[lwlan-user] Problems with usb adapter: 'NETDEV WATCHDOG: wlan0: transmit timed out' message

[Jordi Garcia]

Hi! As I'm not sure if this e-mail arrived to all of you I send it again,
now being subscribed to the list.

First of all, sorry for my poor english. I'll try my best.

This is the first question I send to this list (hope to be the last, too!).
I'm a middle-experienced Unix user, and a newbie to Linux administration.

Well, some basic information I suppose you need:

- Distribution: Linux Mandrake 10.1
- Result of the uname -a command: 

Linux localhost 2.6.8.1-12mdksmp #1 SMP Fri Oct 1 11:24:45 CEST 2004 i686
Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.40GHz unknown GNU/Linux

- Version of wlan-ng pack installed:

linux-wlan-ng-0.2.3

- Usb Wireless Adapter

Amper Usb Wireless Adapter
(http://www.telefonicaonline.com/on/es/wifi/images/adaptador_usb_inalambrico
.gif)
Made by Senao International, model SL 2511 UB. 
As appears in http://www.linux-wlan.org/docs/wlan_adapters.html.gz , the
module that has to be used in this case is Prism2/2.5/3

Modem-Router Wireless Zyxel 660
(http://www.ecomtel.com.au/images/ZyXEL660HW.jpg)


- Firmware version of the wireless usb adapter:

# dmesg | grep ident
ident: nic h/w: id=0x8010 1.0.0
ident: pri f/w: id=0x15 1.1.0
ident: sta f/w: id=0x1f 1.8.3


OK. These are the steps I have followed to install the wlan-ng pack:

- I Downloaded the latest version of the wlan-ng pack (0.2.3) and copied it
to /root
- make config (I only build the Prism2.5 USB driver)
- make all (no errors)
- make install (no errors)
- /etc/rc.d/rc.local edited, adding the following lines at the beggining:

modprobe prism2_usb prism2_doreset=1
wlanctl-ng wlan0 lnxreq_ifstate ifstate=enable
wlanctl-ng wlan0 lnxreq_autojoin ssid=SenseFils authtype=opensystem
ifconfig wlan0 192.168.1.15 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 192.168.1.255
route add default gw 192.168.1.1

- /etc/resolv.conf edited, adding two nameservers
- wlan service initiated on bootup. Result of 'chkconfig --list wlan' 
("apagat"=off, "engegat"=on)

# chkconfig --list wlan
wlan            0:apagat        1:apagat        2:engegat       3:engegat

4:engegat       5:engegat       6:apagat

- /etc/modules.conf edited, adding the following two lines:

alias wlan0 prism2_usb
options prism2_usb prism2_doreset=1

- /etc/wlan/wlan.conf edited, making all the changes needed to support my
network (WEP key of 128 bits, SSID, new configuration file "wlancfg-MySSID",
etc).


OK. After all that the adapter seems to work well, because I can connect
with the modem-router. I open the Konqueror browser and I try to access the
modem-router configuration page introducing the gateway address:
http://192.168.1.1. It appears the login window. Right.

But... the problem begins when I introduce the correct login and password.
Then the system begins to freeze. In that precise moment, if I edit the
/var/log/messages file, I can see the following error messages:

Dec  9 00:32:11 localhost kernel: hfa384x_usbctlx_complete_sync: CTLX[3]
error: state(Request failed)
Dec  9 00:32:11 localhost kernel: prism2sta_commsqual_defer: error fetching
commsqual
Dec  9 00:32:13 localhost kernel: hfa384x_usbctlx_complete_sync: CTLX[3]
error: state(Request failed)
Dec  9 00:32:45 localhost last message repeated 16 times
Dec  9 00:33:13 localhost last message repeated 17 times
Dec  9 00:33:14 localhost kernel: NETDEV WATCHDOG: wlan0: transmit timed out
Dec  9 00:33:14 localhost kernel: wlan0 rx pipe reset complete.
Dec  9 00:33:14 localhost kernel: hfa384x_usbctlx_complete_sync: CTLX[3]
error: state(Request failed)
Dec  9 00:33:14 localhost kernel: wlan0 tx pipe reset complete.
Dec  9 00:33:15 localhost kernel: hfa384x_usbctlx_complete_sync: CTLX[3]
error: state(Request failed)
Dec  9 00:33:23 localhost last message repeated 8 times
Dec  9 00:33:24 localhost kernel: NETDEV WATCHDOG: wlan0: transmit timed out
Dec  9 00:33:24 localhost kernel: wlan0 rx pipe reset complete.
Dec  9 00:33:24 localhost kernel: hfa384x_usbctlx_complete_sync: CTLX[3]
error: state(Request failed)
Dec  9 00:33:24 localhost kernel: wlan0 tx pipe reset complete.
Dec  9 00:33:25 localhost kernel: hfa384x_usbctlx_complete_sync: CTLX[3]
error: state(Request failed)
Dec  9 00:33:33 localhost last message repeated 8 times
Dec  9 00:33:34 localhost kernel: NETDEV WATCHDOG: wlan0: transmit timed out
Dec  9 00:33:34 localhost kernel: wlan0 rx pipe reset complete.
Dec  9 00:33:34 localhost kernel: hfa384x_usbctlx_complete_sync: CTLX[3]
error: state(Request failed)
Dec  9 00:33:34 localhost kernel: wlan0 tx pipe reset complete.
Dec  9 00:33:35 localhost kernel: hfa384x_usbctlx_complete_sync: CTLX[3]
error: state(Request failed)
Dec  9 00:33:43 localhost last message repeated 8 times
Dec  9 00:33:44 localhost kernel: NETDEV WATCHDOG: wlan0: transmit timed out
Dec  9 00:33:44 localhost kernel: wlan0 rx pipe reset complete.
Dec  9 00:33:44 localhost kernel: hfa384x_usbctlx_complete_sync: CTLX[3]
error: state(Request failed)

And so on all the time repeating the same. The system begins to freeze
progressively and finally I have to reboot the machine.

More information: in order to see if the adapter has detected the wireless
network I use a program called KwifiManager of KDE 3.x (here is one
screenshot http://kwifimanager.sourceforge.net/screenshot-34.jpg). When the
error messages begin, the wireless adapter loses the connection to the
network. (Maybe this can be useful to somebody else too...)

Another annoying problem: before booting the system I have to unplug and
plug again the usb adapter in order to Linux configure it correctly when
initiating Linux. Generally I do it when the grub menu appears... obviously,
to do that every time I reboot the pc is very annoying... in the wlan-ng's
README file I read that introducing the line "options prism2_usb
prism2_doreset=1" in modules.conf solves the problem, but it doesn't work.
Maybe I am confused and this is not the solution to that problem...

Well, that's all. As you can see, the main problem I have is that something
happens when some information needs to be transfered: the system begins to
freeze and the usb adapter loses the connection to the modem-router. Maybe
there's something I'm doing wrong? Maybe there's something I'm not doing
yet?

I hope you can help me on this, I've searched a lot via Google with no
results. All these error messages are too criptical for me to understand...
you're my last chance! :-) 

Thanks to all.


Jordi Garcia
Girona. Catalunya. SPAIN