ipw2200 Failed to send SYSTEM_CONFIG?

English Network/Internet
1

I’m currently running opensuse 10.3 on an HP laptop with an ipw2200 wireless device. It configured and worked first time when I installed 10.3, but I’m having trouble with 11.0.

I’m testing with the 11.0 live DVD that came with “Linux Format” issue 109. It seems to detect all the hardware correctly, including the wireless device, and I can configure everything thereafter in YAST, but the wireless will not form a connection with my router (using WPA-PSK).

The dmesg output looks OK. The device is started, and recognizes the region etc. There seems to be firmware in /lib/firmware. The eth1 network interface appears in ifconfig and iwconfig etc. The modules are loaded. There is plausible content in the wpa_supplicant config file. Everything I can think of looks OK. The wpa_cli status is just reported as “SCANNING” all the time.

Searching the logs, the only error message I can find is “ipw2200 Failed to send SYSTEM_CONFIG: Already sending a command.”, which appears once. I can’t find what this error message means, or how to avoid it. Has anyone seen this before?

Could this perhaps just a problem with Linux Format’s live DVD? (they cut it down to squeeze on another distro apparently).

Cheers,
-nick

2

Perhaps it’s a real problem with 11.0 (see link), though presumably many people have managed to get ipw2200 wireless working without problems?

[opensuse-networking] Help resolving: ipw2200: Failed to send SYSTEM_CON](http://lists.opensuse.org/opensuse-networking/2008-07/msg00000.html)

Cheers,
-nick

3

Hi
I had the same issue if the ESSID on the AP is hidden and using wpa.
Have a look here;
http://tinyurl.com/5bbsov
or
http://forums.opensuse.org/archives/sls-archives/archives-linux-tweaks/archives-tips-tricks-tweaks/381460-wpa-hidden-ssid.html

I just set my AP to broadcast the ESSID as it didn’t seem to work. Now
there were no issues for me with SLED 10 SP2, Ubuntu 8.04 and XP Pro
with it hidden.

–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° (Linux Counter #276890)
openSUSE 11.0 x86 Kernel 2.6.25.11-0.1-default
up 1 day 22:28, 2 users, load average: 0.11, 0.24, 0.16
GPU GeForce 6600 TE/6200 TE - Driver Version: 173.14.12

4

Ah! It’s true that I’m suppressing the ESSID broadcast at the AP. I’ll try setting WIRELESS_AP_SCANMODE=‘2’, or failing that, enabling the broadcast <sigh>.

Thanks for the pointer. Do you know whether SUSE know about this? (I couldn’t find a bug covering it).

Cheers,
-nick

5

Hi
Just tried it again with the ESSID hidden, no joy for me… I don’t
think so regarding a bug, is it the network manager, firmware,
iwconfig…?

–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° (Linux Counter #276890)
openSUSE 11.0 x86 Kernel 2.6.25.11-0.1-default
up 0:05, 1 user, load average: 0.09, 0.53, 0.31
GPU GeForce 6600 TE/6200 TE - Driver Version: 173.14.12

6

I added WIRELESS_AP_SCANMODE=‘2’ to the config last night, and after a quick ifdown/ifup, everything worked perfectly. That’s a great result; thanks again for the pointer.

Good point about the bug: it’s not at all clear what is at fault. When I get a minute, I’ll raise a minor bug and add all the information I have. At least someone else might find it useful then, even if it’s not fixed as such.

Cheers,
-nick

7

Created bug 421880

Cheers,
-nick

8

Hi
So did you try the last suggestion?

–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° (Linux Counter #276890)
openSUSE 11.0 x86 Kernel 2.6.25.11-0.1-default
up 2 days 12:09, 1 user, load average: 0.19, 0.16, 0.23
GPU GeForce 6600 TE/6200 TE - Driver Version: 173.14.12

9

Do you mean enabling SSID broadcast? No, as soon as it worked without I was happy, though the folk at Novell have got me trying various tests with iwlist to see what is visible and what isn’t. I’ll add the results of that to the Novell bug.

Cheers,
-nick