2.4g wifi connection failed randomly during wpa re-key

[Alex Tu]

I'm not sure this issue caused by WIFI AP or WIFI module.
From log, it looks the tested machine can not get new key from WIFI AP randomly.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 18.04
Package: network-manager 1.10.6-2ubuntu1.1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.15.0-1030.35-oem 4.15.18
Uname: Linux 4.15.0-1030-oem x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.9-0ubuntu7.7
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
Date: Fri Aug 16 14:51:12 2019
DistributionChannelDescriptor:
 # This is the distribution channel descriptor for the OEM CDs
 # For more information see http://wiki.ubuntu.com/DistributionChannelDescriptor
 canonical-oem-somerville-bionic-amd64-20180608-47+italia-whl+X37
IfupdownConfig:
 # interfaces(5) file used by ifup(8) and ifdown(8)
 auto lo
 iface lo inet loopback
InstallationDate: Installed on 2019-08-14 (2 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 18.04 "Bionic" - Build amd64 LIVE Binary 20180608-09:38
IpRoute:
 default via 10.101.46.1 dev wlp2s0 proto dhcp metric 600
 10.101.46.0/24 dev wlp2s0 proto kernel scope link src 10.101.46.198 metric 600
 169.254.0.0/16 dev wlp2s0 scope link metric 1000
NetworkManager.state:
 [main]
 NetworkingEnabled=true
 WirelessEnabled=true
 WWANEnabled=true
SourcePackage: network-manager
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
nmcli-con:
 NAME UUID TYPE TIMESTAMP TIMESTAMP-REAL AUTOCONNECT AUTOCONNECT-PRIORITY READONLY DBUS-PATH ACTIVE DEVICE STATE ACTIVE-PATH SLAVE
 Canonical-2.4GHz-g f0a4469e-23e9-4899-a498-49a50b3a8e21 wifi 1565938016 廿十九年八月十六日 (週五) 十四時46分56秒 yes 0 no /org/freedesktop/NetworkManager/Settings/1 yes wlp2s0 activated /org/freedesktop/NetworkManager/ActiveConnection/5 --
nmcli-dev:
 DEVICE TYPE STATE DBUS-PATH CONNECTION CON-UUID CON-PATH
 wlp2s0 wifi connected /org/freedesktop/NetworkManager/Devices/2 Canonical-2.4GHz-g f0a4469e-23e9-4899-a498-49a50b3a8e21 /org/freedesktop/NetworkManager/ActiveConnection/5
 lo loopback unmanaged /org/freedesktop/NetworkManager/Devices/1 -- -- --
nmcli-nm:
 RUNNING VERSION STATE STARTUP CONNECTIVITY NETWORKING WIFI-HW WIFI WWAN-HW WWAN
 running 1.10.6 connected started full enabled enabled enabled enabled enabled

[Alex Tu (alextu)]

compare the failed case and passed case , it seems the clue is 2nd kernel trigging
wlp2s0: deauthenticated from 3c:ce:73:48:04:60

# from journalctl.log:
 八 16 13:13:38 u-XPS-13-9380 kernel: wlp2s0: deauthenticated from 3c:ce:73:48:0e:40 (Reason: 1=UNSPECIFIED)
 八 16 13:13:39 u-XPS-13-9380 wpa_supplicant[11018]: wlp2s0: CTRL-EVENT-REGDOM-CHANGE init=BEACON_HINT type=UNKNOWN
 八 16 13:13:43 u-XPS-13-9380 wpa_supplicant[11018]: wlp2s0: SME: Trying to authenticate with 3c:ce:73:48:04:60 (SSID='Canonical-2.4GHz-g' freq=2412 MHz)
 八 16 13:13:43 u-XPS-13-9380 kernel: wlp2s0: associated
 八 16 13:13:43 u-XPS-13-9380 kernel: wlp2s0: deauthenticated from 3c:ce:73:48:04:60 (Reason: 2=PREV_AUTH_NOT_VALID)
 八 16 13:13:43 u-XPS-13-9380 wpa_supplicant[11018]: wlp2s0: CTRL-EVENT-DISCONNECTED bssid=3c:ce:73:48:04:60 reason=2
 八 16 13:13:43 u-XPS-13-9380 wpa_supplicant[11018]: wlp2s0: WPA: 4-Way Handshake failed - pre-shared key may be incorrect
 八 16 13:13:43 u-XPS-13-9380 wpa_supplicant[11018]: wlp2s0: CTRL-EVENT-SSID-TEMP-DISABLED id=0 ssid="Canonical-2.4GHz-g" auth_failures=1 duration=10 reason=WRONG_KEY

# compare to the latest successful rekey in journalctl.log:
 八 14 11:07:33 u-XPS-13-9380 kernel: wlp2s0: deauthenticated from a4:56:30:cc:0f:30 (Reason: 2=PREV_AUTH_NOT_VALID)
 八 14 11:07:33 u-XPS-13-9380 wpa_supplicant[907]: wlp2s0: SME: Trying to authenticate with 3c:ce:73:48:0e:40 (SSID='Canonical-2.4GHz-g' freq=2437 MHz)
 八 14 11:07:33 u-XPS-13-9380 kernel: wlp2s0: associated
 八 14 11:07:33 u-XPS-13-9380 NetworkManager[906]: <info> [1565752053.7303] device (wlp2s0): supplicant interface state: associating -> 4-way handshake

[Betty Lin (bettyl)]

The problem is really hard to reproduce.
The test scenario is:
1. Connect wi-fi
2. Play 4k video on Youtube

Monitor the scenario for more than one week, and discover this problem once.

[Yuan-Chen Cheng (ycheng-twn)]

per comment 1, the module tested is

Network controller [0280]: Qualcomm Atheros QCA6174 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter [168c:003e]