wpa supplicant causes large timeouts

[Marcerino]

Binary package hint: wpasupplicant

After update to Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala), some network activities have a large delay/response time.

For example a simple host lookup:
mvl@purple:~$ host www.google.com
www.google.com is an alias for www.l.google.com.
www.l.google.com has address 74.125.77.105
www.l.google.com has address 74.125.77.103
www.l.google.com has address 74.125.77.106
www.l.google.com has address 74.125.77.99
www.l.google.com has address 74.125.77.147
www.l.google.com has address 74.125.77.104
;; connection timed out; no servers could be reached
;; connection timed out; no servers could be reached

The first lines appear very fast, but then there is a 2s wait until the last two lines appear.

This seems to be connected to messages from wpa-supplicant in /var/log/daemon.log

Oct 24 22:01:22 purple wpa_supplicant[1111]: CTRL-EVENT-SCAN-RESULTS

--------
mvl@purple:/opt/alien/api/src$ lsb_release -rd
Description: Ubuntu 9.10
Release: 9.10

mvl@purple:/opt/alien/api/src$ apt-cache policy wpasupplicant
wpasupplicant:
  Installed: 0.6.9-3ubuntu1
  Candidate: 0.6.9-3ubuntu1
  Version table:
 *** 0.6.9-3ubuntu1 0
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com karmic/main Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

[Chris Boyle (cmb)]

Seen on an IBM Thinkpad T41 (x86). lspci says I have an "Atheros Communications Inc. AR5212 802.11abg NIC (rev 01)" (ID 168c:1014) and the module ath5k is loaded, from linux-image-2.6.31-17-generic 2.6.31-17.54. There are no activities that trigger it for me ("host www.google.com" usually completes instantly) but I can see in syslog every 2 minutes exactly there is a CTRL-EVENT-SCAN-RESULTS line, and simultaneously any traffic I'm sending/receiving (such as ssh keystrokes or a pulseaudio stream) will be buffered, and appear after 2 to 5 seconds. It seems that even on UDP (nc -u) traffic is not lost, only delayed.

[Troex Nevelin (troex)]

Same bug here. It's completely annoying when making voip calls or playing FPS games. I did some research on this problem:
Exact every 2 minutes in syslog I get "wpa_supplicant[1112]: CTRL-EVENT-SCAN-RESULTS" and exactly in this moment all my wireless traffic if "paused" for 5-6 seconds, if I run constant ping on my access point I get:
64 bytes from 10.0.2.1: icmp_seq=7 ttl=64 time=0.540 ms
64 bytes from 10.0.2.1: icmp_seq=8 ttl=64 time=0.561 ms
64 bytes from 10.0.2.1: icmp_seq=9 ttl=64 time=6442 ms
64 bytes from 10.0.2.1: icmp_seq=10 ttl=64 time=5442 ms
64 bytes from 10.0.2.1: icmp_seq=11 ttl=64 time=4443 ms
64 bytes from 10.0.2.1: icmp_seq=12 ttl=64 time=3443 ms
64 bytes from 10.0.2.1: icmp_seq=13 ttl=64 time=2445 ms
64 bytes from 10.0.2.1: icmp_seq=14 ttl=64 time=1446 ms
64 bytes from 10.0.2.1: icmp_seq=15 ttl=64 time=447 ms
64 bytes from 10.0.2.1: icmp_seq=16 ttl=64 time=0.496 ms
The same thing will happen if I run in console:
# iwlist wlan0 scan

So the I think the problem is in NetworkManager or nm-applet are running scan every two minutes, not in wpa_supplicant itself.

Ifound a workaround:
1. stop NetworkManager (/etc/init.d/network-manager stop)
2. write your wireless config for wpa_supplicant (my is simple I have open wireless network without password)
3. run wpa_supplicant (wpa_supplicant -iwlan0 -c /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf)
4. get IP (dhclient3 wlan0)

I'm using ThinkPad X60 with
Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR5212 802.11abg NIC (rev 01)

[Troex Nevelin (troex)]

Looks like this problem have been discussed before https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/network-manager/+bug/373680

[Marcerino (mastervanleeuwen)]

Hello everyone. The original problem that I reported seems to have a different origin, see:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/bind9/+bug/504963

My wifi chipset is:
0c:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 4965 AG or AGN [Kedron] Network Connection (rev 61)

while all of the people above seem to have Atheros. I propose to close this bug and refer the people with Atheros cards to the thread given by Troex above.