["solved"] windows laptop makes wlan "freeze" for everyone sometimes

whoops · 2012-10-23 18:22:03

edit: original Title of the thread was: "wlan 'freezes' sometimes". Didn't initially know that another machine was involved.

Hi!

My wifi connection sometimes just stops working - about 2-5 times a day. It works flawlessly the rest of the time.

When this happens, it's not disconnecting, there aren't any system messages, everything I checked (iwconfig, ifconfig, journalctl, wicd client...) looks exactly the same as when the connection is working and there is no indication that it's not until I try to do something: all requests simply just time out. Nothing happens, no matter how long I wait.

I first thought, this was a Problem with wicd, because after the problem occurred, wicd often was unable to disconnect/reconnect (sometimes even after killing /restarting all relevant processes and plugging the wifi adapter into another usb port) and kept spamming the "kernel: wlan0: deauthenticating from 48:5b:39:e8:54:98 by local choice (reason=3)" message after what looked like successful connection attempts (can be found associated with multiple other wicd bugs), going into an endless loop. This seems to be mostly unrelated though: I switched to netcfg and I'm still having the same Problem. The only difference is: not getting those messages any more, reconnecting works fine now: with "netcfg -r profile" it works again instantly.

There's nothing interesting in the router logs either - no power loss, no connection problems, no disconnect... just the usual log entries of a windows machine yelling: "Yay I'm still here!!!!1111" every 2 Minutes (*sigh*) and a single dhcp offer/request from my reconnect...

Using ath9k,

wlan0     IEEE 802.11bgn  ESSID:"wlan"  
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.427 GHz  Access Point: 48:5B:39:E8:54:98   
          Bit Rate=6.5 Mb/s   Tx-Power=20 dBm   
          Retry  long limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality=39/70  Signal level=-71 dBm  
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:31   Missed beacon:0

Tried pinging my router while downloading the archlinux torrent:

$ sudo ping -f -l3 -v router.ip
PING router.ip (192.168.11.11) 56(84) bytes of data.
...^C   
--- router.ip ping statistics ---
8347 packets transmitted, 8344 received, 0% packet loss, time 32774ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 0.848/12.091/83.391/9.046 ms, pipe 8, ipg/ewma 3.926/6.063 ms

Any Ideas what this could be?

Thx!

Last edited by whoops (2012-11-04 23:29:34)

sano · 2012-10-23 19:16:56

You need to provide more information:

lspci -vnn | grep Network

Post the output.

Šaran · 2012-10-23 19:43:28

Same here, ath9k.
It becomes really sluggish and then dies completely, although still connected with netcfg. I can't access router or anything. Reconnecting doesn't always help and sometimes it starts working again on its own. It happened few times yesterday, but I was too busy at a time to collect any logs, but will provide them if it happens again - kernel just got bumped to 3.6.3-2 so maybe it won't.

$ lspci -vnn | grep Network
03:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Atheros Communications Inc. AR9285 Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express) [168c:002b] (rev 01)

Last edited by Šaran (2012-10-23 19:54:11)

whoops · 2012-10-23 19:52:56

Sry, I thought "ath9k" was enough Information. I'm using:

$ lsusb | grep Ath
Bus 001 Device 005: ID 0cf3:7015 Atheros Communications, Inc. TP-Link TL-WN821N v3 802.11n [Atheros AR7010+AR9287]

I've had the problem for a few weeks at least already - before that I had other / unrelated network problems for a few months, so I can't really tell how long this current one has been going. Did not notice any sluggishness, but the again, it usually takes me a while to even notice that my connection isn't working - not sure if I ever was trying to do anything the moment it started.

Last edited by whoops (2012-10-23 19:54:04)

whoops · 2012-10-26 08:14:32

I either failed to notice that earlier or it doesn't always look like this, but the last time I had the problem, iwconfig was saying "Bit Rate=104 Mb/s" (instead of Bit Rate=6.5 Mb/s like now that everything is working). Not sure if the network ever worked faster than 6.5 Mb/s - I only use it for a (slow) internet connection. I'll keep my eyes on that - although the speed might just have something to do with other machines in the network.

Also for the first time, I witnessed "netcfg -r wlan" freezing: when I hit ctrl+c, I got a few lines of what looked like random ascii data and it was still frozen, so I had to kill the tty... iwconfig just froze too - had to remove the wlan usb adapter to get both working again. After that, netcfg succeeded to connect without any problems.

Anyone an idea what I should try / look at the next time the problem occurs?

whoops · 2012-11-03 11:50:13

Now, several times when it happened, netcfg failed to reconnect (got into a loop of "disconnected by local choice" until it gave up).

Problem persisted after that... sometimes had to reboot multiple times to get it working again.

Tried removing the kernel modules & plugging the adapter into another usb slot but that didn't restore functionality.

Manually connecting using wpa_supplicant did not work either. Got this:

$ sudo wpa_supplicant -Dwext -iwlan0 -c /etc/wpa.passphrase
wlan0: Trying to associate with 48:5b:39:e8:54:98 (SSID='wlanx' freq=2427 MHz)
ioctl[SIOCSIWFREQ]: Device or resource busy
ioctl[SIOCSIWESSID]: Device or resource busy
wlan0: Association request to the driver failed
wlan0: Associated with 48:5b:39:e8:54:98
wlan0: Authentication with 48:5b:39:e8:54:98 timed out.
ioctl[SIOCSIWMLME]: Invalid argument
wlan0: CTRL-EVENT-DISCONNECTED bssid=00:00:00:00:00:00 reason=0
wlan0: Trying to associate with 48:5b:39:e8:54:98 (SSID='wlanx' freq=2427 MHz)
ioctl[SIOCSIWFREQ]: Device or resource busy
ioctl[SIOCSIWESSID]: Device or resource busy
wlan0: Association request to the driver failed
wlan0: Associated with 48:5b:39:e8:54:98

Those messages could be unrelated though - I'm sometimes getting the same ioctl messages while everything is working fine and didn't notice them a while ago when I first started investigating the problem.

More detailed Info on hardware:

$ sudo lsusb -s 001:002 -v

Bus 001 Device 002: ID 0cf3:7015 Atheros Communications, Inc. TP-Link TL-WN821N v3 802.11n [Atheros AR7010+AR9287]
Device Descriptor:
  bLength                18
  bDescriptorType         1
  bcdUSB               2.00
  bDeviceClass          255 Vendor Specific Class
  bDeviceSubClass       255 Vendor Specific Subclass
  bDeviceProtocol       255 Vendor Specific Protocol
  bMaxPacketSize0        64
  idVendor           0x0cf3 Atheros Communications, Inc.
  idProduct          0x7015 TP-Link TL-WN821N v3 802.11n [Atheros AR7010+AR9287]
  bcdDevice            2.02
  iManufacturer          16 ATHEROS
  iProduct               32 UB95
  iSerial                48 12345
  bNumConfigurations      1
  Configuration Descriptor:
    bLength                 9
    bDescriptorType         2
    wTotalLength           60
    bNumInterfaces          1
    bConfigurationValue     1
    iConfiguration          0 
    bmAttributes         0x80
      (Bus Powered)
    MaxPower              500mA
    Interface Descriptor:
      bLength                 9
      bDescriptorType         4
      bInterfaceNumber        0
      bAlternateSetting       0
      bNumEndpoints           6
      bInterfaceClass       255 Vendor Specific Class
      bInterfaceSubClass      0 
      bInterfaceProtocol      0 
      iInterface              0 
      Endpoint Descriptor:
        bLength                 7
        bDescriptorType         5
        bEndpointAddress     0x01  EP 1 OUT
        bmAttributes            2
          Transfer Type            Bulk
          Synch Type               None
          Usage Type               Data
        wMaxPacketSize     0x0200  1x 512 bytes
        bInterval               0
      Endpoint Descriptor:
        bLength                 7
        bDescriptorType         5
        bEndpointAddress     0x82  EP 2 IN
        bmAttributes            2
          Transfer Type            Bulk
          Synch Type               None
          Usage Type               Data
        wMaxPacketSize     0x0200  1x 512 bytes
        bInterval               0
      Endpoint Descriptor:
        bLength                 7
        bDescriptorType         5
        bEndpointAddress     0x83  EP 3 IN
        bmAttributes            3
          Transfer Type            Interrupt
          Synch Type               None
          Usage Type               Data
        wMaxPacketSize     0x0040  1x 64 bytes
        bInterval               1
      Endpoint Descriptor:
        bLength                 7
        bDescriptorType         5
        bEndpointAddress     0x04  EP 4 OUT
        bmAttributes            3
          Transfer Type            Interrupt
          Synch Type               None
          Usage Type               Data
        wMaxPacketSize     0x0040  1x 64 bytes
        bInterval               1
      Endpoint Descriptor:
        bLength                 7
        bDescriptorType         5
        bEndpointAddress     0x05  EP 5 OUT
        bmAttributes            2
          Transfer Type            Bulk
          Synch Type               None
          Usage Type               Data
        wMaxPacketSize     0x0200  1x 512 bytes
        bInterval               0
      Endpoint Descriptor:
        bLength                 7
        bDescriptorType         5
        bEndpointAddress     0x06  EP 6 OUT
        bmAttributes            2
          Transfer Type            Bulk
          Synch Type               None
          Usage Type               Data
        wMaxPacketSize     0x0200  1x 512 bytes
        bInterval               0
Device Qualifier (for other device speed):
  bLength                10
  bDescriptorType         6
  bcdUSB               2.00
  bDeviceClass          255 Vendor Specific Class
  bDeviceSubClass       255 Vendor Specific Subclass
  bDeviceProtocol       255 Vendor Specific Protocol
  bMaxPacketSize0        64
  bNumConfigurations      1
Device Status:     0x0000
  (Bus Powered)

nomorewindows · 2012-11-03 12:24:04

Are you using ndiswrapper or the linux firmware for atheros?

whoops · 2012-11-03 13:01:10

$ dmesg | grep ath
[   11.561589] usb 4-4: ath9k_htc: Firmware htc_7010.fw requested
[   11.561652] usbcore: registered new interface driver ath9k_htc
[   13.241180] usb 4-4: ath9k_htc: Transferred FW: htc_7010.fw, size: 72992
[   13.302266] ath9k_htc 4-4:1.0: ath9k_htc: HTC initialized with 45 credits

whoops · 2012-11-03 17:21:11

ARGH!

Looks like it's not my machine.

I just figured out that there's a windows vista laptop in the network: It "looses connection" sometimes (router logs do not indicate it's disconnected), and then wlan for all other machines freezes (like described above). When the laptop's wlan adapter is disabled, it works again for all machines (the laptop causing this reconnects successfully, too, after that). My archlinux machine does not even need to reconnect - requests that "froze" previously - even those that were hanging for minutes - suddenly get trough successfully if they haven't timed out by that time. Everything just starts working again with no indication as to why.

I have only limited access to the laptop, so I can't try around with it very often. Also I have no idea where to start... and I don't think it should even be possible for something like that to happen? I have full access to the router now (ssh; it is running tomato-usb), but only while wifi is working which doesn't really help much T_T. And no idea what to do next - again. I guess.:

1) The Laptop shouldn't be able to affect the router in this way, so there must be something wrong with the router? Did not manage to figure out how to compile more tools for that thing so I can take a closer look at what's happening, but I'm working on it.
2) Also the resulting problem shouldn't look as... strange... as it does on my machine, leaving me totally clueless. So I guess I missed something that I could/should have checked or done on my machine after all?
3) While I'm waiting for the laptop to come back on & make trouble: Should I find myself a second wifi adapter to use for snooping / debugging or something? Never tried anything like that, but if I understand right, before I can start analysing what's going on, I need a spare receiver to snoop in on what's my primary wifi adapter is actually doing?

thx.

Last edited by whoops (2012-11-03 17:26:01)

whoops · 2012-11-04 23:29:07

AAARGH.

Turns out people are sharing printers. And they are somehow sharing their shared printers. And they are sharing their shared printers back to the machine that has the actual printer attached to it. And there is only one printer... no idea how that mess happened, but the different windows machines all seem to find printers and shared printers and "copy 3 of copy of shared shared printer #2 share" automatically somehow.

Well... marking this [solved] because I couldn't find anything wrong with the behaviour of my archlinux machine and the router considering the extent of the printer mess. If someone can recommend a good windows forum for stuff like this, please leave a note.

Arch Linux

#1 2012-10-23 18:22:03

["solved"] windows laptop makes wlan "freeze" for everyone sometimes

#2 2012-10-23 19:16:56

Re: ["solved"] windows laptop makes wlan "freeze" for everyone sometimes

#3 2012-10-23 19:43:28

Re: ["solved"] windows laptop makes wlan "freeze" for everyone sometimes

#4 2012-10-23 19:52:56

Re: ["solved"] windows laptop makes wlan "freeze" for everyone sometimes

#5 2012-10-26 08:14:32

Re: ["solved"] windows laptop makes wlan "freeze" for everyone sometimes

#6 2012-11-03 11:50:13

Re: ["solved"] windows laptop makes wlan "freeze" for everyone sometimes

#7 2012-11-03 12:24:04

Re: ["solved"] windows laptop makes wlan "freeze" for everyone sometimes

#8 2012-11-03 13:01:10

Re: ["solved"] windows laptop makes wlan "freeze" for everyone sometimes

#9 2012-11-03 17:21:11

Re: ["solved"] windows laptop makes wlan "freeze" for everyone sometimes

#10 2012-11-04 23:29:07

Re: ["solved"] windows laptop makes wlan "freeze" for everyone sometimes

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