[hardy][iwl3945] 3945ABG cannot associate to public WPA2 PSK network

[Martin Pool]

Binary package hint: network-manager

In bug 200950 asac said:

> martin, if your (non-hidden) issue persists even after reloading the
> iwl3945 module and restarting network manager, please open a separate
> bug and attach your complete /var/log/syslog of a failed connect
> attempt.

So here it is. I just rebooted my X61s. I had previously disabled nm from its menu, so I reenabled it. It showed my network in the menu. I clicked it, it asked me to unlock my keyring, I did so and now I have the spinner with neither circle lit up.

I can successfully join a wired network from NM.

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

the log makes me think that you don't get any association event to user space. can you confirm that while waiting at stage 2 your interface associates properly?

Anyway, I received several confirms that iwl3945 works in general. This makes me wonder if this has something to do with your chipset revision and bug 183928? ... can you try to test the latest driver?

 - Alexander

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

The home of the driver is here: http://intellinuxwireless.org/?p=iwlwifi

[Martin Pool (mbp)]

On Wed, Mar 19, 2008 at 5:49 PM, Alexander Sack <email address hidden> wrote:
> can you confirm that while waiting at stage 2 your interface
> associates properly?

What do you mean?

--
Martin <http://launchpad.net/~mbp/>

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

check while it sits in stage 2 that iwconfig shows your interface as "associated"

[Martin Pool (mbp)]

When I brought my laptop back from suspend, nm showed the network in
the menu. I selected it and syslog showed "stage 2 complete".
iwconfig at that point shows it *not* associated with an AP.

I disabled NM, unloaded and reloaded the iwl3945 module, and restarted
NM through /etc/dbus/event.d etc. I can now see the interface in
iwconfig but NM does not find any wireless networks. wpa_supplicant
does still work.

--
Martin <http://launchpad.net/~mbp/>

[Bart Samwel (bart-samwel)]

Here's an extra data point: I'm seeing the same problem on my machine.

The data:
- Hardy, up to date until March 22, 2008.
- It worked yesterday, now nm tries to connect but I get no bulbs. I have to kill -9 NetworkManager, and then manually restart it, if it starts to try to use the wireless network, to get it to consider other possibiliities such as wired networks. If I plug in the wire, and then kill and restart nm like I just explained, then wired network works OK.
- I use iwl3945, from package linux-ubuntu-modules-2.6.24-12-generic, version 2.6.24-12.17.
- This is on a Dell Inspiron 9400.

[Bart Samwel (bart-samwel)]

Oh, and I forgot to mention: it's a public WPA2 PSK network for me as well.

[Trip McKay (trip-mckay-deactivatedaccount)]

I have the exact issue on my notebook computer running a PRISM54 wireless card.
After yesterday's updates (as mentioned by Bart) networkmanager does not connect to my wireless network (WPA/WPA2 with PSK). After killing the nm-applet and plugging in a LAN cable I can configure the wired connection in NetworkManager and get internet access. I did not see any useful output in syslog though...

(I'm sry that I cannot attach any logs as I write this from my desktop machine...)

[Trip McKay (trip-mckay-deactivatedaccount)]

edit: I retryed to get the wired connection to work instead of the wireless as I described above by killing nm-applet and NetworkManager but it did not work again. I fideld around a long time and then gave up (NetworkManager does not work, the gui is slow/hangs, ifconfig does not work either...).

[Leif Walsh (leif.walsh)]

Confirmed here, too (Dell Inspiron e1505). It broke last night after a small update (wish I remembered what the packages were). When it's trying to connect to a WPA-Personal network, it just sits there and spins around with two empty dots in the tray, and uses up as much CPU as it can. I have to manually kill NetworkManager to get it to do anything other than that, but I can still connect to wired networks (if I kill and restart it, obviously).

Let me know if anyone would benefit from some logs or test runs or anything.

[John Dong (jdong)]

NetworkManager also displays these symptoms on my macbook with madwifi-ng trunk drivers too associating to a public WPA2-PSK network....

It worked until that major version update of NetworkManager, now I see NetworkManager CPU spinning in top, and no association.

[Leif Walsh (leif.walsh)]

I should mention that I was wrong to say only WPA networks fail. Unsecured networks give me the same symptoms (I don't have a WEP network handy to check that).

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

> It worked until that major version update of NetworkManager, now I see NetworkManager CPU spinning in top,
> and no association.

What version of hal do you have installed? This symptom ("CPU spinning in top") points to bug #204768, fixed in hal 0.5.11~rc2-1ubuntu2.

[John Dong (jdong)]

After upgrading to the latest hal via a wired connection, this problem is fixed for me (CPU spinning). Thanks, Steve for the pointer.

I can now associate with madwifi-ng to my network.

[Leif Walsh (leif.walsh)]

The hal downgrade earlier tonight fixed the problem for me too.

[Bart Samwel (bart-samwel)]

Fixed here too, I'm back online.

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

Martin, Trip, does installing the current hal package fix this problem for you as well?

[Alexey Kharlamov (aharlamov)]

May I suggest that the bug is related with https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/hal/+bug/205355 ?

I have the latest hal and NetworkManager installed. But the problem still presents.

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

It may be that this bug is related to bug #205355, but the first question is whether it's really a manifestation of bug #204768.

[Trip McKay (trip-mckay-deactivatedaccount)]

The new version of NetworkManager solved my problem. Great work!
(The (latest) Hal version listed below did not solve the problem, Steve.)

version listing:
network-manager 0.6.6-0ubuntu3
hal 0.5.11~rc2-1ubuntu2

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

i assume that this "non-hidden ssid" bug was fixed by hal. if you see issues with hidden ssid, please see the branch in bug 200950

[Martin Pool (mbp)]

Still not fixed for me.

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

ok, reopening. martin, you said that my .ap_scan fixes this for you?

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package network-manager - 0.6.6-0ubuntu4

---------------
network-manager (0.6.6-0ubuntu4) hardy; urgency=low

  * fix hidden networks for chipsets that do not have scan_capa enabled
    driver. (LP: #50214, #200950, #203793, #199679). The following
    behaviour is now implemented:
      * use scan_ssid 1 with AP_SCAN 1 for all scan_capa_ssid drivers
      * use scan_ssid 1 with AP_SCAN 1 for all drivers with buggy
        scan_capa_ssid and buggy ap_scan and explicitly set essid through
        wireless extensions to help driver to find bssids of hidden ssid
          Drivers with buggy scan_capa_ssid: ipw2200
          Drivers with buggy ap_scan 2: iwl3945, iwl4965
      * use AP_SCAN 2 for all other drivers and set essid through wireless
        extensions forcefully.
        - update debian/patches/42b_fix_ap_scan_hidden.patch
    - add debian/patches/42b_fix_ap_scan_hidden.patch
    - update debian/patches/series

 -- Alexander Sack <email address hidden> Fri, 28 Mar 2008 10:38:42 +0100

[Cristian T. Moecke (cristiantm)]

I'm confirming that with 0.6.6-0ubuntu4, and system restart, my WPA Network is working again

[Jefferson Martins de Oliveira (jeffersonjbj)]

mode Ad-Hoc don't work. Look:

jefferson@jefferson-laptop:~$ sudo iwconfig wlan0 mode Ad-Hoc
Error for wireless request "Set Mode" (8B06) :
    SET failed on device wlan0 ; Device or resource busy.

jefferson@jefferson-laptop:~$ dmesg | grep iwl
[ 31.810134] iwl3945: Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 3945ABG/BG Network Connection driver for Linux, 1.2.0
[ 31.810145] iwl3945: Copyright(c) 2003-2007 Intel Corporation
[ 31.810395] iwl3945: Detected Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection
[ 34.324422] iwl3945: Tunable channels: 13 802.11bg, 23 802.11a channels
[ 34.325176] wmaster0: Selected rate control algorithm 'iwl-3945-rs'
[ 332.616724] iwl3945: Radio Frequency Kill Switch is On:
[ 5186.555600] iwl3945: Radio Frequency Kill Switch is On:

jefferson@jefferson-laptop:~$ dmesg | grep network
[ 332.616731] Kill switch must be turned off for wireless networking to work.
[ 5186.555609] Kill switch must be turned off for wireless networking to work.

jefferson@jefferson-laptop:~$ dmesg | grep wlan0
[ 47.116750] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlan0: link is not ready
[ 211.010586] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlan0: link is not ready
[ 4624.124172] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlan0: link is not ready
[ 4625.198096] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlan0: link is not ready
[ 5195.754008] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlan0: link is not ready

[Martin Pool (mbp)]

On Mon, Mar 31, 2008 at 1:06 PM, Jefferson Martins de Oliveira
<email address hidden> wrote:
> mode Ad-Hoc don't work. Look:

Please file a new bug for that.
--
Martin <http://launchpad.net/~mbp/>

[James-UK (jamesuk)]

I'm receiving a similar problem as above, attempts to connect to some unsecured networks work fine, but others do not. I've attached the appropriate syslog entries of a failed attempt - the lights do not light up, although connecting through a wired connection works fine.

[Luke12 (luca-venturini)]

The problem is not in Ubuntu, but rather in the main kernel. Details here:

http://www.intellinuxwireless.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=1507

Currently the developers are working on it. I guess that when the patch will be ready, it will be included in the linux or linux-backports packages...I hope. Otherwise, we will all have to install the modules through compat-wireless :-/