[SOLVED] WLAN random hard/soft blocking

ramkatral · 2014-04-21 23:58:16

This isn't as much a question as it is just seeing if anyone else is experiencing similar issues. I'm trying to determine if it's a problem specific to my HP or a laptop wide issue with Arch.

It's with the WLAN system. This PC is very finicky in this department. The system detects the wifi hardware no problem, and generally speaking there's no issues booting it right up with wpa supplicant. However, it's a random dice throw as to whether things are going to be hard or soft blocked with RFkill, and many times it takes a reboot to clear it. There's really no pattern to it. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I enabled a systemd unit to run the wpa supplicant and dhcpcd on boot, but it doesn't work when things are blocked. I also added parameters to run an rfkill unblock all prior to enabling the device, but even the command won't unblock them sometimes. It requires a reboot.

Inevitably, I can always rectify it, it's just a pain in the butt to be a constant issue.

Anyone else?

Last edited by ramkatral (2014-05-04 01:32:08)

Rexilion · 2014-04-23 06:46:10

I have a quite dated HP laptop here. It seems to ignore the rfkill switch.

Maybe compare a dmesg of a hard failure and a dmesg of a soft failure (and post the results here?).

dice · 2014-04-24 13:56:20

I have a hard blocking issue after hibernate.

I posted this here https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=179825 but still have no real solution to it.

But maybe these problems are somehow related?

I use Thinkpad E540

WonderWoofy · 2014-04-24 15:44:07

dice wrote:

I have a hard blocking issue after hibernate.
I posted this here https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=179825 but still have no real solution to it.
But maybe these problems are somehow related?
I use Thinkpad E540

I have seen someone else with this issue as well, though it happens to him after suspend to ram. Interestingly, it only happens with his Intel WiFi card was well, as he also has the Broadcom card that was available for the E430 as well.

Unfortunately, I can see no real way to fix this as to me it seems like a firmware issue. Currently the only way to unblock it seems to be to reboot into the BIOS and reenable to hardware from there.

ramkatral · 2014-04-27 00:07:58

Yea mine is an intel card as well. Also, I don't have to change my BIOS for it. It will allow me to remove the hard block with the button, but it seems to cause an unstoppable software block until the next reboot. I'll post a dmesg next chance I get.

ramkatral · 2014-05-03 15:44:55

So, I finally found the source of my problems. It was so simple, but something I never thought to consider.

I realized that ip link sometimes showed acer_wireless amongst the devices in ip link. I have an HP ultrabook, so obviously that didn't look right to me. I also began to realize that the stuck hard block on phy0 only appeared when it was listed. hp_wireless was listed when it worked correctly.

So, a quick peak at my loaded modules revealed that my kernel was loading modules for both hp_wmi and acer_wmi. I figured they must be competing with each other and causing my problems. So, I blacklisted acer_wmi, rebuilt my initramfs with the module banned, and rebooted several times to test it.

Now that the acer module doesn't load, nothing interferes with my wireless and it works flawlessly every time. I suggest those of you having similar issues look into this as well. The acer_wmi module is exposed to RFKill, but according to some reading, if it's running on an unsupported system then the rfkill command may not be able to alter its state.

Rexilion · 2014-05-05 09:25:11

Nice job figuring that out. You should file a bug at bugzilla.kernel.org about this.

ramkatral · 2014-05-07 23:44:46

Good idea. I'll head over there this week and do so.

Arch Linux

#1 2014-04-21 23:58:16

[SOLVED] WLAN random hard/soft blocking

#2 2014-04-23 06:46:10

Re: [SOLVED] WLAN random hard/soft blocking

#3 2014-04-24 13:56:20

Re: [SOLVED] WLAN random hard/soft blocking

#4 2014-04-24 15:44:07

Re: [SOLVED] WLAN random hard/soft blocking

#5 2014-04-27 00:07:58

Re: [SOLVED] WLAN random hard/soft blocking

#6 2014-05-03 15:44:55

Re: [SOLVED] WLAN random hard/soft blocking

#7 2014-05-05 09:25:11

Re: [SOLVED] WLAN random hard/soft blocking

#8 2014-05-07 23:44:46

Re: [SOLVED] WLAN random hard/soft blocking

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