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avr

Member

Registered: 2014-09-25

Posts: 30

Wireless connection instability with wl staging module for Broadcom

I'm using the wl module for wireless, and I'm having connection instability issues. What happens is after a few minutes of using the internet webpages start to time out, then wicd will say I'm no longer connected to wireless. Each time that this happens, I see a few of these in my systemd journal.

Jun 28 10:21:31 myhostname kernel: ------------[ cut here ]------------
Jun 28 10:21:31 myhostname kernel: WARNING: CPU: 3 PID: 237 at net/wireless/sme.c:800 cfg80211_roamed+0x91/0xa0 [cfg80211]()
Jun 28 10:21:31 myhostname kernel: Modules linked in: rfcomm ax25 bnep nls_iso8859_1 nls_cp437 vfat fat fuse uvcvideo btusb videobuf2_vmalloc videobuf2_memops videobuf2_co
Jun 28 10:21:31 myhostname kernel:  ext4 crc16 mbcache jbd2 rtsx_usb_sdmmc led_class mmc_core rtsx_usb sr_mod cdrom sd_mod atkbd libps2 ahci libahci xhci_pci xhci_hcd ehci
Jun 28 10:21:31 myhostname kernel: CPU: 3 PID: 237 Comm: wl_event_handle Tainted: P        W  O    4.0.4-2-ARCH #1
Jun 28 10:21:31 myhostname kernel: Hardware name: Dell Inc. Inspiron 3521/033MX4, BIOS A12 10/25/2013
Jun 28 10:21:31 myhostname kernel:  0000000000000000 00000000a414a068 ffff8801c661bda8 ffffffff81574b23
Jun 28 10:21:31 myhostname kernel:  0000000000000000 0000000000000000 ffff8801c661bde8 ffffffff81074dda
Jun 28 10:21:31 myhostname kernel:  ffff8800a8ec6078 ffff8801c6816000 ffff880081c20000 0000000000000062
Jun 28 10:21:31 myhostname kernel: Call Trace:
Jun 28 10:21:31 myhostname kernel:  [<ffffffff81574b23>] dump_stack+0x4c/0x6e
Jun 28 10:21:31 myhostname kernel:  [<ffffffff81074dda>] warn_slowpath_common+0x8a/0xc0
Jun 28 10:21:31 myhostname kernel:  [<ffffffff81074f0a>] warn_slowpath_null+0x1a/0x20
Jun 28 10:21:31 myhostname kernel:  [<ffffffffa02dce51>] cfg80211_roamed+0x91/0xa0 [cfg80211]
Jun 28 10:21:31 myhostname kernel:  [<ffffffffa099740b>] wl_notify_roaming_status+0xcb/0x150 [wl]
Jun 28 10:21:31 myhostname kernel:  [<ffffffffa0993a7a>] wl_event_handler+0x6a/0x200 [wl]
Jun 28 10:21:31 myhostname kernel:  [<ffffffffa0993a10>] ? wl_deinit_priv_mem+0xa0/0xa0 [wl]
Jun 28 10:21:31 myhostname kernel:  [<ffffffff81093418>] kthread+0xd8/0xf0
Jun 28 10:21:31 myhostname kernel:  [<ffffffff81093340>] ? kthread_worker_fn+0x170/0x170
Jun 28 10:21:31 myhostname kernel:  [<ffffffff8157a398>] ret_from_fork+0x58/0x90
Jun 28 10:21:31 myhostname kernel:  [<ffffffff81093340>] ? kthread_worker_fn+0x170/0x170
Jun 28 10:21:31 myhostname kernel: ---[ end trace dff66e60820dc42b ]---

I've also noticed that this is directly correlated to the strength of the wireless signal. If I'm in the same room as the router (90%+ or 4 out of 4 wicd bars), I never has this problem. If it goes down to 75% or under (3 out of 4 bars on wicd) then my connections are very unstable. The room where this occurs is hardly out of normal range of the router as I'm able to simultaneously use my phone, ipad, other Windows laptop.

Has anyone else ran into this problem, or has anyone else ever seen this kernel trace before when using this module?

WonderWoofy

Member

From: Los Gatos, CA

Registered: 2012-05-19

Posts: 8,414

Re: Wireless connection instability with wl staging module for Broadcom

You should probably at least provide information about the hardware you are having these issues with.  The wl module works with a vast number of broadcom wireless chips.

avr

Member

Registered: 2014-09-25

Posts: 30

Re: Wireless connection instability with wl staging module for Broadcom

Here's the wireless chipset that my laptop comes with.

# lspci -v
...
02:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM43142 802.11b/g/n (rev 01)
	Subsystem: Dell Wireless 1704 802.11n + BT 4.0
	Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 17
	Memory at c0500000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=32K]
	Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 3
	Capabilities: [58] Vendor Specific Information: Len=78 <?>
	Capabilities: [48] MSI: Enable- Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit+
	Capabilities: [d0] Express Endpoint, MSI 00
	Capabilities: [100] Advanced Error Reporting
	Capabilities: [13c] Virtual Channel
	Capabilities: [160] Device Serial Number <serial>
	Capabilities: [16c] Power Budgeting <?>
	Kernel driver in use: wl
	Kernel modules: bcma, wl