What does 'discard frame w/o leading ethernet header' mean?

[ryan87]

Hi,

I have a pfSense install where I sometimes see this message in the logs:

kernel: ath0_wlan0: discard frame w/o leading ethernet header (len 6 pkt len 6)

It repeats for a while (20-30 times in ~1 minute) and then stops.  It seems to happen randomly.  Can anyone give me a hint about what might cause the above message?  I'm trying to diagnose wireless issues on the same device and want to figure out if it's related.

[jimp]

Usually it means the frame it received was malformed. It could have been sent by the client incorrectly, or it could have encountered a problem processing the frame in the hardware or driver.