WiFi connection annoyance
 

I've been trying to poke about on my N800 via SSH (Mainly because doing console stuff on the N800 is a lesson in masochism).

However, the darn thing seems to just drop the connection after some time.

The WiFi idle time is set to unlimited, and when I loose connectivity, the WiFi icon on the N800 still claims that it is connected, as does WifiInfo.

However, I can't ping it, SSH to it or anything.
Likewise, the N800 can't ping out, connect to web-pages etc.

However, if I disconnect the WiFi and then re-connect it, everything's back to normal.

Now, I've not noticed this happen while I'm actually physically using the N800 (e.g. browsing or playing OpenTTD over the network ;)), but if I leave it plugged in and SSH to it and do stuff remotely, then it seems to happen.

I haven't discovered exact timing for the cutoff, other than that it's more than ~30mins.


(On the subject of web browsing, is it just me or does MicroB have a huge memory leak?)

Re: WiFi connection annoyance
 

It happens to me sometimes too. AND, I thought it was JUST me because I've brought it up, but nobody said anything. I don't know what to say as I haven't found a solution.

Re: WiFi connection annoyance
 

If this is happening with your home router, try changing the routers channel. This started happening to me to until I saw that my neighbor set up a WiFi network. I changed my channel from the default 11 (which he was also pro'ly using) to channel 7 and have no problems since.

Re: WiFi connection annoyance
 

I've been getting this problem, too. No problems with other wireless clients at the same location.

Re: WiFi connection annoyance
 

- try opening an xterm and maintain a ping to a known host (local or 'net)...

- then open another tab/window and do your session... any better?

- others have suggested checking the connection timeout settings, but i did not find this helpful (under os2007 or os2008)...

- as always, YMMV

have a happy!

Re: WiFi connection annoyance
 

I have sort of the same problem. n800 has been working fine but in the last couple of weeks it seems to stall out on link click-throughs.

Meaning for instance I can bring up a message board URL just fine. Once I start clicking on actual thread links the connection, though showing as active, never goes to the next page. If I hit the search for new connection icon and just click back on my router, it will connect and the next page will come up.

Sometimes this doesn't happen, but it seems to be coming more often than not now.

Any ideas?

shonokin

Re: WiFi connection annoyance
 

Hehe, yeah, I tried that ( "ping serverip >/dev/null 2>&1 &" on the server and "ping n800ip" on the server) and just left them running, but it still cuts out.

I don't think it's a network inactivity timeout, since I can be actively doing SSH stuff and it'll still freeze (Once it cut me off halfway through an "ls -alr" !!)

I'm staring to suspect there is another timer which puts the tablet into a sort of sleep mode if it receives no input for a long enough time, and that is what's cutting off the network?

Re: WiFi connection annoyance
 

I've seen the same dropouts, and only during SSH sessions.
Something's going to sleep.

Re: WiFi connection annoyance
 

Interesting observation - Leaving OpenTTD running (Can even be at the main screen) seems to mitigate the problem somewhat; Accidentally left it running while at work, and found both pings were still flowing, where before they'd just cut out...

Re: WiFi connection annoyance
 

same problem here.

observation: if you are attempting to ssh in and are failing to get a connection, try loading any web page on the NIT's browser that requires an internet connection. After that ssh in again and it should work.

-John

Re: WiFi connection annoyance
 

Hey... i'll just chime in with various oddness i have encountered.

First, occasionally during ssh sessions the client will die and i have to disconnect and reconnect... perhaps that is a load issue.

Occasionally my os2007 device (i have 2 n800's one 2007 and one 2008) it will not see my router at all and i have to change the router channel before it will see it... 'this' weirdness started rather suddenly... either around the time i got my second n800 or possibly a neighbor got a new router which interferes.

And then theres transmission (bittorrent client) which occasionally zaps the network connection... this app on the other hand might not only be stressing the wifi chip but it might be stressing the router as well !

Serge (mplayer developer) suggested running dmesg from xterm whenever the connection get zapped to look for dbug error messages that might point in the right direction, perhaps persons here can do that to help pinpoint issue(s).

Re: WiFi connection annoyance
 

I just had this happen again (while downloading torrent) and so i ran dmesg.

Alot of these messages arent related to error but ones that stand out are :
[182219.531250] DMA transaction error with device 43
[182221.539062] cx3110x: WARNING Haven't got a WR_READY for DMA write. (firmware crashed?)

Those are probably just symptoms of wifi chip unresponsiveness though... probably not a cause.

Most of the other messages, i've seen even when network is working (seemingly) fine.

Re: WiFi connection annoyance
 

I have had that same problem, i just thought it was because I was on OS2007HE on the 770, and it was a bug with that.
2006 never did it to me, (but I must admit that I didn't use it as much with SSH, and might not have noticed)
-ezra

Re: WiFi connection annoyance
 

Same problem here on N8x0/OS2008. However, yesterday I had to reboot the N800 a couple of times (for unrelated reasons) and today it is keeping the connection up. It is stalling sometimes but this is most likely due to local interference.

Re: WiFi connection annoyance
 

This looks like a problem in WLAN driver I have already observed on Nokia 770 when experimenting with 'overclocking' it. Communication with WLAN chip is done over SPI bus. The WLAN driver is implemented in such a way that whenever it does not get a response from WLAN chip, it sets internal error flag and stops sending/receiving data until reconnection. Fortunately, the driver can be modified to just retry request to WLAN chip on such error and it seems to work. This can be used as a workaround to this connection dropping problem (the real problem may be in the kernel, probably some race condition in SPI support code). WLAN driver for Nokia 770 with this workaround can be found in this thread: http://www.internettablettalk.com/fo...ad.php?t=12787

The same can be tried with N8x0 wlan driver, but unfortunately I don't have much free time at the moment to experiment with fixing this problem. I suggest submitting a bug at https://bugs.maemo.org/ or at cx3110x garage page

Re: WiFi connection annoyance
 

Is your wireless router set up with WPA2 Personal security? Check the value of the key renewal time. Set it to a big value (like 10000 seconds) and see if the problem goes away. The key renewal process might take long enough for some connections to time out. If you have a short key renewal time like 600 seconds, you could get dropped every 10 minutes...

Re: WiFi connection annoyance
 

I now suspect having the pwr supply connected keeps the wireless powered up.

Re: WiFi connection annoyance
 

I have opened a bug for this problem here:

https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2979

My own experience of this bug has always involved running Transmission (the bittorrent client) on the N800. Please supply your experience of this issue at the link above so the developers know that it is not an issue specific Transmission. I suspect that the developers might be interested in knowing whether this problem is specific to certain routers. Thanks!