Help! Wireless stops working whenever do updates via "zypper up"!

I’m getting a weird situation where the wireless connection stops working whenever I start downloading updates via “zypper up”. But it stops working in a weird way:

  1. The icon on the taskbar still shows it connected (and lists the connection at 63%)

  2. Zypper becomes unable to connect to any repositories and cannot download anything

  3. Firefox is unable to connect to anything inckuding the router at 192.168.1.1

The only thing that gets it working again is to remove the wireless connection and re-add it, but then zypper again leads to it losing the ability to get any data

I’m using:

openSUSE 12.2 (x86_64)
KDE: 4.8.5 (4.8.5) “release 2”
Linux 3.4.28-2.20-desktop x86_64
Samsung Series 9 Laptop

Router: Asus RT-N66U with DD-WRT

What could be causing this?

On 05/20/2013 05:16 PM, 6tr6tr wrote:

> The only thing that gets it working again is to remove the wireless
> connection and re-add it, but then zypper again leads to it losing the
> ability to get any data
>
> I’m using:
>
> openSUSE 12.2 (x86_64)
> KDE: 4.8.5 (4.8.5) “release 2”
> Linux 3.4.28-2.20-desktop x86_64
> Samsung Series 9 Laptop
>
> Router: Asus RT-N66U with DD-WRT
>
> What could be causing this?

You are expecting it to fail, thus it does. :slight_smile:

Obviously, the driver cannot handle heavy loads. It would be a great help if you
would identify what device/driver you are using. I am getting very tired of
having to guess such critical info on posting after posting. I’m 73 years old,
and I don’t have a lot of time left.

Thanks for the help. Sorry I did not give the info you wanted but I’m still not sure what you’re asking. Do you want the device/driver in the computer? Or the device/driver in the router? Where would I find that info? Please tell me the commands to print that info and I’ll post it here. Thanks!

On 05/20/2013 07:36 PM, 6tr6tr wrote:
>
> Thanks for the help. Sorry I did not give the info you wanted but I’m
> still not sure what you’re asking. Do you want the device/driver in the
> computer? Or the device/driver in the router? Where would I find that
> info? Please tell me the commands to print that info and I’ll post it
> here. Thanks!

Read the stickies.

To start, I think I fixed this issue by changing from DHCP to a static IP for the laptop. After that everything seemed to work properly. Not sure why DHCP causes this but a search online found a few other people having the same issue with openSUSE. (Could it be related to my network being non-broadcast?) But to be thorough, I’ve gone through your sticky steps below:

The device (from calls to lspci and “lspci -n”):

01:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation Centrino Advanced-N 6235 (rev 24)
01:00.0 0280: 8086:088e (rev 24)

Running "dmesg | grep -i “Advanced-N 6235” and "dmesg | grep -i “01:00.0” shows zero errors.

“/usr/sbin/iwconfig” properly shows the ESSID and the info looks correct.

“sudo /usr/sbin/iwlist scan” returns 14 cells (there are a lot of wifi networks here) and mine is “cell 01” and everything looks correct (including the encryption and ciphers).

          Cell 01 - Address: 20:A4:4F:28:43:1C
                    Channel:6
                    Frequency:2.437 GHz (Channel 6)
                    Quality=70/70  Signal level=-39 dBm  
                    Encryption key:on
                    ESSID:"mySSID"
                    Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 11 Mb/s; 18 Mb/s
                              24 Mb/s; 36 Mb/s; 54 Mb/s
                    Bit Rates:6 Mb/s; 9 Mb/s; 12 Mb/s; 48 Mb/s
                    Mode:Master
                    Extra: Last beacon: 163321ms ago
                    IE: IEEE 802.11i/WPA2 Version 1
                        Group Cipher : TKIP
                        Pairwise Ciphers (2) : CCMP TKIP
                        Authentication Suites (1) : PSK

On 05/21/2013 01:46 PM, 6tr6tr wrote:
>
> lwfinger;2558770 Wrote:
>> On 05/20/2013 07:36 PM, 6tr6tr wrote:
>>>
>>> Thanks for the help. Sorry I did not give the info you wanted but I’m
>>> still not sure what you’re asking. Do you want the device/driver in
>> the
>>> computer? Or the device/driver in the router? Where would I find that
>>> info? Please tell me the commands to print that info and I’ll post it
>>> here. Thanks!
>>
>> Read the stickies.
>
> To start, I think I fixed this issue by changing from DHCP to a
> static IP for the laptop. After that everything seemed to work properly.
> Not sure why DHCP causes this but a search online found a few other
> people having the same issue with openSUSE. (Could it be related to my
> network being non-broadcast?) But to be thorough, I’ve gone through your
> sticky steps below:

I am surprised that using a static IP would have any effect once the connection
is made, but that hidden ESSID, which is what I think you mean by
“non-broadcast”, might make it impossible for the driver to remake the
connection once it is lost.

BTW, having a hidden ESSID is bad practice, particularly in a crowded wireless
environment. You are not obvious when any other network is being setup, and you
run the risk of additional, unneeded interference because anyone that knew the
proper way to find a quiet clear channel would be misled as they would be unable
to see you. The secret to keeping others off your network is having a strong
WPA2 passphrase, not hiding it. You are using WPA2, which is good.

I’ve set it to broadcast. Any other suggestions that might help fix/diagnose this?

BTW, I think I also had this happen to an Android device as well. I set it to download a lot of updates in the Google Play app store and it started to download the first one when it just started hanging and wouldn’t do anymore, just like with the openSUSE computer.

On 05/21/2013 10:56 PM, 6tr6tr wrote:
>
> I’ve set it to broadcast. Any other suggestions that might help
> fix/diagnose this?
>
> BTW, I think I also had this happen to an Android device as well. I
> set it to download a lot of updates in the Google Play app store and it
> started to download the first one when it just started hanging and
> wouldn’t do anymore, just like with the openSUSE computer.

If it happens on the Android device, that sort of absolves the Linux driver and
points to the common device - the access point. Does it have the latest firmware?

Yes, it does. I wonder if it’s a setting in there. It also might not be happening on the Android device, I’m going to wait for more updates to show up and try again to see if it is also happening there.