dmesg.log -> dmesg
etc_network_interfaces -> /etc/network/interfaces
etc_wpa_supplicant.conf -> /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf
ifconfig.log -> ifconfig
iwconfig.log -> iwconfig
lspci-vnvn.log -> sudo lspci -vnvn
uname-a.log -> uname -a
version.log -> cat /proc/version_signature

This is on my mythtv in my basement and my cable modem is on the 2nd story of my house, so this is really a show stopper for me as there is no way for me to get this computer on the network without this wireless card working.

I'll probably try an older kernel from Intrepid next to see if that helps.

Until a fix is found, any work-around advice that doesn't consist of buying new hardware is also appreciated.

Thank you!

[Andrew (andrew-rw-robinson)]

Just restarted the computer on my older kernel. uname -a:

Linux mythtv 2.6.27-11-generic #1 SMP Wed Apr 1 20:53:41 UTC 2009 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Still not working. Looks like it is not the kernel/driver, or at least not fully the kernel.

[Andrew (andrew-rw-robinson)]

Some more information: wpa_gui

Status: "ASSOCIATING"
Last message: Trying to associate with SSID 'linksys'

It sits there like this with no change. The "linksys" is my neighbor's unencrypted wireless, so this has nothing to do with encryption or authentication (I checked with my iPod, this dumb neighbor's router is wide open)

[Andrew (andrew-rw-robinson)]

/var/log/wpa_supplicant.log contains this:

No network configuration found for the current AP
CTRL-EVENT-DISCONNECTED - Disconnect event - remove keys
Trying to associate with SSID 'myhiddenessid'
CTRL-EVENT-SCAN-RESULTS
CTRL-EVENT-SCAN-RESULTS
CTRL-EVENT-SCAN-RESULTS
Authentication with 00:00:00:00:00:00 timed out.
Trying to associate with SSID 'myhiddenessid'
CTRL-EVENT-SCAN-RESULTS
Authentication with 00:00:00:00:00:00 timed out.
Trying to associate with SSID 'myhiddenessid'
Authentication with 00:00:00:00:00:00 timed out.
Trying to associate with SSID 'myhiddenessid'
CTRL-EVENT-SCAN-RESULTS
Authentication with 00:00:00:00:00:00 timed out.
Trying to associate with SSID 'myhiddenessid'
Authentication with 00:00:00:00:00:00 timed out.
Trying to associate with SSID 'myhiddenessid'
Authentication with 00:00:00:00:00:00 timed out.
Trying to associate with SSID 'myhiddenessid'
Authentication with 00:00:00:00:00:00 timed out.
Trying to associate with SSID 'myhiddenessid'

I tried forcing the AP with:
sudo iwconfig wlan0 ap 00:1a:70:48:21:33

But it did not help

[Andrew (andrew-rw-robinson)]

Success! Okay, with the manufacturers driver.

For those with a similar problem, please follow these steps:

Download the latest driver from http://www.ralinktech.com/ralink/Home/Support/Linux.html
For the rt61, the correct file was http://www.ralinktech.com.tw/data/drivers/2009_0123_RT61_Linux_STA_v1.1.2.3.tar.bz2
Extract the file
Follow their instructions, **BUT** after you copy Makefile.6 to Makefile, you need to change this line:
CFLAGS+= $(WFLAGS)

To this:
EXTRA_CFLAGS+= $(WFLAGS)

then follow their instructions.

In the rt61sta.dat file, I had to change from 1 to 0:
NativeWpa=0

I also put my SSID, Channel, AuthMode, EncrypType and WPAPSK in that file, but I don't know if it was needed as it should be picked up from /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf

Remember to remove and blacklist the broken rt61pci module!
sudo modprobe -r rt61pci

(Optional) Add this to your /etc/network/interfaces:
iface ra0 inet dhcp
  wireless-essid YOURSSID
  pre-up wpa_supplicant -Dwext -ira0 -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -B -f/var/log/wpa_supplicant.ra0.log
  post-down killall -q wpa_supplicant

Now execute:
sudo ifup ra0

If you are as fortunate is I it works!

PS - I am on amd64 and this works just fine.

I would like to get wlan0 with rt61pci working as I'd rather not have to maintain a source package, but hey, I'll take what I can get.

[Andrew (andrew-rw-robinson)]

Okay, I spake to soon. The rt61 drivers work only for a bit then they stop responding. Sometimes I have an IP address, sometimes not. Either way only rebooting fixed it.

I managed to find the Windows XP 64 bit drivers out there and used them with ndiswrapper
I used this HOWTO:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=564419

And then I had to put this in my /etc/network/interfaces:

iface wlan0 inet dhcp
  wireless-essid myhiddenessid
  wireless-mode Managed
  pre-up wpa_supplicant -Dwext -iwlan0 -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -B -f/var/log/wpa_supplicant.wlan0.log
  post-down killall -q wpa_supplicant

Without the "Managed", it defaults to Auto and will fail to associate with my AP.

I found the extractable drivers at driverguide. The filename was:
C54Ri_C54RC_DRV_WHQL_V3.01.00.exe

Even though an EXE it unzips fine. I used the rt61.inf in the WINX64 directory.

So far it is working, hopefully this one stays up.

Hopefully the rt2x00 + rt61pci can be fixed and start working again. Really a shame that it was working great in Intrepid but it is now not working.

[Douglas Moyes (aragorn-stellimare)]

I was able to get the driver to work with kernel version 2.6.31 using the kernel's drivers and the firmware provided by ralink. THE STOCK UBUNTU KERNEL AND DRIVERS WILL NOT WORK.

Also, the order in which you configure the RT61 card has changed.

Before, you had to turn on the device with ifconfig wlan0 up to configure the device with iwconfig, Now, it'll say the device is busy and won't let you configure it. So, issue ifconfig wlan0 down, and now you can configure your wireless card with iwconfig. Once when you're done, issue ifconfig wlan0 up, and wait about a minute or two, and then start up your DHCP client to get your IP address (the network link won't start up right away, esp. if using encryption).

[Andrew (andrew-rw-robinson)]

Okay, my machine is now running Karmic i386. The rt61pci is working again, but not 100%. It will work for a day to a few days, but then stop. The last time, when I did a modprobe -r rt61pci and then modprobe rt61pci the wlan0 device never came back, I had to reboot at that time.

BTW, I started having problems with the windows drivers in jaunty, as it would refuse to associate with any encrypted network, especially a WPA2 Personal AES non-broadcast wireless.

Any ideas on why the instability of the rt61pci drivers (at least with my EDIMAX EW-7128G IEEE 802.11b/g PCI Wireless Card)?

[Jeremy Foshee (jeremyfoshee)]

Hi Andrew,

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 366170

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.

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[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.]