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    Ath picking random channels

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved 2.0-RC Snapshot Feedback and Problems - RETIRED
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    • stephenw10S
      stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
      last edited by

      Hmmm, OK.
      Well I wonder what is causing it to change channel then? I certainly seems that an 'auto' setting somewhere is a likely culprit. What does it think it's set to at the CLI:

      [2.0-RC2][root@pfsense.fire.box]/root(3): ifconfig ath0_wlan0
      ath0_wlan0: flags=8843 <up,broadcast,running,simplex,multicast>metric 0 mtu 1500
              ether 00:11:f5:ee:41:8b
              inet6 fe80::211:f5ff:feee:418b%ath0_wlan0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x11
              inet 192.168.10.1 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.10.255
              nd6 options=3 <performnud,accept_rtadv>media: IEEE 802.11 Wireless Ethernet autoselect mode 11g <hostap>status: running
              ssid Area51net channel 6 (2437 MHz 11g) bssid 00:11:f5:ee:41:8b
              regdomain ETSI country GB ecm authmode WPA1+WPA2/802.11i
              privacy MIXED deftxkey 3 AES-CCM 2:128-bit AES-CCM 3:128-bit
              txpower 30 scanvalid 60 protmode OFF burst -apbridge dtimperiod 1 -dfs</hostap></performnud,accept_rtadv></up,broadcast,running,simplex,multicast> 
      

      Steve

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      • S
        shadow
        last edited by

        @stephenw10:

        Hmmm, OK.
        Well I wonder what is causing it to change channel then? I certainly seems that an 'auto' setting somewhere is a likely culprit. What does it think it's set to at the CLI:

        [2.0-RC2][root@pfsense.fire.box]/root(3): ifconfig ath0_wlan0
        ath0_wlan0: flags=8843 <up,broadcast,running,simplex,multicast>metric 0 mtu 1500
                ether 00:11:f5:ee:41:8b
                inet6 fe80::211:f5ff:feee:418b%ath0_wlan0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x11
                inet 192.168.10.1 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.10.255
                nd6 options=3 <performnud,accept_rtadv>media: IEEE 802.11 Wireless Ethernet autoselect mode 11g <hostap>status: running
                ssid Area51net channel 6 (2437 MHz 11g) bssid 00:11:f5:ee:41:8b
                regdomain ETSI country GB ecm authmode WPA1+WPA2/802.11i
                privacy MIXED deftxkey 3 AES-CCM 2:128-bit AES-CCM 3:128-bit
                txpower 30 scanvalid 60 protmode OFF burst -apbridge dtimperiod 1 -dfs</hostap></performnud,accept_rtadv></up,broadcast,running,simplex,multicast> 
        

        Steve

        on this boot it thought:
                ssid "Bad Nook" channel 13 (2472 MHz 11g) bssid 00:0f:cb:af:eb:cf

        i assume something is defaulting to auto, but that's not what the GUI shows, and it doesn't explain why just reloading the existing config with no changes fixes it.

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        • stephenw10S
          stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
          last edited by

          Ah so if you backup and then restore your config.xml then it will stay on the correct channel?

          What snapshot are you running? It sounds like maybe a file permission problem.
          Could be worth reinstalling if you haven't tried that already and you haven't made any complex alterations.

          Steve

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          • S
            shadow
            last edited by

            thing is, it happened with the last snapshot i had, too, several months earlier, so i can't imagine upgrading to a newer snapshot will fix it. but it's not immediately obvious how to get the snapshot date from the cli, and at the moment i can't access the gui.

            i could wipe and reinstall. but that's when this started; the previous (before the wipe) worked fine.

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            • stephenw10S
              stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
              last edited by

              Hmm, OK I agree it's unlikely to help then.  :-
              For future reference:

              
              [2.0-RC2][root@pfsense.fire.box]/root(1): uname -a
              FreeBSD pfsense.fire.box 8.1-RELEASE-p3 FreeBSD 8.1-RELEASE-p3 #0: Fri May 13 23:16:51 EDT 2011     sullrich@FreeBSD_8.0_pfSense_2.0-snaps.pfsense.org:/usr/obj.pfSense/usr/pfSensesrc/src/sys/pfSense_wrap.8.i386  i386
              
              

              Steve

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              • S
                shadow
                last edited by

                mine was from may 16, by the uname method, which i ha considered but wasn't certain of the veracity of.

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                • S
                  shadow
                  last edited by

                  @stephenw10:

                  Ah so if you backup and then restore your config.xml then it will stay on the correct channel?

                  oh, i missed this. i don't even need to restore. i can just go to the gui, make no change, "apply" and reloading the config that's already there will fix it.

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                  • stephenw10S
                    stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                    last edited by

                    Yet at boot time, when it presumably reads and applies that same config, it's coming up on a random channel.
                    Are there any errors in the logs like it's failing to set the channel? Perhaps the wifi hardware is still initialising at that point and can't be set.  :-\

                    Steve

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                    • S
                      shadow
                      last edited by

                      well, i'd expect it to not have its SSID right either, in that case. but everything is right including the WEP key. just, and only, not the channel.

                      the log shows that ath0 is the first interface loaded on the system, before either ethernet is. it is probed 29 seconds before the log shows:
                      Jun 12 22:49:35 rtr check_reload_status: Reloading filter

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                      • stephenw10S
                        stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                        last edited by

                        This is now pure speculation….
                        The ath driver supports many hardware configurations. Some are better supported than others. The ath driver provides an interface to setup the hardware that offers all the options available however because of hardware support some options may not be fully functional. For example there is an option to alter the regulatory domain of the radio but (as of 2006!) the code was not there for the 5212.

                        Perhaps, since changing the channel is an actual hardware change, it is not able to set the channel correctly but does configure the ssid and security. You'd hope it would through up an error. You'd also expect other people to be having a problem.  :-\

                        Steve

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                        • S
                          shadow
                          last edited by

                          thing is, this ath hardware worked fine with every previous snapshot until i reinstalled in may. so unless upstream broke it, that seems unlikely.

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                          • C
                            cmb
                            last edited by

                            @shadow:

                            thing is, this ath hardware worked fine with every previous snapshot until i reinstalled in may. so unless upstream broke it, that seems unlikely.

                            Nothing upstream has changed in ath since a year ago (RELENG_8_1 hasn't changed), and nothing in our wireless code has changed in months. But intermittent issues are the norm for some people with wireless for unknown reasons.

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                            • S
                              shadow
                              last edited by

                              i don't suspect the wireless hardware; i suspect the config being written to it is wrong. i guess i need to modify the scripts to log what config is actually set to confirm that.

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