Bug 638872

Summary:	Wifi (rt2860) stopped working after kernel update
Product:	[openSUSE] openSUSE 11.3	Reporter:	Ginko Bonsai <ginkobonsai>
Component:	Kernel	Assignee:	Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh>
Status:	RESOLVED NORESPONSE	QA Contact:	E-mail List <qa-bugs>
Severity:	Major
Priority:	P5 - None	CC:	jeffm, tonyj, v.plessky
Version:	Final
Target Milestone:	---
Hardware:	i686
OS:	openSUSE 11.3
Whiteboard:
Found By:	---	Services Priority:
Business Priority:		Blocker:	---
Marketing QA Status:	---	IT Deployment:	---

Description Ginko Bonsai 2010-09-13 11:05:36 UTC

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-GB; rv:1.9.2.8) Gecko/20100723 SUSE/3.6.8-1.2 Firefox/3.6.8

After applying the latest kernel update (to kernel-default-2.6.34.4-0.1.1.i586), wifi on my Asus Eee 1000H (containing a Ralink RT2860) stopped working. I couldn't connect to my router any longer using WPA2 encryption. Scanning was possible (I saw a bunch of networks) but connecting didn't work. As I already had a very similar problem under 11.1, I tried the fix that worked then (and, honestly, I'm a BIT miffed that yet another kernel update breaks my wifi setup AGAIN...):
Compiling and using the vendor driver from http://www.ralinktech.com/license_us.php?n=2&p=0&t=U0wyRnpjMlYwY3k4eU1ERXdMekEzTHpFMkwyUnZkMjVzYjJGa05qZ3hPRFUwTmpBd05DNWllakk5UFQweU1ERXdYekEzWHpFMlgxSlVNamcyTUY5TWFXNTFlRjlUVkVGZmRqSXVOQzR3TGpBdWRHRnlD
(it was version 2010_07_16_RT2860_Linux_STA_v2.4.0.0)
The driver is compiled with 'HAS_WPA_SUPPLICANT=y' and 'HAS_NATIVE_WPA_SUPPLICANT_SUPPORT=y' (just like described in the docs for working with NM)
Then I copied the RT2860STA.dat from the vendor package (didn't change anything there) to /etc/Wireless/RT2860STA/RT2860STA.dat and the compiled module from os/linux/rt2860sta.ko to /lib/modules/2.6.34.4-0.1-default/kernel/drivers/staging/rt2860

Now my wifi works again (and my wifi interface is now called ra0 instead of wlan0). But of course it'd be neat if it just worked out of the box - like it did before the kernel update.

I sincerly hope that the next kernel update won't have me manually compiling kernel modules AGAIN ;-)

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Install kernel update with opensuse updater and reboot
2. Try to connect to router with wpa2
3. Can't establish connection
Actual Results:  
Can't establish connection to router.

Expected Results:  
Wifi working smoothly, like it did before the kernel update.

Comment 1 Tony Jones 2010-09-28 14:39:42 UTC

Hmmn, I'm wondering if you were affected by bug 604095.  

Are you sure it is the kernel component that caused this and not some other package update.

Comment 2 Ginko Bonsai 2010-10-10 21:53:58 UTC

I remember checking out that bug before posting this one - but it didn't seem to apply to my problem. Also, I dimly remember checking /etc/sysconfig/network/scripts for WPA_DRIVER - but it seemed to be set to "wext" already. Besides, I use Network Manager.

I'm pretty sure it was either the kernel module or the /etc/Wireless/RT2860STA/RT2860STA.dat file that was faulty because those were the only two things I changed to make it work again. (Correct me if I'm wrong...)
And the kernel module is owned by package kernel-default.

However, I also applied the kernel update after the one we're talking about, which seems to have replaced the kernel module yet again. (At least according to modinfo, which says I'm back to version: 2.1.0.0 when I was at version 2.4.0.0 with the manually compiled module...)
And with the new kernel update (to 2.6.34.7), the driver (still) works. So hopefully the last kernel update fixed the problem. I really hope the troubles won't be back with the next update... ;-)

Comment 3 Ginko Bonsai 2011-01-04 17:48:45 UTC

OK, the problem's back again: after the last two kernel updates (the latest being to 2.6.34.7-0.7-default), I had to do the manually-compiling-the-wlan-driver-dance again. The ONLY thing that this changes is the kernel module /lib/modules/2.6.34.7-0.7-default/kernel/drivers/staging/rt2860/rt2860sta.ko, which is updated from version 2.1.0.0 (from the kernel package) to 2.4.0.0 (from the ralink website). After exchanging the module, everything works smoothly until the next kernel update.

Comment 4 Jeff Mahoney 2011-02-09 15:15:34 UTC

Ugh. The rt2680 driver is a mess. It's a "staging" driver which means that while it's included in the kernel, it's deemed not-quite-ready for prime time. I've been trying to drag along fixes for it since it seems like the hardware is pretty common, but apparently we're missing some.

Comment 5 Greg Kroah-Hartman 2011-02-09 16:20:20 UTC

Can you try the kernel version in openSUSE:Tumbleweed, or in Factory?  It should solve these issues, and if not, I would really like to know.

Comment 6 Greg Kroah-Hartman 2011-02-23 23:04:30 UTC

Closing due to lack of response.