Wlan 5g not starting most of the time

I don’t remember exactly where but it was openWRT/ LEDE/ ath10k/ mwlwifi forums. I remember that both mac80211 and hostapd needs to be patched for VHT160. In addition there were some patches on github showing enabling DFS scan for 160 MHz if I remember well.
As you can see in code below it seems that current hostapd version is patched and should support [VHT160-80PLUS80] but I really don’t know it’s just based on text output.

I did not spend so much time to investigate as VHT160 is not needed for me. I just tried to replace wpad by hostapd and wpa-supplicant directly but no success.
Anyway you’re free to investigate and please let me know what you find.

This is part of my hostapd generated file (see vht_capab):

driver=nl80211
logger_syslog=127
logger_syslog_level=2
logger_stdout=127
logger_stdout_level=2
country_code=CZ
ieee80211d=1
ieee80211h=1
hw_mode=a
channel=36


ieee80211n=1
ht_coex=0
ht_capab=[HT40+][LDPC][SHORT-GI-20][SHORT-GI-40][TX-STBC][RX-STBC1][MAX-AMSDU-7935][DSSS_CCK-40]
vht_oper_chwidth=1 // this changes to =2 when VHT160 is set //
vht_oper_centr_freq_seg0_idx=42
ieee80211ac=1
vht_capab=[RXLDPC][SHORT-GI-80][SHORT-GI-160][TX-STBC-2BY1][SU-BEAMFORMER][SU-BEAMFORMEE][MU-BEAMFORMER][MU-BEAMFORMEE][RX-ANTENNA-PATTERN][TX-ANTENNA-PATTERN][RX-STBC-1][VHT160-80PLUS80][MAX-MPDU-11454][MAX-A-MPDU-LEN-EXP7]

Q: In Luci you can see option to set “VHT160-80PLUS80”? I see just “20/40/80/160 MHz”. What country code and channel you have set?

@HomerSp Mathias is VHT160 working to you?

edit:
iw phy0 info:

valid interface combinations:
		 * #{ managed } <= 1, #{ AP, mesh point } <= 16,
		   total <= 16, #channels <= 1, STA/AP BI must match, radar detect widths: { 20 MHz (no HT), 20 MHz, 40 MHz, 80 MHz }

Here I would expect 160 Mhz so (as mentioned before) maybe there is some problem with DFS.

Log:

notice netifd[]: radio0 (21123): wlan0: interface state HT_SCAN->DFS
notice netifd[]: radio0 (21123): wlan0: DFS-CAC-START freq=5180 chan=36 sec_chan=1, width=2, seg0=50, seg1=0, cac_time=60s
notice netifd[]: radio0 (21123): DFS start_dfs_cac() failed, -1
notice netifd[]: radio0 (21123): Interface initialization failed
notice netifd[]: radio0 (21123): wlan0: interface state DFS->DISABLED
notice netifd[]: radio0 (21123): wlan0: AP-DISABLED 
notice netifd[]: radio0 (21123): wlan0: interface state DISABLED->DISABLED

160MHz is not working here, no. iw phy0 info reports the same thing as you, and the log is also the same when trying to set it to 160MHz.

OK thank you. So it seems driver needs to be updated to support 160 MHz DFS scan.

I also have a similar problem, but only sometimes.
The turris reboots and has no wifi, another reboot and all is fine…
the PCI device is not listed by lspci when it does not work…
but after a reboot, so far, all has been well.

Yes, known issue with the wifi board shipped with the turris. I had exactly the same issue. Every time I rebooted the turris (or it got auto-rebooted because of updates) wifi was down. Most of the time a simple reboot was enough but sometimes it even needed 2-3 reboots to come up again.

Since I have replaced the existing card with the wle1000v5-20 from compex (only 3 antennas, so I didn’t have to replace them) wifi is working perfectly fine (see my posts above). I never had the issue again that wifi didn’t come up. The only issue I still have is that signal strength or bitrate showing but it was the same with the shipped card as well. Maybe someone bould provide a board-5.bin which would make this work but you can of course also go for the bigger card WLE1216V5-20 which has 4 antennas and is a bit newer chipset wise and I think there you could even have the signal strength working

edit: just found that thread: https://github.com/greearb/ath10k-ct/issues/22#issuecomment-398931901
Seems there’s an option to get it working but unfortunately I’m no real crack in linux - maybe you guys know how to build ko-modules and all the other stuff?

Just a small guess - this might be related to wpad being outdated (see this thread) - newer wpad -> newer hostapd -> 4x4:2 @160MHz?!
Edit: wpad will only be updated by turris team with upgrade on upstream OpenWRT due to multiple dependencies.
Edit2: Is someone of the WLE1216V5-20-owners trying the TO 4 alpha-series? There it should be possible to choose&use 160MHz-Channels. Would be nice if he/she could try and give a short heads-up afterwards :slight_smile:

I bought the WLE1216V5-20 and the WLE1216V2-20 last week. Will install it within the next 2 weeks and let you know.

2 Likes

I installed both cards today. It was directly recognized. I just uninstalled the default ATH10 Firmware, installed ath10k-firmware-qca9984-ct and rebooted the router.

My device is now able to connect with 160MHz. Also the WiFi performance has increased if multiple devices using the network parallel.

3 Likes

160MHz really works? Could you post screenshot from luci (wifi connections) and iw phy0 info?

Just like it should - with up-to-date wpad.
I have it successfully running with a Linksys WRT32x on openwrt 18.06.2.
@chris-89 could you test which channels are supported? On my WRT32x there are only channels >=100 supported.
Btw - did you install the 5GHz-card in (leftmost) slot 3 and 2,4GHz-card in (middle) slot 2? Because otherwise you will suffer from bad 2,4GHz-wifi-performance.

On OWRT sure. But on TOS? He said 160 works on his TO so I’m wondering if it is true…

The only thing missing for us is up-to-date wpad (including hostapd which supports 160MHz). And that is included in TO4.0-alpha. Or at least thats what i hoped for as TO4.0 is based on 18.06.
TO4.0 is the magic word - on stable 3.11.x it will never work as wpad has to many dependencies and therefore won’t be updated by turris team (see my post above).

I know I was mentioning outdated hostapd earlier in this thread. So it is not true that 160MHz works on current TOS as @chris-89 mentioned.

It is - @chris-89 runs TO4.0 alpha…

1 Like

Currently I’m not at home so I can’t post the LuCI Screenshot.

iw phy0 info

BusyBox v1.28.4 () built-in shell (ash)

  ______                _         ____  _____
 /_  __/_  ____________(_)____   / __ \/ ___/
  / / / / / / ___/ ___/ / ___/  / / / /\__ 
 / / / /_/ / /  / /  / (__  )  / /_/ /___/ / 
/_/  \__,_/_/  /_/  /_/____/   \____//____/  

TurrisOS 4.0-alpha5, 79448f037f

root@turris:~# iw phy0 info
Wiphy phy0
max # scan SSIDs: 16
max scan IEs length: 199 bytes
max # sched scan SSIDs: 0
max # match sets: 0
max # scan plans: 1
max scan plan interval: -1
max scan plan iterations: 0
Retry short limit: 7
Retry long limit: 4
Coverage class: 0 (up to 0m)
Device supports RSN-IBSS.
Device supports AP-side u-APSD.
Supported Ciphers:
* WEP40 (00-0f-ac:1)
* WEP104 (00-0f-ac:5)
* TKIP (00-0f-ac:2)
* CCMP-128 (00-0f-ac:4)
* CMAC (00-0f-ac:6)
Available Antennas: TX 0xf RX 0xf
Configured Antennas: TX 0xf RX 0xf
Supported interface modes:
* IBSS
* managed
* AP
* AP/VLAN
* monitor
* mesh point
* P2P-client
* P2P-GO
* P2P-device
Band 2:
Capabilities: 0x19ef
RX LDPC
HT20/HT40
SM Power Save disabled
RX HT20 SGI
RX HT40 SGI
TX STBC
RX STBC 1-stream
Max AMSDU length: 7935 bytes
DSSS/CCK HT40
Maximum RX AMPDU length 65535 bytes (exponent: 0x003)
Minimum RX AMPDU time spacing: 8 usec (0x06)
HT TX/RX MCS rate indexes supported: 0-31
VHT Capabilities (0x339b79fa):
Max MPDU length: 11454
Supported Channel Width: 160 MHz, 80+80 MHz
RX LDPC
short GI (80 MHz)
short GI (160/80+80 MHz)
TX STBC
SU Beamformer
SU Beamformee
MU Beamformer
MU Beamformee
RX antenna pattern consistency
TX antenna pattern consistency
VHT RX MCS set:
1 streams: MCS 0-9
2 streams: MCS 0-9
3 streams: MCS 0-9
4 streams: MCS 0-9
5 streams: not supported
6 streams: not supported
7 streams: not supported
8 streams: not supported
VHT RX highest supported: 1560 Mbps
VHT TX MCS set:
1 streams: MCS 0-9
2 streams: MCS 0-9
3 streams: MCS 0-9
4 streams: MCS 0-9
5 streams: not supported
6 streams: not supported
7 streams: not supported
8 streams: not supported
VHT TX highest supported: 1560 Mbps
Bitrates (non-HT):
* 6.0 Mbps
* 9.0 Mbps
* 12.0 Mbps
* 18.0 Mbps
* 24.0 Mbps
* 36.0 Mbps
* 48.0 Mbps
* 54.0 Mbps
Frequencies:
* 5180 MHz [36] (20.0 dBm)
* 5200 MHz [40] (20.0 dBm)
* 5220 MHz [44] (20.0 dBm)
* 5240 MHz [48] (20.0 dBm)
* 5260 MHz [52] (20.0 dBm) (radar detection)
* 5280 MHz [56] (20.0 dBm) (radar detection)
* 5300 MHz [60] (20.0 dBm) (radar detection)
* 5320 MHz [64] (20.0 dBm) (radar detection)
* 5500 MHz [100] (26.0 dBm) (radar detection)
* 5520 MHz [104] (26.0 dBm) (radar detection)
* 5540 MHz [108] (26.0 dBm) (radar detection)
* 5560 MHz [112] (26.0 dBm) (radar detection)
* 5580 MHz [116] (26.0 dBm) (radar detection)
* 5600 MHz [120] (26.0 dBm) (radar detection)
* 5620 MHz [124] (26.0 dBm) (radar detection)
* 5640 MHz [128] (26.0 dBm) (radar detection)
* 5660 MHz [132] (26.0 dBm) (radar detection)
* 5680 MHz [136] (26.0 dBm) (radar detection)
* 5700 MHz [140] (26.0 dBm) (radar detection)
* 5720 MHz [144] (disabled)
* 5745 MHz [149] (13.0 dBm)
* 5765 MHz [153] (13.0 dBm)
* 5785 MHz [157] (13.0 dBm)
* 5805 MHz [161] (13.0 dBm)
* 5825 MHz [165] (13.0 dBm)
* 5845 MHz [169] (13.0 dBm)
* 5865 MHz [173] (13.0 dBm)
Supported commands:
* new_interface
* set_interface
* new_key
* start_ap
* new_station
* new_mpath
* set_mesh_config
* set_bss
* authenticate
* associate
* deauthenticate
* disassociate
* join_ibss
* join_mesh
* remain_on_channel
* set_tx_bitrate_mask
* frame
* frame_wait_cancel
* set_wiphy_netns
* set_channel
* set_wds_peer
* probe_client
* set_noack_map
* register_beacons
* start_p2p_device
* set_mcast_rate
* testmode
* connect
* disconnect
* channel_switch
* set_qos_map
* set_multicast_to_unicast
Supported TX frame types:
* IBSS: 0x00 0x10 0x20 0x30 0x40 0x50 0x60 0x70 0x80 0x90 0xa0 0xb0 0xc0 0xd0 0xe0 0xf0
* managed: 0x00 0x10 0x20 0x30 0x40 0x50 0x60 0x70 0x80 0x90 0xa0 0xb0 0xc0 0xd0 0xe0 0xf0
* AP: 0x00 0x10 0x20 0x30 0x40 0x50 0x60 0x70 0x80 0x90 0xa0 0xb0 0xc0 0xd0 0xe0 0xf0
* AP/VLAN: 0x00 0x10 0x20 0x30 0x40 0x50 0x60 0x70 0x80 0x90 0xa0 0xb0 0xc0 0xd0 0xe0 0xf0
* mesh point: 0x00 0x10 0x20 0x30 0x40 0x50 0x60 0x70 0x80 0x90 0xa0 0xb0 0xc0 0xd0 0xe0 0xf0
* P2P-client: 0x00 0x10 0x20 0x30 0x40 0x50 0x60 0x70 0x80 0x90 0xa0 0xb0 0xc0 0xd0 0xe0 0xf0
* P2P-GO: 0x00 0x10 0x20 0x30 0x40 0x50 0x60 0x70 0x80 0x90 0xa0 0xb0 0xc0 0xd0 0xe0 0xf0
* P2P-device: 0x00 0x10 0x20 0x30 0x40 0x50 0x60 0x70 0x80 0x90 0xa0 0xb0 0xc0 0xd0 0xe0 0xf0
Supported RX frame types:
* IBSS: 0x40 0xb0 0xc0 0xd0
* managed: 0x40 0xd0
* AP: 0x00 0x20 0x40 0xa0 0xb0 0xc0 0xd0
* AP/VLAN: 0x00 0x20 0x40 0xa0 0xb0 0xc0 0xd0
* mesh point: 0xb0 0xc0 0xd0
* P2P-client: 0x40 0xd0
* P2P-GO: 0x00 0x20 0x40 0xa0 0xb0 0xc0 0xd0
* P2P-device: 0x40 0xd0
software interface modes (can always be added):
* AP/VLAN
* monitor
valid interface combinations:
* #{ managed } <= 16, #{ AP, mesh point } <= 16, #{ IBSS } <= 1,
total <= 16, #channels <= 1, STA/AP BI must match, radar detect widths: { 20 MHz (no HT), 20 MHz, 40 MHz, 80 MHz, 80+80 MHz, 160 MHz }

HT Capability overrides:
	 * MCS: ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff ff
	 * maximum A-MSDU length
	 * supported channel width
	 * short GI for 40 MHz
	 * max A-MPDU length exponent
	 * min MPDU start spacing
Device supports TX status socket option.
Device supports HT-IBSS.
Device supports SAE with AUTHENTICATE command
Device supports scan flush.
Device supports AP scan.
Device supports per-vif TX power setting
Driver supports full state transitions for AP/GO clients
Driver supports a userspace MPM
Driver/device bandwidth changes during BSS lifetime (AP/GO mode)
Device supports static SMPS
Device supports configuring vdev MAC-addr on create.
Device supports VHT-IBSS.

I’m running the WiFi on channel 48. I tested also 36 and 128. Both were working.
The 5GHz is installed in Slot 2 (middle) and 2,4GHz is in slot 3.
@ssdnvv Why should I get a bad 2,4GHz performance?

I’m running TO4 alpha 5 which includes wpad in version 2018-05-21-62566bc2-5.0.

Have a look into this thread:


On the other hand if I remember correctly the WLE1216V5-20 has a metal thing on its back which does not fit into slot 3 as there sits the SIM-card-slot. It’s a pity the SSD can only be installed in slot 1 :slightly_frowning_face:

No, the thread is totally wrong. You can not trust everything that is on the internet. :slight_smile: Later, I will post more details, but in the left slot, you may see lines for USB 3.0 and see, where they lead across the RTC battery. I highly doubt that it will potentially interfere anyhow with 2.4 GHz mini PCIe card instead of 5 GHz card, which is really big. The issue is not in hardware nor positions in mini PCIe cards, but it is in WiFi configuration because a lot of people have access points on 2.4 GHz and you need to be patient and sometimes you need to use some WiFi analyzer to see if there’s a channel, which you can use.

The can fits also in slot 3. It is a bit tight and probably not the best for the card but it is working.

I don’t have the potential interferences issue at the moment.

In the past I had such issue in a Mac Mini which I fix with self-adhesive shielding. The interferences were only present with cheap USB equipment from China.

If you gently cut a off little bit of the black SIM-card-holder (without touching the contacts) it can be inserted without using force. But in the end I decided to not use a SSD (also to have possibility to add LTE-card later on), move 5GHz to slot 2 and 2,4GHz to slot 1.

1 Like