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dejawu

Member

Registered: 2014-11-01

Posts: 2

WiFi on netctl disconnects when opening certain programs

I connect to WiFi using netctl. When initially connecting via netctl after a freshly booted system, everything works as it should. When I start some applications, my WiFi connection will immediately cut out and stop working. Pidgin, Skype, and Firefox are the three I have noticed this behavior with. (For what it's worth, this behavior does NOT occur with Chrome.) When starting any of these three applications, my connection immediately stops and I cannot reliably restore it with any means other than rebooting.

I have tried

sudo netctl stop-all

and disabling the interface through

sudo ip link set wlp3s0 down

(wlp3s0 is my wireless interface), then bringing it back up with

sudo netctl start utr

(where utr is the name of my connection entry). Every time I attempt this, I will get back a message telling me that the job for netctl failed:

Job for netctl@utr.service failed. See "systemctl status netctl@utr.service" and "journalctl -xe" for details.

The systemctl status message during this type of failure is always:

* netctl@utr.service - Networking for netctl profile utr
   Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/netctl@.service; static)
   Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Fri 2014-10-31 19:37:02 CDT; 1min 3s ago
     Docs: man:netctl.profile(5)
  Process: 3193 ExecStart=/usr/lib/network/network start %I (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)
 Main PID: 3193 (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)

Oct 31 19:36:46 thepartyvan network[3193]: Starting network profile 'utr'...
Oct 31 19:37:02 thepartyvan network[3193]: WPA association/authentication failed for inter...s0'
Oct 31 19:37:02 thepartyvan network[3193]: Failed to bring the network up for profile 'utr'
Oct 31 19:37:02 thepartyvan systemd[1]: netctl@utr.service: main process exited, code=exit...URE
Oct 31 19:37:02 thepartyvan systemd[1]: Failed to start Networking for netctl profile utr.
Oct 31 19:37:02 thepartyvan systemd[1]: Unit netctl@utr.service entered failed state.
Oct 31 19:37:02 thepartyvan systemd[1]: netctl@utr.service failed.

Only for this type of failure do I get the "WPA association/authentication failed..." message. Repeatedly restarting netctl or setting the interface down does not have any effect.

Watching dmesg while attempting to connect gives a lot of repeated attempts to connect followed by an almost immediate timeout, for example:

[  918.825687] wlp3s0: authenticate with 1c:6a:7a:72:87:f1
[  919.275530] wlp3s0: direct probe to 1c:6a:7a:72:87:f1 (try 1/3)
[  921.596646] wlp3s0: direct probe to 1c:6a:7a:72:87:f1 (try 2/3)
[  921.798417] wlp3s0: direct probe to 1c:6a:7a:72:87:f1 (try 3/3)
[  922.001986] wlp3s0: authentication with 1c:6a:7a:72:87:f1 timed out

Repeat ad nauseum with a bunch of other MAC addresses (I am on university wifi, so there are multiple access points with the same name) . The three probes and the "timed out" message occur almost immediately after one another - should there be some time between them?

I am using the iwlwifi driver. My card is a Centrino 6205.

How can I stop this behavior from occurring?

Last edited by dejawu (2014-11-01 00:50:10)