Arch Linux

jcci

Member

From: China / Germany

Registered: 2007-06-10

Posts: 185

[Solved] Atheros Wireless Fails after Update

After the update to kernel 3.6.37 the wireless on my Macbook pro is close to useless, but used to work very well before. Madwifi was upgraded as well but I suspect another problem.
Using WICD there is no wireless at all! With networkmanager the available networks are visible and sometimes logs on. However, the network fails quickly and starts asking for the password - most of the time it is useless typing in the password again. So the wireless is basically working but very unstable with networkmanager and non-existent anymore with WICD.
Any ideas?

Last edited by jcci (2011-02-06 05:48:20)

Ipozya

Member

Registered: 2011-01-20

Posts: 52

Re: [Solved] Atheros Wireless Fails after Update

A lot of users have been reporting wireless problems recently.  Could be any of a number of things at this point (e.g. consolekit has been causing a number of users a bit of trouble, not sure if you updated this as well):

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=112729
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=886519
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=112794

Last edited by Ipozya (2011-02-02 04:01:35)

jcci

Member

From: China / Germany

Registered: 2007-06-10

Posts: 185

Re: [Solved] Atheros Wireless Fails after Update

Thanks for the links.
Of course I read everything that could possibly match. My wireless also didn't work at all until I just replaced Slim with KDM. Meanwhile Slim is OK as well after some config update. But unlike other posts my wifi basically works, just disconnects over and over again. Sometimes without a way of re-connecting. And why WICD does not see any wireless at all?
I suppose the reason might be linked to those which made the wireless fail in other threads, but posting different cases is important for the devs an hopefully will solve my problem as well.

laughingman

Member

Registered: 2009-08-08

Posts: 6

Re: [Solved] Atheros Wireless Fails after Update

This is a repost from another thread (now solved). I think it's the same issue:

I might have the same (or a similar) problem with Gnome, GDM and WICD after updating. WICD doesn't find any wireless connections. Only wireless connections seem to be the problem. Downgrading consolekit didn't work.

02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communication Inc. AR5001 Wireless Network Adapter (rev 101)

ifconfig doesn't list wlan0
rc.conf is set up correctly
session is launched via "exec ck-launch-session gnome-session"

jcci

Member

From: China / Germany

Registered: 2007-06-10

Posts: 185

Re: [Solved] Atheros Wireless Fails after Update

ifconfig lists wlan0 correctly
rc.conf loads ath-hal, ath9k, wlan
session is started with ck-launch-session
I'm using Fluxbox, but it is the same in KDE.
Again: This configuration worked before for long time an now it is unstable.
* Just now I tried disabling all module loading for my wireless. Consequently there is no wlan0 in ifconfig. After loading the modules manually is works stable so far. Before doing that in desperation it was just as unstable as described above.

jcci

Member

From: China / Germany

Registered: 2007-06-10

Posts: 185

Re: [Solved] Atheros Wireless Fails after Update

Found out more which might be significant for madwifi users:
According to the wiki I loaded the following modules in rc.conf: ath-hal, ath9k, wlan
Beside this one line in the modprobe.conf should be added: alias ath0 ath_pci. This way wicd as well as networkmanager used ath0 for connecting to wireless.
After the update I noticed that there is another wifi device in ifconfig listed: wlan0. So I suspected that 2 devices pointing at the same hardware may cause the instability, but de-activating one by ifconfig didn't help. Now I noticed by loading the modules one by one that the new ath9k is already defining wlan0 and the wireless starts working without loading the module wlan. It looks stable so far, but if I should be right I'm impossibly the only one having this trouble.
Confirmation would be nice, but I will mark this thread "solved" now.