Lost my Wireless Access point

[mjelkins]

Running ~x86, emerge and revdep are up to date - decided to install a new kernel (2.6.14-gentoo-r2)..
Now - within the last few days - my wireless cards no longer see my access point. I have...
Atheros Communications, Inc. AR5212 802.11abg NIC
-and-
orinoco_cs card - NL-2511CD plus ext2 (e200) (200mw)
Both work fine under Micro$oft.
After running new kernel - I (as usual) reran 'emerge madwifi-driver' - in order to 'see' the Atheros card.

Now - trying older kernels - the cards no longer 'work'. Seems like it broke a few days ago?

Any suggestions as to what might have changed as far as wireless support over the last week? (Last Tuesday, the wireless worked)
Doesn't appear to be Kernels, Access Points or Cards - as I've tried multiple versions/units

iwconfig gives me (orinoco)
eth1 IEEE 802.11b ESSID:"" Nickname:"Prism I"
Mode:Managed Access Point: 00:00:00:00:00:00 Bit Rate:11 Mb/s
Sensitivity:1/3
Retry min limit:8 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:off
Power Management:off
Link Quality=0/92 Signal level=-68 dBm Noise level=-122 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

or (Atheros)
ath0 IEEE 802.11 ESSID:"" Nickname:"any"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.442 GHz Access Point: FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF
Bit Rate:1 Mb/s Tx-Power:50 dBm Sensitivity=0/3
Retry:off RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:off
Power Management:off
Link Quality=0/94 Signal level=-95 dBm Noise level=-95 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

I'm stumped, dazed and confused

[masseya]

Have you updated or recompiled cardmgr, cardctl, or any of the other pcmcia-cs tools for the latest kernel?
_________________
if i never try anything, i never learn anything..
if i never take a risk, i stay where i am..

[Da Fox]

I have been having similar problems, I also lost wifi for my atheros card a few days ago.
I've only just found that it was actually the kernel causing problems and not the madwifi driver. (see also: https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-p-2881441.html#2881441)
If you do go back to an older kernel, be sure to:
(if this applies to you, it did to me)
make /usr/src/linux and /usr/src/linux-2.6 point to the correct kernel release
and first remove /lib/modules/2.6.xx-rx/net/<wifidrivers>.ko
then run emerge madwifi-driver.
That has got my wifi working again on my older, previous kernel (2.6.13-r3). But I haven't figured out yet what in kernel 2.6.14-r2 is preventing the driver from working.
Some symptoms that I see when running wpa_supplicant manually is that wpa_supplicant doesn't see my Accespoints SSID (it's '', eg empty), and it also doesn't see that it's using encryption, it says: "skip - no WPA/RSN IE"
Do you have similar warnings?
_________________
"Man fears the darkness, and so he scrapes away at the edges of it with fire."
- Rei Ayanami

JGBE, a Java based GameBoy Emulator

[mjelkins]

Still stuck.
I have installed Kernel 2.6.13-r3 - and tried various things.

Using a Wireless card which uses Orinoco drivers - no joy (but fine under windows).
Used a Mini-PCI Atheros card which uses Mad-Wifi drivers - also no longer works
The "PCMCIA" (Cardbus) Atheros card also still not working.
Other PCMCIA Cards work fine (eg - Sony flash adapter card)

Its not a Mad-Wifi problem
Its not a Kernel Problem
Its not a machine problem
Its not an access point problem

I'm inclined to think its some other package - eg I did notice that my ssh libraries broke - so after a revdep - got ssh running again. My X also stopped running - the revdep seem to have an influence there as well.
I'm not running any form of encryption on my wireless at all (simplify life whilst I have this problem).

All the wireless cards show the Accesspoint SSID as "" (ie - empty) with either all F's or all 0's for the AP MAC address (depending on the card). The signal strength is also non-existant. -eg

eth0 IEEE 802.11b ESSID:"" Nickname:"Prism I"
Mode:Managed Access Point: 00:00:00:00:00:00 Bit Rate:11 Mb/s
Link Quality=0/92 Signal level=-68 dBm Noise level=-122 dBm

Still stumped.

----------------------------

I'm back again after having booted my 'Auditor' CD - wireless here is fine - output of iwconfig looks like
wlan0 IEEE 802.11-DS ESSID:"posix" Nickname:"posix"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.417 GHz Access Point: 00:02:6F:21:E2:42
Bit Rate:2 Mb/s Tx-Power:2346 dBm
Retry min limit:8 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:off
Link Quality=60/92 Signal level=-64 dBm Noise level=-100 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

And with my Atheros card...
ath0 IEEE 802.11g ESSID:"posix"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.417 GHz Access Point: 00:02:6F:21:E2:42
Bit Rate:24 Mb/s Tx-Power:50 dBm Sensitivity=0/3
Retry:off RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:off
Power Management:off
Link Quality=15/94 Signal level=-80 dBm Noise level=-95 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:1 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

Not a great signal - but it works....
Gentoo still broken
------------------------
Backagain after more googling - the madwifi.net website is still down - but got hold of a working CVS server with some madwifi stuff... (cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/madwifi co madwifi)

So I typed in... (read the "README")
ifconfig ath0 up (so scanning works)
iwlist ath0 scan (so I can see the access point - "iwlist ath0 ap" also gives me the info..)
iwconfig ath0 channel 2 essid posix ap 00:02:6F:21:E2:42 (my ap's details)
and then I can ifconfig the device properly and everything works!!!!
This is using 2.6.14-gentoo-r2 and the same (emerged) mad-wifi drivers - nothing recompiled.

so what gives???? - where did the automagic configuration of wireless cards disappear to???
Not solved - but I'm "wireless" again!
(I guess I could hack a bash script ??)
-------------------------------
Day later - commented out all (3) lines in /etc/conf.d/wireless - and now the Madwifi/Atheros cards work. (ie - it associates)
What is wrong with having essid_ath0="any" in this file?

I also noticed that with something that is syntatically incorrect in the file - you get an error message on shutdown - but nothing at any other time. What program processes this file - is there a debug flag one can use on it?