Bug 175852

Summary:	NetworkManager: Hidden WEP networks fail with Atheros
Product:	[openSUSE] SUSE Linux 10.1	Reporter:	Fred Blaise <fred.blaise>
Component:	Network	Assignee:	Helmut Schaa <hschaa>
Status:	RESOLVED FIXED	QA Contact:	E-mail List <qa-bugs>
Severity:	Minor
Priority:	P5 - None	CC:	asklein, behlert, hugo.costelha, novell, suse-beta, vetter, wclacy
Version:	Final
Target Milestone:	---
Hardware:	All
OS:	Other
Whiteboard:
Found By:	Other	Services Priority:
Business Priority:		Blocker:	---
Marketing QA Status:	---	IT Deployment:	---
Attachments:	Log trace of NM when trying to attach to my AP

Description Fred Blaise 2006-05-15 21:55:14 UTC

using atheros chipset with madwifi-ng drivers.

It says it all. If my AP have ESSID broadcast disabled, I won't be able to connect to my network. If they do have ESSID enabled, then it works.

Some errors coming up while launching with --no-daemon are:

NetworkManager: <information>   Activation (ath0/wireless): association took too long (>60s), failing activation.

or

NetworkManager: <WARNING>        nm_utils_supplicant_request_with_check (): real_write_supplicant_config: supplicant error for 'SET_NETWORK 0 wep_key0 <key>'.  Response: 'FAIL'
NetworkManager: <WARNING>        real_act_stage2_config (): Activation (ath0/wireless): couldn't send wireless configuration to the supplicant.

Tried "connect to other wireless network" and "create new wireless network", with no success.

No Timo, I am not using kNetworkManager :P

Comment 1 Robert Love 2006-05-16 15:53:56 UTC

jg: Any ideas?  Hidden networks (WEP and WPA) work for me with an Atheros.

Comment 2 Joachim Gleissner 2006-05-16 16:06:12 UTC

For me as well, except for 11a connections. Fred, the interesting part of the log comes before the lines you posted. Could you attach the full log? On normal operation, NM logs to /var/log/NetworkManager, so no need to start it with --no-daemon. And please note that creating a new wireless network (means, peer-to-peer aka ad-hoc mode) is not supported with Atheros devices currently.

Comment 3 Fred Blaise 2006-05-16 17:46:17 UTC

Created attachment 83714 [details]
Log trace of NM when trying to attach to my AP

Comment 4 Joachim Gleissner 2006-05-17 06:49:01 UTC

The log indicates that you are using shared key authentication. Is that correct? madwifi is a bit quirky about shared key auth, it needs a special command to enable it. I'm not sure whether wpa_supplicant handles this correctly. Besides the fact that shared key auth should not be used at all, you can enable it manually by calling 'iwpriv ath0 authmode 2'. Or, preferredly, switch off shared key authentication in your access point.

Comment 5 Fred Blaise 2006-05-18 18:29:19 UTC

I switched my APs to Open System, and tried again with no success. It was in "Mix" mode before that (Netgear AP WG602).

Comment 6 Mikael Eriksson 2006-05-23 15:21:26 UTC

For what it´s worth I can confirm this bug. But for me it doesn´t matter wether I use Ifup or NetworkManager, as soon as my SSID is hidden I get problems connecting  to the wireless network. When SSID is broadcasted everything seems to work.
 
I am using a Netgear WG511T card based on Atheros chipset with madwifi drivers and when I disable SSID broadcast in my router KNetworkManager starts behave strange. Tells med that it´s disconnected even if it is? When I try to connect the status bar appears but stops at 28% after a while KNetworkManager is disconnected but in reality (sometimes) I am connected?

My computer is an IBM Thinkpad A31p, it has a built in wireless card wich I don´t use (not configured in Yast) since it´s only 11 mbit. Instead I use the Netgear card mentioned above.

In SUSE 10.0 I had no problems at all.

Comment 7 Joachim Gleissner 2006-05-23 15:39:32 UTC

As this bug is filed against SL 10.1, what was shipped without madwifi, how did you install madwifi?

Comment 8 Mikael Eriksson 2006-05-23 16:39:33 UTC

I installed madwifi according to the instructions found here: http://linux.wordpress.com/2006/05/21/suse-101-and-atheros-based-wifi-cards/

This was done May 19th and the svn version is 1560

Comment 9 JP Rosevear 2006-05-24 19:37:37 UTC

With ifup and NM so probably a driver issue.  Re-assigning to jg.  The info was provided as well.

Comment 10 Michael Renzmann 2006-05-29 05:12:12 UTC

(In reply to comment #8)
> I installed madwifi according to the instructions found here:
> http://linux.wordpress.com/2006/05/21/suse-101-and-atheros-based-wifi-cards/

Please retry with installing the RPMs from http://madwifi.org/suse (using smart).

If that also does not help, check the existing tickets at madwifi.org. Iirc we had a related problem in the past, not sure if that already has been fixed or not. If no open ticket exists, feel free to create a new one, moving the bug report upstream (mention the URL to this ticket there, please).

Comment 11 Mikael Eriksson 2006-05-29 17:40:17 UTC

(In reply to comment #10)
> (In reply to comment #8)
> > I installed madwifi according to the instructions found here:
> > http://linux.wordpress.com/2006/05/21/suse-101-and-atheros-based-wifi-cards/
> 
> Please retry with installing the RPMs from http://madwifi.org/suse (using
> smart).
> 
> If that also does not help, check the existing tickets at madwifi.org. Iirc we
> had a related problem in the past, not sure if that already has been fixed or
> not. If no open ticket exists, feel free to create a new one, moving the bug
> report upstream (mention the URL to this ticket there, please).
> 
Have now installed RPM /madwifi.org/suse/10.1-i386/madwifi-kmp-default-1560_2.6.16.13_4-0.1.i586.rpm as  requested. The problem is the same.
New ticket created at http://madwifi.org/ticket/657

Comment 13 Walt Lacy 2006-08-28 15:40:29 UTC

is this a duplicate of Bug 169783 NetworkManager: can't reconnect to known WLANs
https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=169783

I have had this problem with 3 different cards and drivers.

Comment 14 Stefan Behlert 2007-01-19 12:43:51 UTC

Joe, is this really a duplicate? 
If not, is this still present in 10.2?

Comment 15 Joachim Gleissner 2007-01-19 13:14:39 UTC

I don't know whether this is a duplicate. Fred, Mikael, do you have the possibility to test this with 10.2 to check if it's fixed?

(Lowering severity due to madwifi is not shipped with 10.1 and bug can be worked around by turning on SSID broadcasting.)

Comment 16 Fred Blaise 2007-01-19 13:19:29 UTC

Sorry I can't... laptop died ... :/

Comment 17 Joachim Gleissner 2007-01-19 13:25:06 UTC

Oh, my condolences. Mikael?

Comment 18 Mikael Eriksson 2007-01-20 10:26:51 UTC

I don't think it is solved, cannot be sure since I experience other 10.2 problems that I have reported in Bug 229366. Nowadays I have to manually connect to my wireless LAN... Mayby all these bugs are related, beats me?

What I can tell you is that upgrading madwifi to 0.9.2 in SL 10.1 did not solve this problem properly. Now in OS 10.2 I use madwifi 0.9.2.1 and experience new problems as I mentioned above.

Comment 19 Joachim Gleissner 2007-01-23 10:31:08 UTC

Could you explicate what "manually connect to my wireless LAN" means?

Comment 20 Mikael Eriksson 2007-01-23 11:21:52 UTC

Manually clicking on the KNetworkManager icon and from there select my wireless network. 
It is all quite well explained in bug 229366. https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=229366

Comment 21 Joachim Gleissner 2007-07-27 16:07:10 UTC

Sorry for having abandoned this bug. Is the problem still existant? There have been newer releases in the meantime.

Comment 24 Mikael Eriksson 2007-07-27 18:55:24 UTC

As far as I can tell it seems that this bug is not present anymore. Seems to works fine now with hidden ESSID. Bug 229366 is still open and not solved, I still have   to connect tom my wireless network as described in comment #20.

Comment 25 Helmut Schaa 2007-08-09 09:07:28 UTC

Thanks for getting back Mikael.

Due to comment #24 -> Closing as FIXED.
Please reopen if the problem reappears.