losing wireless connection after a while => reboot

gee · 2010-09-02 03:31:04

Hello,

randomly sometimes I lose my wireless connection and after that it is impossible for me to get the connection back.
wicd does not see any network anymore, restarting it does not help.
iwlist scan returns nothing etc...
but as soon as I restart the computer we are all good again.

I have a wifi card with an atheros chip:

05:04.0 Network controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR5008 Wireless Network Adapter (rev 01)

I am using the module in the kernel that gets loaded automatically:

ath9k 77563 0
ath9k_common 4902 1 ath9k
ath9k_hw 286570 2 ath9k,ath9k_common
ath 8822 2 ath9k,ath9k_hw
mac80211 189270 2 ath9k,ath9k_common
cfg80211 144231 4 ath9k,ath9k_common,ath,mac80211
led_class 2363 1 ath9k

and I really don't know what to do.

This is the output of iwconfig once I am disconnected:

wlan0 IEEE 802.11bgn Mode:Managed Frequency:2.437 GHz
Access Point: Not-Associated Tx-Power=20 dBm
Retry long limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:off
Power Management:off
and ifconfig

wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr D8:5D:4C:A3:AA:01
UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:6167973 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:4296522 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:9158722636 (8734.4 Mb) TX bytes:394596254 (376.3 Mb)

ifconfig up / down does not help...

What I found in the daemon.log is this:

Sep 1 10:20:36 localhost dhcpcd[2406]: wlan0: renewing lease of 192.168.1.117
Sep 1 10:20:36 localhost dhcpcd[2406]: wlan0: acknowledged 192.168.1.117 from 192.168.1.1
Sep 1 10:20:36 localhost dhcpcd[2406]: wlan0: leased 192.168.1.117 for 86400 seconds
Sep 1 10:51:08 localhost dhcpcd[2406]: wlan0: carrier lost
Sep 1 10:51:08 localhost dhcpcd[2406]: received SIGHUP, releasing
Sep 1 10:51:08 localhost dhcpcd[2406]: wlan0: removing interface
Sep 1 10:51:08 localhost dhcpcd[8726]: sending signal 1 to pid 2406
Sep 1 10:51:08 localhost dhcpcd[8726]: waiting for pid 2406 to exit
Sep 1 10:51:08 localhost dhcpcd[8740]: dhcpcd not running

but I am not sure what to make out of this....

uname:

Linux 2.6.35-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT Fri Aug 27 17:14:28 CEST 2010 x86_64 Intel(R) Core(TM) i5 CPU 750 @ 2.67GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux
Thanks for any help!

Last edited by gee (2010-09-02 03:32:27)

gee · 2010-09-04 02:56:38

I compared the output of iwconfig / ifconfig from not working to working but cannot see anything interesting....

Anyone with any idea?

R00KIE · 2010-09-04 09:56:52

Check the output of dmesg for errors.

gee · 2010-09-04 21:31:39

I have never seen anything in dmesg that looks suspicious.
Next time it happens I'll save it and post it just in case...

Thanks!

gee · 2010-09-05 00:30:57

Searching for wlan0 I only find this:

wlan0: authenticate with MAC (try 1)
wlan0: authenticated
wlan0: associate with MAC (try 1)
wlan0: RX AssocResp from MAC (capab=0x411 status=0 aid=1)
wlan0: associated

Not very helpful

R00KIE · 2010-09-05 11:57:40

No calibration errors in dmesg?
Can you check with 'rfkill list all' that your card does not get soft/hard blocked?

You can also try to check the wicd logs to see if there is anything suspicious, no other ideas besides that.

gee · 2010-09-05 20:53:43

Thanks I will look into that!

rjrjr · 2010-09-06 03:31:06

I've had a similar problem, and I've found that using modprobe to manually unload and reload the ath9k module generally fixes things.
I'd love to find a more satisfying solution, though.

gee · 2010-09-06 22:31:17

so rfkill returned nothing interesting, but reloading the module did work.
So weird...

Thanks

gee · 2010-09-08 04:04:28

I did not get that issue since I switched from wicd to networkmanager, let's give it more time before jumping to the roof though.

gee · 2010-09-11 04:03:27

It's been a couple days and still nothing so I'd like to say it was wicd fault.

rjrjr maybe you should try that?

rjrjr · 2010-09-11 19:10:09

I had the same problem with networkmanager, and the same fix worked. I just switched to wicd to use fewer dependencies and the problem stuck right with me. Well, hopefully networkmanager was a fix for you. I'm still searching for a solution. I think it might be something to do with the router I connect to. I have a D-link at home that always makes me modprobe, but I've used netgear ones that don't.

R00KIE · 2010-09-11 21:30:41

Have you posted something about this on wicd's forum? I believe the developer also hangs around here but things would be noticed faster there.

This might be a bug in wicd but things most probably work just fine for the developer(s) (they do for me) so with your help he/she (they) can most probably identify the problem and solve it or work around it (or help discover a problem somewhere else in the drivers stack).

gee · 2010-09-12 02:32:34

@rjrjr yup no issue since then, and my router is a linksys (or cisco...).
Also with network manager I did not get the "wrong password" thing either, which I often got with wicd, so it looks good....

@ROOKIE no but you are right, I should. I wanted to make sure wicd was the issue first, and it seems it is...

gee · 2010-09-12 02:40:10

Done!

rjrjr · 2010-09-15 21:59:59

That's so odd, I got the exact same issue with networkmanager, except it would just continually pop up the password window until I modprobed the driver. I should just break down and finally get a wrt54g and be done with it.

gee · 2010-09-18 05:55:00

Good luck !

Arch Linux

#1 2010-09-02 03:31:04

losing wireless connection after a while => reboot

#2 2010-09-04 02:56:38

Re: losing wireless connection after a while => reboot

#3 2010-09-04 09:56:52

Re: losing wireless connection after a while => reboot

#4 2010-09-04 21:31:39

Re: losing wireless connection after a while => reboot

#5 2010-09-05 00:30:57

Re: losing wireless connection after a while => reboot

#6 2010-09-05 11:57:40

Re: losing wireless connection after a while => reboot

#7 2010-09-05 20:53:43

Re: losing wireless connection after a while => reboot

#8 2010-09-06 03:31:06

Re: losing wireless connection after a while => reboot

#9 2010-09-06 22:31:17

Re: losing wireless connection after a while => reboot

#10 2010-09-08 04:04:28

Re: losing wireless connection after a while => reboot

#11 2010-09-11 04:03:27

Re: losing wireless connection after a while => reboot

#12 2010-09-11 19:10:09

Re: losing wireless connection after a while => reboot

#13 2010-09-11 21:30:41

Re: losing wireless connection after a while => reboot

#14 2010-09-12 02:32:34

Re: losing wireless connection after a while => reboot

#15 2010-09-12 02:40:10

Re: losing wireless connection after a while => reboot

#16 2010-09-15 21:59:59

Re: losing wireless connection after a while => reboot

#17 2010-09-18 05:55:00

Re: losing wireless connection after a while => reboot

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