Re: static Wifi connection

[Robert Elz <kre%munnari.OZ.AU@localhost>]

    Date:        Fri, 2 Aug 2019 11:10:22 +0200
    From:        =?UTF-8?Q?J=C3=B6rn_Clausen?= <joernc%googlemail.com@localhost>
    Message-ID:  <CABFsXQd+ZkeentNu3cvNm1VZHmPsHwgEr1k9zESWN5O9PbL2bQ%mail.gmail.com@localhost>


  | Are there any known problems with the support for Intel 3165 in iwm(4)?

I have an iwm0 in my laptop too, and yes, the driver is flaky...

I see messages like (the first line is the last iwm related message from
when the system booted last, just for context)

Jul 23 17:33:24 jinx /netbsd: [   4.2446438] iwm0: 11g rates: 1Mbps 2Mbps 5.5Mbps 11Mbps 6Mbps 9Mbps 12Mbps 18Mbps 24Mbps 36Mbps 48Mbps 54Mbps
Jul 27 00:20:32 jinx /netbsd: [ 283635.3448994] iwm0: autoconfiguration error: could not load firmware (error 35, ok 1)
Jul 27 00:20:32 jinx /netbsd: [ 283635.3448994] iwm0: autoconfiguration error: cpu1 status: 0x3
Jul 27 00:20:32 jinx /netbsd: [ 283635.3448994] iwm0: autoconfiguration error: cpu2 status: 0x4d58
Jul 27 00:20:32 jinx /netbsd: [ 283635.3448994] iwm0: autoconfiguration error: could not load firmware (error 35)
Jul 27 01:42:19 jinx /netbsd: [ 288542.0557473] iwm0: autoconfiguration error: could not load firmware (error 35, ok 1)
Jul 27 01:42:19 jinx /netbsd: [ 288542.0557473] iwm0: autoconfiguration error: cpu1 status: 0x3
Jul 27 01:42:19 jinx /netbsd: [ 288542.0557473] iwm0: autoconfiguration error: cpu2 status: 0x4d57
Jul 27 01:42:19 jinx /netbsd: [ 288542.0557473] iwm0: autoconfiguration error: could not load firmware (error 35)
Jul 27 06:42:37 jinx /netbsd: [ 306560.1424664] iwm0: autoconfiguration error: could not load firmware (error 35, ok 1)
Jul 27 06:42:37 jinx /netbsd: [ 306560.1424664] iwm0: autoconfiguration error: cpu1 status: 0x3
Jul 27 06:42:37 jinx /netbsd: [ 306560.1424664] iwm0: autoconfiguration error: cpu2 status: 0x4ce4
Jul 27 06:42:37 jinx /netbsd: [ 306560.1424664] iwm0: autoconfiguration error: could not load firmware (error 35)


When one of those sequences happens (there were 3 separate events in the
log extract above) the interface stops working, and wpa_supplicant
tries to restart it, and usually fails (often with the "reason 3" type
message you mentioned.

I have a script I run which kills wpa_supplicant, ifconfig's the
interface down and removes all wireless related config (ssid, chan, keys)
sleeps for a second or two (never bothered testing to see if that actually
helps - my impression is that it does, but ...) and then restarts
wpa_supplicant, which configures the infertace, and tries connecting
again.   Sometimes it succeeds, other times it "fails to load firmware"
(note: this is just sometimes, other times it succeeds, the failure is
clearly an issue with the driver or hardware state, not the location of
the firmware or anything like  that) in which case it never works, and
other times it just continually fails to authenticate (which is amusing
as my home network is deliberately an open net - no authentication
required).   If I config manually (easy as no passwords or keys are needed)
and if it doesn't get a "failed to load firmware" then it generally
succeeds.

A lot of the time it is quite reliable - those Jul 27 outages were the
most recent, it has been working (transferring many GB's of data) ever
since (touch wood...)

kre