rt2500 wifi cards need to be downed for changing essid

By the way, by "out of the box" I meant "using NetworkManager". I entered my essid/key in knetworkmanager, but the network failed to start. Then I tried manual configuration with iwconfig as mentioned above, and it did not work until I figured out that the interface must be down prior to setting the essid.

I have a rt2500 based card myself, and it doesn't play too well with NetworkManager yet.
Have you tried connecting to a network without encryption? You should also be able to set the ssid without deactivating the ra0 interface.
So does the card itself work, or is this just a problem with NetworkManager?

Yes, the card itself works, but I have to "ifconfig ra0 down" before I
can set the essid. Note that the card worked out of the box in dapper
(but without NetworkManager).

What happens when you try setting the essid when the card is up?

Note: the same solution works for prism54:

sudo ifconfig [interface] down
sudo iwconfig [interface] essid [essid] key [key]
sudo ifconfig [interface] up
sudo dhclient3 [interface]

This implies the problem is not at driver level at all, but higher up.

When I try to set the essid while the card is up nothing happens. No
error. Simply the essid is not set, according to iwconfig.
After a few weeks using the laptop with feisty, I also noticed that
sometimes the essid cannot be set even if the card is down. As I
usually notice that only when I "up" the card after setting essid, I
don't know what iwconfig would report between the moment I try to set
essid and the moment I "up" the card. Anyway, when that happens I just
repeat the down/set essid/up process and it works.

I haven't tried network-manager with rt2500, but I know that it's working on three boxes where I have this card. I suspect the switch to network-manager in feisty is revealing that it needs a backend to operate rt2500 properly.

Ben, in Dapper I could set the essid without downing the card on my
rt2500 laptop. On my other laptop (ipw2200), with Feisty I can also
set the essid without downing the card (sometimes NM does not work and
I have to configure the card manually).

I have the same problem only I can configure the network manually without deactivating the device first. The network I'm connecting to is not encrypted, though. The relevant error message from daemon.log seems to be:

Feb 18 18:53:15 benw-desktop NetworkManager: <information>^IActivation (ra0/wireless): association took too long (>60s), failing activation.

I'm attaching a snippet of my daemon.log.

Hello,

I have a similar problem with the hostap driver in Feisty. I'm not sure if it's related, but I'm seeing similar behavior with NetworkManager -- no association, but I can manually bring the interface up with iwconfig, or with wireless-* lines in /etc/network/interfaces.

I'm running Feisty with kernel 2.6.20-8-lowlatency and N-M 0.6.4-6ubuntu2.

The card is a PCMCIA Linksys WPC11 with a Prism III inside. The primary firmware is at 1.1.0 and the secondary firmware at 1.8.2. hostap_cs is the driver being used. The ESSID is hidden and the network in encrypted with a shared WEP key.

A few days ago, I decided to let N-M manage this connection. So, I removed the lines from /etc/network/interfaces that specified wlan0. Now, on boot, the connection does not come up. If I tell N-M to "Connect to Other Wireless Network", it prompts me for the ESSID, security, and key. After entering these details, N-M fails to associate with the AP. However, I know the card can work, since if I go to the terminal and enter:

ifconfig [interface] down
iwconfig [interface] essid [ESSID] key restricted [key]
ifconfig [interface] up
dhclient3 [interface]

Then the network works.

For the sake of diagnosis, I have attached the output of N-M when invoked in non-daemon mode.

Not a bug in the kernel, but one in network-managers backend.

I have same problem with rt2500 card in Feisty herd 4. I cannot set essid without downing the card even with no encryption. Let me know if you need any output.

The rt2500pci card worked with Feisty herd 4 (kernel 2.6.20-9). The update to 2.6.20-10 broke it. The update to 2.6.20-11 didn't mend it.

The workaround above works in 2.6.20-10, but not 2.6.20-11, possibly because it appears as two devices, ra0 and wmaster0 there.

Output of lspci, lsmod, ifconfig and iwconfig for all three versions available.

I also have a problem with a RT2500 based card, after upgranding to feisty(from edgy) the interface is no lönger calles ra0 but wlan0. This in itself is not a problem, but i am unable to connnect to any network the scannign output is always empty, though i can set essid an key via iwconfig. As soon as I run for example dhclient i get the message "wmaster0 unknown hardware type 801" and nothing else happens, except for not finding any networks, so this is seriously borken!! (I am typing this bug report on a windows machine :-( ). The old edgy driver worked completely flawless. So i would be happy if this can be fixed. Keep up the good work!!

I can confirm my RT2500 card is not working on Herd 5. The workaround fixes it, but of course this is a sub-optimal solution! ........

Same here confirmed, affects a lot of people.

This also happens to me. Kubuntu herd 5, all updates, this laptop: http://www.msicomputer.com/NB/product_spec.asp?model=MS-1039

Confirming this bug with RT2500.

Can't set ESSID while interface is up.

Workaround described above also works for me.

I have the same problem in Festy beta.

Try to boot without X and the rt2500 work fine.

Workaround also works for me.

Bad news guys. I have new information and I'm updating my last post. It's not a bug. As you can see at:

http://live.gnome.org/NetworkManagerHardware

rt2500 drivers "supports unencrypted and WEP networks when used with NetworkManager. While the driver supports WPA, it does not use Linux Wireless Extensions for WPA support, which is required for NetworkManager."

I make some test and the drivers work fine in "old fashion way" without NetworkManager.

Good luck next time...

That's bad news norberto. No way Feisty can go final with this huge hardware problem!

Same here. Mobo the dreaded K8 Combo - Z. Feisty Beta.
Workaround by hand seems to do the trick.

Same problem here, using a wireless nic Asus WL-107g.
I bought this nic cause it was recommended by the Free Software Foundation as there is a fully free driver (no binary blob required).

http://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/net/wireless/cards.html

It would be really pity if this bug cannot be resolved in the final Feisty.

Same here. My "Conceptronic C54..?..." PCI card based on the RT2500 chipset from RaLink worked "out of the box" on ubuntu edgy. I just had to type my WEP-Key into the network-admin - what a feeling... On the Feisty Beta Live CD the device is recognised as ra0 like on edgy before and network manager find all wlan networks in the envoirnment, but I was not able to get a working WEP or nonkey connection with the old school network-admin or iwconfig etc. nor by deleting all devices from /etc/network/interfaces (expect lo) and using the new network manager. networking manager asked me for wep-key, I type it.... then the network manager animation goes with the tooltip "waiting for wepkey"... waiting... waiting... no connection. it seems to me that there is a connection but no it doesn't get an IP over DHCP.

It's possible to get the rt2500 working with NetworkManager via ndiswrapper. You just need to find a copy of rt2500.sys and rt2500.inf and use ndiswrapper to install them. A gigantic hack, but good if you're desperate to get NetworkManager working. Of course NetworkManager and ndiswrapper have their own set of issues (bug # 85468).

I have the same problems described in the description with my rt2500, I use an unsecured network and network-manager sees my ESSID but can't connect.

To get my wireless working I had to

sudo ifdown ra0
sudo nano /etc/network/interfaces
-type in my network info on ra0
sudo ifup ra0

No everytime I reboot I just need to do a simple "sudo ifdown ra0" and "sudo ifupra0", my wireless then works but network-manager is still unusable.

I can confirm this bug as well. I have dlink DWL-G122 ver.B1. rt2500usb.

It can see the network but it shows 0% strength and I cannot connect.

Developers any word on a fix for this?? Will it make it before the final?

Also, i think the importance of this should be upped to high since it affects so many people.

I agree with davegod75. This should be upgraded in priority. Once all of the people who only run stable versions upgrade to Feity final, they'll be very upset when their wireless cards stop working. Please don't go final with this huge bug still lingering.

Bug #99597 "NetworkManager detects networks but does not connect (RaLink 2500)" seems to be a dublicate of this bug.

I have been bitten by the Atheros wireless problems that appeared with Dapper. Three computers of mine crashed constantly. After many months passed by and the bug was still not fixed, I bought three new Ralink cards because of the Free drivers. And now with the upcoming Feisty, the wireless problems seem to resurface for me. I am really tired of this situtation.

Confirming this bug with RT2500 using a Belkin F5D7000 wireless card (worked on Edgy).
Can't set ESSID while interface is up.
Workaround described above works for me but I have to restart networking.

sudo ifconfig ra0 down
sudo iwconfig ra0 essid xyz key 12345
sudo ifconfig ra0 up
sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart

then I put everything in rc.local

My WUSB54G v4 from ebay uses the rt2500 chipset and driver and doesn't connect to WPA in Feisty; I get a pop-up saying "requires security capabilities unsupported by your hardware". The more recent (still in stores) WUSB54GC also uses rt2500.

It's so unfortunate. rt2500 is completely free software and highly recommended for Linux (both from the FSF, ubuntu wiki, and Ralink's home page: http://www.ralinktech.com/ralink/Home/Support/Linux.html ) and there's still this monumental problem with it and network-manager-gnome. I can even get the Intel wireless cards and their firmware to work out of the box in Feisty easily but not rt2500. Maybe I"m just seeing a problem where it doesn't exist but I wonder why so much time was spent with making binary blobs easy to use in Feisty and yet free hardware isn't supported. Of course I'm under no illusions it can be fixed easily, as Feisty will be frozen in a few days, but just a comment.

As another workaround, I've heard on the Ubuntu forums that some other wireless managers in Synaptic can deal with it, but still network-manager-gnome is the default and supposed to be the big draw in Feisty...there's a whole thread devoted to this issue in the Feisty Fawn Discussion forum as well, with people who's wireless worked pre-Feisty and now doesn't due to network-manager/the driver not supporting the extensions talked about in the link norberto posted.

I can also confrim this bug.
This card worked out of the box in edgy and dapper.

Yes, rt2500 is very free software friendly, but that does not automatically unfortunately mean that the drivers would be top-notch.
The current problem is, that only the so called "Legacy" "BETA" drivers work reliably, but they don't support features needed by network-manager. On the other hand, the "rt2x00" driver, which should replace all the current rt2400/rt2500/rt2570/rt61/rt73 drivers, is not yet stable.

So basically the whole WLAN situation on Linux is a bit unfortunate, with some chipsets not working at all, most requiring non-free firmware blobs to be included in the distribution, and even the few potentially fully free solutions do not have good enough drivers. Plus the fact that kernel side things are a bit fluctuating. But as always, things are improving - with the DeviceScape WLAN framework in kernel finally approaching, and many drivers finally maturing (like rt2x00, broadcom, zd1211rw), I'd finally see Ubuntu 7.10 to have chances to have relatively nice support out of the box for also other cards besides Intel's, albeit it requires those firmware files still for most cards other than rt2x00.

In Ubuntu 7.04, I have my ZD1211-based card now finally working with the default zd1211rw driver rewritten from scratch by the community. Also some of the Broadcom users are reporting they can now use the GPL driver instead of ndiswrapper hack. Granted both of those need the firmware files, but still requiring firmwares is a lesser harm than something non-free running on the computer CPU itself.

That said, Ubuntu really should use the 1.1.0-b4 + patches driver (ie. latest legacy driver for rt2500) that Debian also uses, from http://packages.qa.debian.org/r/rt2500.html . It works reliably, but just needs that network manager is not used (AFAIK). Probably no-one in the Ubuntu core team has devoted enough though to this matter, and the fact that network manager was decided to enable by default complicates things.

Note that I'm not completely certain about whether rt2x00 could actually work for rt2500 cards, including network-manager / WPA2 support. Debian has some version of also rt2x00 (CVS 20070219 + patches), and apparently some people are having success with it http://packages.qa.debian.org/r/rt2x00.html.

After completely uninstalling network-manager, all problems solved, the card works nicelly. By the way, network manager isn't part of the ubuntu-desktop metapackage anymore

Patrick: What do you use to configure your wireless card now? Please include a KDE alternative, since I'm a Kubuntu fan ;)

Kubuntu... use ubuntu! ;)

I think in kde you could use kwifimanager to configure the wireless card. I don't if that will work. You can also edit manually /etc/network/interfaces this way:

auto ra0
iface ra0 inet static
address some IP
netmask 255.255.255.0
gateway routers-IP
wireless-essid linksys
wireless-key your-key-here

if you want to configure it with dhcp:

auto ra0
iface ra0 inet dhcp
wireless-essid linksys
wireless-key your-key-here

that should help, I think

This looks like the same as bug 104414

And no kiwimanager also does not work until after the wifi interface is either manually reset or reset via wlassistant.

PS I like the kiwimanager interface more than knetworkmanager, but the results are the same.

Filed upstream. Sorry, LP fooled me with deluge.

Many dups, raising priority.

Can a ralink owner having this problem please attach the output of lsmod to this bug and/or respond to the request for information in the upstream bug http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=429419 ?

I don't have NM installed on my maching and I suffer from this bug on my rt2500, so I think it's definitely NOT a NM bug.

A question... which driver are you people using?

I think a few kernels ago, rt2x00 drivers were intruduced. I don't know if they are still there and if they are default.. check it: sudo lsmod | grep rt2500. If rt2500pci appears, you're using the rt2x00 project ones.. I had no luck. Blacklist them and use the rt2500.ko modules (the legacy, which works fine)

The work around for rtl8180 is to add a junk char after the end of the essid
see bug 78255. I think bug 78037 and related bug 104414 are not
duplicates of this one.

On 4/16/07, Patrick <email address hidden> wrote:
> A question... which driver are you people using?
>
> I think a few kernels ago, rt2x00 drivers were intruduced. I don't know
> if they are still there and if they are default.. check it: sudo lsmod |
> grep rt2500. If rt2500pci appears, you're using the rt2x00 project
> ones.. I had no luck. Blacklist them and use the rt2500.ko modules (the
> legacy, which works fine)
>
> --
> many cards need to be downed for changing essid
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/78037
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>

Here is the output of lsmod on an Averatec 3225HS laptop.

Please ignore my previous email. I had the bug relationships switched
around in it.

The work around for rtl8180 is to add a junk char after the end of the essid
see bug 78255.

I think bug 78255 and related bug 104414 are not
duplicates of 78037.

On 4/16/07, Tim Webster <email address hidden> wrote:
> The work around for rtl8180 is to add a junk char after the end of the essid
> see bug 78255. I think bug 78037 and related bug 104414 are not
> duplicates of this one.
>
>
> On 4/16/07, Patrick <email address hidden> wrote:
> > A question... which driver are you people using?
> >
> > I think a few kernels ago, rt2x00 drivers were intruduced. I don't know
> > if they are still there and if they are default.. check it: sudo lsmod |
> > grep rt2500. If rt2500pci appears, you're using the rt2x00 project
> > ones.. I had no luck. Blacklist them and use the rt2500.ko modules (the
> > legacy, which works fine)
> >
> > --
> > many cards need to be downed for changing essid
> > https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/78037
> > You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> > of the bug.
> >
>

Same problems here with ralink 2500:

# uname -a
Linux higgs 2.6.20-15-generic #2 SMP Sun Apr 15 06:17:24 UTC 2007 x86_64 GNU/Linux

# lsmod | grep rt2
rt2500 202088 1

So that would be the old driver i guess.

my main issue with nm - the fact that it wasnt working correctly with static settings - was fixed with a update.

I cannot test the roaming mode, as I dont have any networks to connect to..

Exactly the same here:
# uname -a
Linux higgs 2.6.20-15-generic #2 SMP Sun Apr 15 06:17:24 UTC 2007 x86_64 GNU/Linux
# lsmod | grep rt2
rt2500 202088 1

Attached a full lsmod output as requested...

I can confirm this on a laptop with a USB WiFi from Sitecom. Knetworkmanager does not connect, progress meter is hanging. This is a very very very very very big showstopper. The release of Feisty should be postponed!

Hi Girls/Guys!

I still have this ugly (k)networkmanagerbug. And networkm. must be fixed, since feisty is going to get out really soon. So here is my little suggestion, please get in contact with Dan Williams -he seems to be the programer of our buggy NM, so please give him as many informations as possible. So that he can work on this thingy. Here is the updstream-link:
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=429419
(Hope I not doing anything wrong with my post ;-))

Bernd

Seems Network Manager related, because when using Wicd MAnager (http://adam.blackhole.cx/wicd/wb/) I do not have this problem...

rt2500 pci card worked fine under Edgy. Upgraded via alt CD and no network. Numerous attempts at getting network manager to sort it out failed. I uninstalled network manager and it still will not connect via the Gnome network GUI. Note that this is with WEP encryption.

I _am_ able to connect via the command line:

sudo ifconfig ra0 down
sudo iwconfig ra0 essid blahblahblah key hexblahblah
sudo dhclient ra0

I found this at https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux-source-2.6.20/+bug/37120

Syntax to manually configure in /etc/network/interfaces

iface ra0 inet dhcp
        pre-up ifconfig ra0 up
        pre-up ifconfig ra0 down
        pre-up ifconfig ra0 up
        pre-up ifconfig ra0 down
        pre-up iwconfig ra0 essid "MyRouterName"
        pre-up iwconfig ra0 mode Managed
        pre-up iwpriv ra0 set AuthMode=WPAPSK
        pre-up iwpriv ra0 set EncrypType=TKIP
        pre-up iwpriv ra0 set WPAPSK="MySecretPassword
        pre-up ifconfig ra0 up
auto ra0

Since I am only using WEP, modified to:

iface ra0 inet dhcp
        pre-up ifconfig ra0 up
        pre-up ifconfig ra0 down
        pre-up ifconfig ra0 up
        pre-up ifconfig ra0 down
        pre-up iwconfig ra0 essid "MyRouterName"
        pre-up iwconfig ra0 key "MyKeyInHex"
        pre-up iwconfig ra0 mode Managed
        pre-up ifconfig ra0 up
auto ra0

Now I have wireless connectivity which survives a reboot.

See also bugs 107555 and 95828

Upstream response:
"That driver [rt2500] is _busted_. Needs to be fixed. Furthermore, we'll be running wpa_supplicant _all_ the time with 0.7, so it needs to be fixed in the driver by 0.7 anyway."

Thus reassigning to the kernel.

I opened a bug 110590 - a feature request for inclusion of rt2x00 driver into the main Ubuntu kernel instead of the legacy ones. IMO this feature should be implemented ASAP because the majority of non-integrated wireless cards are nowadays rt2x based. When done, this bug should be fixed automatically.

Same problem on a Hawking HWP54g PCI wireless card. it worked fine in edgy until i upgraded to feisty.

See my lsmod output below.

 uname -a
Linux 9400 2.6.20-15-generic #2 SMP Sun Apr 15 07:36:31 UTC 2007 i686 GNU/Linux

Module Size Used by
binfmt_misc 12680 1
rfcomm 40856 3
hidp 20608 0
l2cap 25728 6 rfcomm,hidp
ppdev 10116 0
acpi_cpufreq 10056 1
cpufreq_powersave 2688 0
cpufreq_stats 7360 0
cpufreq_userspace 5408 0
cpufreq_ondemand 9228 1
cpufreq_conservative 8200 0
freq_table 5792 3 acpi_cpufreq,cpufreq_stats,cpufreq_ondemand
tc1100_wmi 8068 0
pcc_acpi 13184 0
sony_acpi 6284 0
dev_acpi 12292 0
video 16388 0
battery 10756 0
container 5248 0
sbs 15652 0
button 8720 0
i2c_ec 5888 1 sbs
dock 10268 0
ac 6020 0
asus_acpi 17308 0
backlight 7040 1 asus_acpi
ndiswrapper 194608 0
ipv6 268704 10
sbp2 23812 0
parport_pc 36388 0
lp 12452 0
parport 36936 3 ppdev,parport_pc,lp
joydev 10816 0
snd_hda_intel 21912 3
snd_hda_codec 205440 1 snd_hda_intel
snd_pcm_oss 44544 0
snd_mixer_oss 17408 1 snd_pcm_oss
snd_pcm 79876 4 snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_pcm_oss
snd_seq_dummy 4740 0
snd_seq_oss 32896 0
snd_seq_midi 9600 0
snd_rawmidi 25472 1 snd_seq_midi
snd_seq_midi_event 8448 2 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi
snd_seq 52592 6 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi,snd_seq_midi_event
usbhid 26592 0
hid 27392 2 hidp,usbhid
hci_usb 18204 2
snd_timer 23684 3 snd_pcm,snd_seq
snd_seq_device 9100 5 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq
rt2570 186432 1
bluetooth 55908 8 rfcomm,hidp,l2cap,hci_usb
af_packet 23816 8
i2c_core 22784 1 i2c_ec
serio_raw 7940 0
intel_agp 25116 1
snd 54020 14 snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_pcm,snd_seq_oss,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq,snd_timer,snd_seq_device
soundcore 8672 1 snd
psmouse 38920 0
pcspkr 4224 0
snd_page_alloc 10888 2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm
agpgart 35400 1 intel_agp
iTCO_wdt 11812 0
iTCO_vendor_support 4868 1 iTCO_wdt
sdhci 18700 0
mmc_core 26756 1 sdhci
shpchp 34324 0
pci_hotplug 32576 1 shpchp
tsdev 8768 0
evdev 11008 5
reiserfs 247680 2
sg 36252 0
sr_mod 17060 0
cdrom 37664 1 sr_mod
sd_mod 23428 4
generic 5124 0 [permanent]
ata_piix ...

Just did a fresh load of feisty final with all updates (had to plug in wired connection to get online :( ) and this issue still isn't fixed. Any updates / ETA? This is a pretty large bug to have in a stable release.

Still waiting on a fix for this.

I too would like to confirm this bug and raise it's prio a little higher.

I have a Digitus DN-7006GR wireless card. It is not a DN-7006-RA!

% lspci | grep Ra
00:08.0 Network controller: RaLink RT2500 802.11g Cardbus/mini-PCI (rev 01)

It is based on the rt2500 chipset.

I am using Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon (7.10).

The card works fine, except for two things:
. NetworkManager finds it, shows signal strength, shows wireless networks, and attempts to connect. It does not connect however.
. Manual config (System -> Administration -> Network) or similar via the console works fine, except it shows signal strength as 0.

This is a common chipset and really needs to be fixed by now. It seems the correct code could be obtained by borrowing bits from each method!

For me, this bug does not occur anymore on Gutsy Gibbon (7.10).

I tested this on two different computers, equipped with two identical RaLink RT2500 802.11g PCI wireless cards. I installed Gutsy Gibbon freshly on one of these machines, while I upgraded the other one from Feisty Fawn (7.04). Changing the essid works now on both machines under KDE as well as GNOME via the Network Manager applet.

Per a decision made by the Ubuntu Kernel Team, bugs will longer be assigned to the ubuntu-kernel-team in Launchpad as part of the bug triage process. The ubuntu-kernel-team is being unassigned from this bug report. Refer to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelTeamBugPolicies for more information. Thanks.