N800 Causing Apple Extreme 'N' Base Station to Reset
 

I have one of the new(er) 'N' airport extreme base stations and an N800.

I use WPA 2 on the router and can connect with the N800. I can then browse the internet for about 20-30 seconds, at which time the access point resets itself.

Anyone else seeing this?

Re: N800 Causing Apple Extreme 'N' Base Station to Reset
 

How did you determine the N800 is causing the reboot?

Did you have other equipment hooke up wireless to it and it works fine?

To me that sounds like a faulty device...

Re: N800 Causing Apple Extreme 'N' Base Station to Reset
 

Yes, I have about six computers that use the device (5 macs and a Wii) with no problem and without triggering reboots. Shortly after I sign on with the N800--reboot.

Re: N800 Causing Apple Extreme 'N' Base Station to Reset
 

Did you check your NAT table?
did you flush it?
Try and just have the N800 by itself and see if it reboots.
Also to be more specific is it a reboot or reset?

Re: N800 Causing Apple Extreme 'N' Base Station to Reset
 

You may want to add some detail to bug #1459 or better still create a new bug as this is a slightly different problem affecting the same class of device - is there more than one Apple 11n access point available?

Kalle Valo (the Nokia WiFi firmware developer) is attempting to investigate issues with the Apple access point(s) though I'm not sure which model he plans on purchasing. If you can provide more details concerning your issue, he may be able to investigate further and get to the bottom of the problem - it could be a problem with the N800 firmware, or an Apple problem, or a combination of both however the N800 does sound like it's the culprit if the other Macs and Wii don't cause a problem.

Re: N800 Causing Apple Extreme 'N' Base Station to Reset
 

Well that narrow it down it looks like is been an ongoing problem.

Re: N800 Causing Apple Extreme 'N' Base Station to Reset
 

Odd. My airport extreme is running just fine with my n800.
Of course it's running in bridge mode, b/g/n mode, and using WPA2 only with MAC filtering.
Using a new macbook pro and n80i with it as well, sometimes all at once. No reboots. N800 has the latest firmware with the SDHC hack and booting off the internal 4 GB SDHC card.
Try setting another router and using the extreme in bridge-only mode.
I do know my n800 won't "see" the extreme if it's in wpa/wpa2 mode, only in wep or wpa2 modes.
Typed this all out on my n800, btw....no airport extreme reboots.

Re: N800 Causing Apple Extreme 'N' Base Station to Reset
 

Thats why I sugested to just have th N800 by itself in the router.
or maybe the issue is in the extream settings.

Thanks for the ideas
 

I'll give these ideas a try over the weekend, thanks.

jclarkv

Re: N800 Causing Apple Extreme 'N' Base Station to Reset
 

I had the same problem with my AEBS when connected to my N95 while trying to download a large Podcast. I reset the N95 and this seemed to clear up the problem. No more rebootings.

Apple just release a new firmware upgrade last night. Maybe this will solve the rebooting and connection issues that some are having.

Re: N800 Causing Apple Extreme 'N' Base Station to Reset
 

You're not going to believe this, but the Apple Base Station firmware update released last night seems to have fixed the problem! But THANK YOU all for your input and helpful suggestions.

Re: N800 Causing Apple Extreme 'N' Base Station to Reset
 

its july 10th 2007 and my n800 is making my apple airport extreme n router reboot and im stumped whats the settings i should do on the router or n800 i am up to date on both machines for updates and nothing else affects router just the nokia :( i have a macbook pro and it uses the n part and psp's and mylos etc no other trouble im not that literate with the programming stuff so be easy on me thanks guys

Re: N800 Causing Apple Extreme 'N' Base Station to Reset
 

Nokia's revenge for the iPhone?
:)

Re: N800 Causing Apple Extreme 'N' Base Station to Reset
 

Maybe i need a trip to the Apple Store :)

Re: N800 Causing Apple Extreme 'N' Base Station to Reset
 

Dear all,
Well, a year after the last post, sadly i have to report an other n800 - AE n Base station faillure (7.2.1 and 7.3.1 firmware versions).

I'm sure it is the nokia, I'm systematically able to reproduce the crash. :( especially with data stream, like youtube (flash 9 plugin) or torrent.

I have tried with os 2007, vanilla 2008 and updated 2008 (all apt-get updates applied) but not Diablo. The Router is crashing with all aforementioned softwares. Otherwise, with all my gears but the n800 i can stress the net as long as I want (multiple youtube streams, VoIP, Skype, bittorrent, etc). I've noticed that the base station does not crash with the n800 alone (well tried once yesterday night). I also got a new base station, apple exchanged it with no questions: so we have 2 AE n base stations and same crash.

Is there any suggestion? I would like to try tweaking N800 wireless drivers (Like changing the MTU), do you think it will be useful?


I forgot to mention I'm using my AE n in "Router mode", PPPoE and WPA2 Personal.

Thank you very much,
Mattia

P.S.
posted also at https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1636

Re: N800 Causing Apple Extreme 'N' Base Station to Reset
 

further investigation leads the problem to wlan_sleep_timeout setting. It looks like that my n800 can not use this function, I was forced to disable any kind of energy saving to prevent further crashes. Now my n800 is downloading/uploading torrents and downloading flash streams from youtube (just limited testing so far - 30 minutes - but much more than before). Anyway this is not an acceptable long term solution, my tablet drains the battery much faster and it is hot as it has never been (not burning but noticeable).

Does any of you saw this behavior?

best regards,
Mattia

Re: N800 Causing Apple Extreme 'N' Base Station to Reset
 

No... I don't have any issues with my Linksys router...

This just confirm that your router is not compatible with clients using power saving features. Change your router...

Re: N800 Causing Apple Extreme 'N' Base Station to Reset
 

Mara,
thank you for your reply. Unfortunately, power saving is supported by my router (isn't MIMO power-save mode is a required feature in the draft-n?[1]). I link the complete technical specifications. I'm also using this function with other devices (like my N82). I think there is an incompatibility or a bug with n800 software implementation :confused:. Looks like I'm not the only one.

I bough my N800 around may 2007 at the NY nokia flagship shop and I suppose it is a first revision hardware. I please you to take a look at the bug page at maemo.org.

best regards,
Mattia

[1] http://www.macsimumnews.com/index.ph...irport_extreme

Re: N800 Causing Apple Extreme 'N' Base Station to Reset
 

Why you think the N800 is the problem? Do you have other WiFi client devices that support similar power saving mode and do not cause your router to reset? Unless you have tested that out don't blame the N800...

Regardless, if the router was properly designed no device connected to it should cause it to reset. As you mention you do not see the resets if the N800 is the only device connected, but once the router load increases you start experiencing resets. As a wild guess it seem like the router internal buffer memory gets overflown in these kind of situation, where the router has to store packets for N800 for a while and send them out as a burst... (This is just my speculation... you should ask someone else with better knowledge... I'm no expert!)

Wireless-N specs, as you mention, are still drafts. The N800 is G-device, so any reference to N-specification is moot point. And the MIMO feature you mention applies only for N-devices.

If the N800/N810 works with majority of the routers supporting power saving, I'd still look the fault at your router. If you have a chance to try another router please do so.

Re: N800 Causing Apple Extreme 'N' Base Station to Reset
 

Dear Mara,

It is remarkable your decision in dealing with the problem. However, the point is to have a better understanding about a problem. I know you have give a lot of support to this community but I do not appreciate the way you replied me in this thread.

By the way, I have other devices that uses that function. One is a brand new nokia product, a N82 black with the last firmware available installed. It is working flawlessly, and it does not create the crash, nor it does when the network is fully "loaded" (200+ connection via torrent, 10 youtube flash download) and I'm calling via VoIP.

Tonight, I'm going to do further testing with the N800 alone, to see it i can reproduce the crash. It has a negative impact where the n82, in the same conditions, it does not (like youtube download).

I know that majority of the people are ok and are not suffering this bug (i don't either when using other networks, like at the university on in my dorm).

I had too the same idea about the buffer, but the maemo page told me a different story. It could be nice ho hear some reports form other AE n users with a similar setup and a rev. 1 N800.

I do not care, form a personal perspective, where the fault is, but from a functional one i do: this way it become fixable.

Best regards,
Mattia

P.S.
Will ethereal be able to log useful infos when running form my laptop?

Re: N800 Causing Apple Extreme 'N' Base Station to Reset
 

I also have an Apple Airport Extreme "N". Normally, I have the following on the wifi network:
-4 Apple computers
-1 N810 (with a SIP and a google talk account active)
-between 1 and 4 N800 (all with google talk accounts active)
-a Nokia N80 or E51 phone (sometimes with a SIP account active)

I don't experience reboots usually. Youtube works. I rarely use torrent, and never on the Nokias.

I did experience reboots once, while I was testing videoconferencing between one of the Apple notebooks and the N810 over google talk. I described what happened during the test here at the time.

Re: N800 Causing Apple Extreme 'N' Base Station to Reset
 

Jerome,

Thank you for your reply. Could I please post the values of the these variables found on your N800?

/system/osso/connectivity/IAP/wlan_sleep_timeout
/system/osso/connectivity/IAP/inactive_wlan_sleep_timeout


Maybe mine are just screwed up...
Thank you!

Mattia

Re: N800 Causing Apple Extreme 'N' Base Station to Reset
 

These files do not exist. Don't you mean:
/var/lib/gconf/system/osso/connectivity/IAP/&gconf.xml
instead?

here there is an entry "timeout_wlan" with a value of 0 (zero).

If you mean to test the Wlan hardware values, these appear to be under /sys/devices/platform/wlan-omap



Still, I do not think that you are looking in the right direction. I would rather believe that the router resets when there is a problem with the firewall or port settings. With mine, it only reset when I tried that sip video connection, and sip tends to be relatively aggressive in opening tcp/udp ports. Torrent clients are also relatively aggressive in this respect and use of torrent is the main difference between your setting and mine. Keep in mind that the Apple router does not use upnp for its port settings, but bonjour.

Re: N800 Causing Apple Extreme 'N' Base Station to Reset
 

Dear Jerome,

thank you! I apologize for my incomplete post. The variable I was referring to are set with the gconf command. After further analysis I understood that, usually they are absent in os2008, but they can override standard values. It actually produced a positive effect from a connection perspective, but the made the whole PWR save setting worthless. I tried to disable the port mapping function in the router but no luck. I-m so curious to understand what's going on with my gears (I got a new router from apple). It looks like it is a very peculiar problem :( and it is not fixable by my self, even with your support, but still I'm curious.

At the moment I just disabled the N800's wlan power saving (with the n82 it is working fine), but I'm still curious to find out the cause of this behavior.

Best regards,
Mattia


I found interesting links:
http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/maemo/users/18057
http://lists.maemo.org/pipermail//ma...ry/004092.html

Re: N800 Causing Apple Extreme 'N' Base Station to Reset
 

Well, I've just flashed with Diablo... With standard Wlan PWR savings it is still producing the cras. But with "intermediate" settings it looks better (I've downloaded 3 youtube videos): but I need much more testing. If the solution is here, I'll be the happiest man in the Troubleshooting Forum.

P.S.
After 200MB i saw no crash. Looks like the maemo team has found a software workaround, but I want to be cautious.

Re: N800 Causing Apple Extreme 'N' Base Station to Reset
 

Nice if it is working better... obviously the AE doesn't like the most aggressive power saving mode of N800?

More good to know info about WLAN power saving mode and operation:
http://www.icnp2007.edu.cn/files/ICN...Throttling.pdf

Maybe if someone knows where to download IEEE spec for the 802.11 standard and the PSM mode in particular... What would be interesting to know what is the maximum allowed sleep time, if there is any? (Isn't it really defined by the beacon interval that is set in the router?) Maybe changing the beacon interval to shorter time would help/solve the issue?

EDIT: Just found this from IEEE... not sure if it is helpful:
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/iel5/4489...1/04489282.pdf

EDIT2: Paragraph 2.1 in this document seem to describe the PSM operation quite nicely:
http://info.iet.unipi.it/~anastasi/papers/wiopt04.pdf

Re: N800 Causing Apple Extreme 'N' Base Station to Reset
 

You are not very easy to follow. Why do you insist that the problem has something to do with power savings? I never changed the power savings, and I can watch youtube, stream video (google talk or TV programs) and download to my content without router crashes.

Re: N800 Causing Apple Extreme 'N' Base Station to Reset
 

Jerome,

Obviously not all have this problem... and as Matyas pointed out his router works too if N800 is the only device connected to it. When I did read through this thread I got into understanding that whoever had this router reboot problem was fixed by turning off (or changing...) the power saving setting in N800. Therefore it looks like the problem is related to the power saving mode.

The documents I linked give little bit more information how this mode (PSM) works. In AP standpoint the only real difference is that AP needs to store packets in its internal memory when N800 is in sleep state, and send them as a burst once N800 become awake. Depending how much the AP has internal memory for this operation, it could be that with lots of traffic and long sleep time (long Beacon interval) the AP may run out of its internal buffer memory. Then depending on the AP hardware/software implementation, the "buffer overflow" may trigger an Interrupt for its CPU to call Reset vector...

The sleep time can be changed by changing the beacon interval in the router. If someone can try to change that value to see if shortening the beacon time solve the problem, or lengthening it makes it worse... If so, then the out of memory explanation should make sense? No?

Re: N800 Causing Apple Extreme 'N' Base Station to Reset
 

Dear All,

Thank you for your precious support. I would like to mention that Apple delivered a new firmware. After that I restored factory defaults and selected a specific and hidden option: g only mode. To do that you have to press option key (ALT) and click on the "Radio Mode" menu (in airport panel).

Also I selected WPA/WPA2 Personal (before was WPA2 only).

Now it looks working, so the incompatibility may reside in the mixed environment where the n and g saving power options can produce a buffer overflow.

Best Regards,
Mattia

References
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.p...80415163013760

P.S.
This is not the behavior that a serious router should have...