Laptop sometimes loses wireless conn, doesn't auto-reconnect[SOLVED]

YAOMTC · 2012-06-01 18:26:11

My Eee PC 900 has lately been losing its wireless connection, usually at some point during the night. It doesn't bring up any dialog windows (like asking me for the WPA-PSK) or show anything awry on the tray icon. Ping just says "network unreachable" and I can't get online. When I click the icon (NetworkManager applet), it says I'm connected to the wireless network, so I click it again to manually reconnect, and then I can get online just fine. What's going on here?

Wireless: Atheros Communications Inc. AR242x / AR542x Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express) (rev 01)
Linux 3.4.3-1

Solved: Switched to wpa supplicant and gui

Last edited by YAOMTC (2012-06-30 21:48:44)

YAOMTC · 2012-06-03 17:45:04

I had upgraded my router's firmware and made some other changes recently, but DHCP is still enabled, so I don't think that would be the problem.

swanson · 2012-06-03 18:00:57

What kernel and what wireless chip?

YAOMTC · 2012-06-03 18:28:06

Linux 3.3.7-1

Wireless: Atheros Communications Inc. AR242x / AR542x Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express) (rev 01)

swanson · 2012-06-03 18:47:05

Seems you use the ath5k driver then, and there are a few threads about that already. I have the same but maybe kernel 3.4.1 fixes it. You can get it from testing repo.

Last edited by swanson (2012-06-03 18:47:25)

YAOMTC · 2012-06-03 22:06:45

I think this was the thread where that was discovered. Thanks for the tip! However I'll wait until it moves into [core], the problem for me is infrequent enough to not warrant such effort.

YAOMTC · 2012-06-20 19:39:32

Okay so I'm now at Linux 3.4.3, but this problem still occurs...

swanson · 2012-06-20 20:31:53

I moved from wicd to netcfg combined with net-auto-wireless and it seems to work much better.

litemotiv · 2012-06-20 20:35:25

I have been experiencing the same problem, but with a Broadcom 43224 chip (using wicd instead of nm).

Miblo · 2012-06-20 21:52:38

Bit of a long shot, but have you tried powering down your machine and waiting a few minutes before booting it back up? That did the trick for me when I reverted back to linux-3.2.14-1 after this whole thing started. Also, perhaps ensure that you are using the ath5k module as opposed to ath9k. Then I'd suggest grep'ing `dmesg` (or "/var/log/everything.log") for ath5k to see if it is actually having any problems. On my (now functioning) system, all ath5k has to say for itself is:

 [matt@archone ~]$ dmesg | grep ath5k
[   12.548970] ath5k 0000:03:00.0: registered as 'phy0'
[   13.441866] Registered led device: ath5k-phy0::rx
[   13.441958] Registered led device: ath5k-phy0::tx
[   13.442039] ath5k phy0: Atheros AR2425 chip found (MAC: 0xe2, PHY: 0x70)

…whereas previously I was getting all those gain calibration timeout errors.

YAOMTC · 2012-06-21 02:26:51

swanson, I'm using NetworkManager, not wicd, so your solution doesn't apply to me, unfortunately I was thinking of trying a switch to wicd, but it looks like litemotiv has this problem on wicd too so I doubt that'd solve my problem.

Miblo, I get the same output, though the network is still unavailable (and nm-applet has 2/4 bars). I've tried shutting down my machine for a while, that doesn't cut it. And yes, I am using ath5k.

I could just force NetworkManager to reconnect to the network, but that's just a workaround. I'd like to know the root of this!

Last edited by YAOMTC (2012-06-21 02:33:18)

swanson · 2012-06-21 03:06:12

I know you use NM, which I find even worse than wicd. So I thought I'd make a suggestion, that's all.

YAOMTC · 2012-06-21 03:14:39

Well I suppose it could be worth a shot, maybe wicd and nm both have this problem but not netcfg?

litemotiv · 2012-06-21 04:58:30

YAOMTC wrote:

Well I suppose it could be worth a shot, maybe wicd and nm both have this problem but not netcfg?

I personally suspect that something else is going haywire, in the wireless network stack or routing. That's just a hunch and not based on empirical evidence, but once a connection is established i don't see how the managing utility (whether it's nm, wicd or else) should be able to cause this. After all, they are only 'managers', they merely check whether the connection is still reported up and act accordingly.

swanson · 2012-06-21 06:14:31

True, and it's hard to tell where the real problem lies; driver/kernel and/or manager. But, mine got better with netcfg/net-auto-wireless. As a sidenote; if you need a tray monitor I can recommend qtwifimon.

litemotiv · 2012-06-21 06:27:10

swanson wrote:

True, and it's hard to tell where the real problem lies; driver/kernel and/or manager. But, mine got better with netcfg/net-auto-wireless. As a sidenote; if you need a tray monitor I can recommend qtwifimon.

I actually switched from netcfg to wicd a while ago because netcfg roaming was buggy for me...

Miblo · 2012-06-22 00:17:02

litemotiv wrote:

I personally suspect that something else is going haywire, in the wireless network stack or routing.

Yep, agreed. Maybe trawl through the logs of everything you think could possibly have anything to do with it – kernel, network manager, dbus, firewall, router – and see if anything looks fishy. Perhaps see if you could set a "trap" for it to create a file when the connection is lost. Then you could take the timestamp of that file and search for that time in your logs.

YAOMTC · 2012-06-30 21:47:54

Well, I've switched to wpa_supplicant and wpa_gui, and I haven't had this problem since then! So that's nice.

Arch Linux

#1 2012-06-01 18:26:11

Laptop sometimes loses wireless conn, doesn't auto-reconnect[SOLVED]

#2 2012-06-03 17:45:04

Re: Laptop sometimes loses wireless conn, doesn't auto-reconnect[SOLVED]

#3 2012-06-03 18:00:57

Re: Laptop sometimes loses wireless conn, doesn't auto-reconnect[SOLVED]

#4 2012-06-03 18:28:06

Re: Laptop sometimes loses wireless conn, doesn't auto-reconnect[SOLVED]

#5 2012-06-03 18:47:05

Re: Laptop sometimes loses wireless conn, doesn't auto-reconnect[SOLVED]

#6 2012-06-03 22:06:45

Re: Laptop sometimes loses wireless conn, doesn't auto-reconnect[SOLVED]

#7 2012-06-20 19:39:32

Re: Laptop sometimes loses wireless conn, doesn't auto-reconnect[SOLVED]

#8 2012-06-20 20:31:53

Re: Laptop sometimes loses wireless conn, doesn't auto-reconnect[SOLVED]

#9 2012-06-20 20:35:25

Re: Laptop sometimes loses wireless conn, doesn't auto-reconnect[SOLVED]

#10 2012-06-20 21:52:38

Re: Laptop sometimes loses wireless conn, doesn't auto-reconnect[SOLVED]

#11 2012-06-21 02:26:51

Re: Laptop sometimes loses wireless conn, doesn't auto-reconnect[SOLVED]

#12 2012-06-21 03:06:12

Re: Laptop sometimes loses wireless conn, doesn't auto-reconnect[SOLVED]

#13 2012-06-21 03:14:39

Re: Laptop sometimes loses wireless conn, doesn't auto-reconnect[SOLVED]

#14 2012-06-21 04:58:30

Re: Laptop sometimes loses wireless conn, doesn't auto-reconnect[SOLVED]

#15 2012-06-21 06:14:31

Re: Laptop sometimes loses wireless conn, doesn't auto-reconnect[SOLVED]

#16 2012-06-21 06:27:10

Re: Laptop sometimes loses wireless conn, doesn't auto-reconnect[SOLVED]

#17 2012-06-22 00:17:02

Re: Laptop sometimes loses wireless conn, doesn't auto-reconnect[SOLVED]

#18 2012-06-30 21:47:54

Re: Laptop sometimes loses wireless conn, doesn't auto-reconnect[SOLVED]

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