Firmware errors with ipw2200 when connected to an WPA-enabled AP

Hello,

I am seeing some really weird behavior with my IPW2200 card.

I am connected to an AP (multiple Atheros cards with hostapd) and WPA-PSK with CCMP encryption.

When the connection is fully idle, I do see those messages coming up pretty randomly:

[41715.420882] ipw2200: Firmware error detected.  Restarting.

The card is then resetting itself, the connection is dropped for some milliseconds, but all in all no harm is done.

Another situation happens when the card is on full load:

[38659.056980] __ratelimit: 21 callbacks suppressed
[38659.056985] CCMP: decrypt failed: STA=00:22:b0:bc:1e:2e
[38659.057638] CCMP: decrypt failed: STA=00:22:b0:bc:1e:2e
[38659.058005] CCMP: decrypt failed: STA=00:22:b0:bc:1e:2e
[38659.058356] CCMP: decrypt failed: STA=00:22:b0:bc:1e:2e
[38659.059127] CCMP: decrypt failed: STA=00:22:b0:bc:1e:2e
[38659.059637] CCMP: decrypt failed: STA=00:22:b0:bc:1e:2e
[38659.060123] CCMP: decrypt failed: STA=00:22:b0:bc:1e:2e
[38659.060671] CCMP: decrypt failed: STA=00:22:b0:bc:1e:2e
[38659.061046] CCMP: decrypt failed: STA=00:22:b0:bc:1e:2e
[38659.061641] CCMP: decrypt failed: STA=00:22:b0:bc:1e:2e

Those messages are repeated from time to time. The connection itself is not being dropped, and netcat itself doesn't stop either, but for some seconds, no packets are going through the WiFi link.

So, I am really curious about this, although not being fatal in itself, the errors are pretty annoying.

I've added the respective Devs to the CC list, I hope this is OK.

One more sidenote though: I've been running IPW2200 for several years with WEP and haven't experienced those errors yet, at least not in this quantity. The card used to reset sometimes due to "firmware errors", but please read "sometimes" as "every two weeks once."

Another little question: will the card be supported by the new iwlwifi/iwlcore/iwlagn drivers anytime soon, or will the "old" ipw2200 driver be the only one for this card? Someone really should update the documentation, at least in the kernel build system regarding this, currently "There is no help available." :)

Please let me know if you need any more information, I will hand it to you ASAP.

Best regards,

Mihai Moldovan

The fatal error is from the perspective of the driver. It is handled transparent to the users now except the error logs.

No, iwlagn won't support ipw2200 because of the design difference.

I think John is working on reordering the ipw2100/2200 to ipw2x00 folder which is parallel to iwlwifi.

Thanks,
-yi

So is this all actually known and no bug? Whilst the connection drops in idle mode are doing no harm, the sporadic problems on full load are some sort of a problem because no traffic is transfered for some seconds, although the connections per se remain intact.

Or... well, is this simply not fixable? :)

Best regards,

Mihai Moldovan

It is a bug. Should be related to firmware. We can fix it but it takes some time.

Thanks,
-yi