[pkg-wpa-devel] Bug#777170: Bug#777170: wpasupplicant: lots of CTRL-EVENT-SIGNAL-CHANGE messages in syslog and couldn't connect to wireless network

[Julian Gilbey]

On Thu, Feb 05, 2015 at 11:04:30PM +0100, Stefan Lippers-Hollmann wrote:
> tags -1 moreinfo
> 
> Hi

Hiya!

> On 2015-02-05, Julian Gilbey wrote:
> > Package: wpasupplicant
> > Version: 2.3-1
> > Severity: normal
> > 
> > I was trying to connect to a wireless network from my MacBook Pro
> > running testing today, and it connected only intermittently.  I'm
> > using network-manager, if that makes any difference.  It may be the
> > network involved, as I can connect to my home network with no
> > difficulties.
> 
> What wireless card are you using in your system/ which kernel driver
> is in use? Overcrowded and noisy environments can certainly make the
> situation worse, especially when you're almost out of reach of your
> AP and may even hop between different, equally bad APs. I guess this
> part of the issue is more of kernel issue though.

I've just found out that there were general problems with the wireless
in the building which may be part of the cause of this problem, so I
will check next week to see if things have improved (they've replaced
the wireless network hardware).

In the meantime, for the record, here is the wireless card info from
hwinfo:

31: PCI 200.0: 0282 WLAN controller
  [Created at pci.328]
  Unique ID: y9sn._jDsMEPhrB9
  Parent ID: qTvu.mgUbsEukkq3
  SysFS ID: /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1c.1/0000:02:00.0
  SysFS BusID: 0000:02:00.0
  Hardware Class: network
  Model: "Broadcom BCM4331 802.11a/b/g/n"
  Vendor: pci 0x14e4 "Broadcom"
  Device: pci 0x4331 "BCM4331 802.11a/b/g/n"
  SubVendor: pci 0x106b "Apple Inc."
  SubDevice: pci 0x00f5
  Revision: 0x02
  Driver: "bcma-pci-bridge"
  Driver Modules: "bcma"
  Device File: wlan0
  Features: WLAN
  Memory Range: 0xa0600000-0xa0603fff (rw,non-prefetchable)
  IRQ: 17 (329374 events)
  HW Address: a8:86:dd:98:d7:12
  Link detected: yes
  WLAN channels: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
  WLAN frequencies: 2.412 2.417 2.422 2.427 2.432 2.437 2.442 2.447 2.452 2.457 2.462 2.467 2.472 2.484
  WLAN encryption modes: WEP40 WEP104 TKIP CCMP
  WLAN authentication modes: open sharedkey wpa-psk wpa-eap
  Module Alias: "pci:v000014E4d00004331sv0000106Bsd000000F5bc02sc80i00"
  Driver Info #0:
    Driver Status: bcma is active
    Driver Activation Cmd: "modprobe bcma"
  Config Status: cfg=new, avail=yes, need=no, active=unknown
  Attached to: #23 (PCI bridge)
    

> > The log file was filled with thousands of lines of the form:
> > 
> > Feb  5 16:54:18 redfield wpa_supplicant[2925]: wlan0: CTRL-EVENT-SIGNAL-CHANGE above=1 signal=0 noise=0 txrate=48000
> > 
> > which were appearing at the rate of about 10 per second.
> 
> CTRL-EVENT-SIGNAL-CHANGE is emitted at the MSG_INFO (default) logging
> level - you can tune wpa_supplicant's logging level to reduce (and
> subsequently hide) these messages. If you start wpa_supplicant by hand,
> the parameters are -d, -dd, ... (to increase the logging level) or -q, 
> -qq, ... (to reduce the logging level. ifupdown's wpa_supplicant 
> integration allows you to set a debugging level via 
> "wpa-debug-level %d" (where %d stands for positive or negative numbers,
> e.g. -3, ..., 0, ..., 3). I do not know how (or if) networkmanager 
> exposes access to these settings.
> 
> As long as your kernel driver/ module is working fine, you're usually
> not supposed to get bothered by this event - it may be emitted 
> occassionally, but rarely enough not to be noticed.

So clearly something is amiss, but it might be network-related.

I'll update next week when I'm able to check again with the new
network setup.

Many thanks!

   Julian