ath5k wireless fails to connect natty

Well that should be good news, but where is the fix?
I have just updated to 2.6.38-3-generic and no improvement.

Linux has pulled the patch fixing this into mainline. It will be part of the -rc7. In the meantime I'm using ubuntu-mainline kernel from here: http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/daily/2011-02-26-natty/

Simply download the debs: all + 2 packages for your arch and install them with dpkg. Reboot and enjoy stable wifi =)

Alternativly wait for linus to release -rc7 and wait for ubuntu kernel team to rebase ontop of -rc7.

Dmitrijs
Thanks for the update.
Unfortunately I can not get that kernel to work with Nouveau - not sure why but back to last kernel and xorg goes again.
While struggling to get a desktop I still saw lots of "wlan: direct probe to...." errors which is what i was getting from the compat-wireless pkg.
Happy to try more options, but otherwise I will go back to ethernet wires.

I was having this problem yesterday with 11.04 Natty Alpha 3 but today I've used apt-get dist-upgrade and pulled in kernel 2.6-38-6. It's been extremely stable, including standing up to the odd Compiz crash (which was killing my wireless yesterday), suspend/resume, copying 6GB of data via NFS and an hour displaying streaming live TV. General web browsing has been fine. All looking good.

@David -- can you recheck the latest 2.6.38-7 kernel in natty, and see if the problem still happens with it?

Sorry for delay, I still have a non working wi-fi.
The problem is not the same, the "gain calibration timeout" does not appear, but now I get "direct probe to..." repeated many many times. The wireless is getting much further.
So I think you can mark this bug as fixed.
I was concerned that my work around attempts had caused the new failure, but I have been unable to fix it.
I will do a complete new install of Natty 3 - the original install was only for testing - and let you know.
David

I can confirm it on Acer Aspire 5110.
I boot liveUSB with 11.04 Natty beta1. Network Manager applet does not list any wireless network information. And I can't connect with hidden network. It's regression issue.
HW wireless info from 10.10:

$ sudo lshw -C network
  *-network:1
       description: Wireless interface
       product: AR2413 802.11bg NIC
       vendor: Atheros Communications Inc.
       physical id: 2
       bus info: pci@0000:06:02.0
       logical name: wlan0
       version: 01
       serial: 00:16:ce:57:4f:b0
       width: 32 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless
       configuration: broadcast=yes driver=ath5k driverversion=2.6.35-28-generic firmware=N/A ip=192.168.1.20 latency=168 link=yes maxlatency=28 mingnt=10 multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11bg
       resources: irq:22 memory:f8110000-f811ffff

Not very good here - now natty alpha3.
On boot up nwmanager tries to link to my essid, fails and asks for wep key again.
It reports the correct wireless networks available, so it is receiving OK.
Dmesg reports multiple
[ 657.327575] ath5k phy0: gain calibration timeout (2472MHz)
[ 657.776977] ath5k phy0: gain calibration timeout (2462MHz)
[ 712.466984] ath5k phy0: gain calibration timeout (2412MHz)
Iwlist wlan0 key shows no keys set, so I added the key via iwconfig
now it fails just the same but dmesg errors are
[ 998.695478] ath5k phy0: gain calibration timeout (2447MHz)
[ 999.185602] ath5k phy0: gain calibration timeout (2452MHz)
[ 999.685584] ath5k phy0: gain calibration timeout (2457MHz)
[ 1001.135353] net_ratelimit: 2 callbacks suppressed
So back to where I started.
( same config in 10.10 still works fine )

Whoops for some reason I have pasted the wrong errors in for the boot attempt it was
[ 76.693191] wlan0: direct probe to 00:1a:70:89:4d:21 (try 1/3)
[ 76.890058] wlan0: direct probe to 00:1a:70:89:4d:21 (try 2/3)
[ 77.090055] wlan0: direct probe to 00:1a:70:89:4d:21 (try 3/3)

Until I tried iwconfig.
Sorry David

Another update -above was with new natty alpha3 - I thought with latest update during install, but it that must have failed. I have now redone the update and have 2.6.28-7 and still no connection, but the gain calibration messages are gone.
Just the direct probe messages.
Otherwise just the same, it can see the wireless networks but not connect to them.
David

LiveUSB from 04-04-2011. I can see available wifi. I can connect to wifi.
Seems to bee fixed.
Can anybody confirm this?

HW wireless info from 11.04 live session:

$ sudo lshw -C network
*-network:1
       description: Wireless interface
       product: AR2413 802.11bg NIC
       vendor: Atheros Communications Inc.
       physical id: 2
       bus info: pci@0000:06:02.0
       logical name: wlan0
       version: 01
       serial: 00:16:ce:57:4f:b0
       width: 32 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless
       configuration: broadcast=yes driver=ath5k driverversion=2.6.38-7-generic firmware=N/A ip=192.168.1.20 latency=168 link=yes maxlatency=28 mingnt=10 multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11bg
       resources: irq:22 memory:f8110000-f811ffff

Success!
Yes I have just done a software update on my alpha3 install and after reboot wireless is working.
Thanks all
David

Marking 'Fix released' based on David's comment at https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/714300/comments/13

Wifi connection not working again.
But I can see list of available networks.
I try LiveUSB downloaded 08-Apr-2011.

There are arrors like at comment #10.

Further to my last report, when it connects it stays connected, and gives reliable full speed data transfer.
But I have also seen it fail to connect, since, with no change to the installed software.
It feels like if it fails to connect, some thing is reset to a wrong setting and never recovers.
I do think this is a different bug to the original, although it produces the same - 'Fails to connect'

This past weekend I upgraded an Acer 5100-3949 laptop (same Atheros AR2413 wireless chip) from Maverick 10.10 to Natty 11.04 and ran into this problem.

The wireless connection never seems to come up right away. It will SOMETIMES come up on its own after ~400seconds wait, but I haven't found a reliable way to kick the wireless into action. (I tried issuing some DBus messages to network manager and it would sometimes connect but I never found anything reliable so it was apparently just by chance.) I am connecting to a strong signal, WPA secured connection.

uname -a says
Linux AcerA5100 2.6.38-8-generic #42-Ubuntu SMP Mon Apr 11 03:31:50 UTC 2011 i686 athlon i386 GNU/Linux

I will try downloading an iso and doing a fresh install and see if there is any change.

Actually my connection problem must be different -- I do NOT see the "gain calibration timeout" message mentioned in the kernel bug in my dmesg or syslog. I will try installing from an iso AND look for or report another bug.

I installed Natty (beta2) from 10.10 using do-release-upgrade -d today and my wiki network is not working. the ath5k driver is loaded and sudo lshw -C network shows the interface. network manager does not list any wireless connections and "iwconfig" does not list the interface.

Attempts to remove the kernel module ath5k causes a crash.

"BUG: unable to handle pointer null kernel dereference..." is in the syslog.

Everything used to work fine under 10.10 and previous versions.

03:04.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR5413 802.11abg NIC (rev 01)
 Subsystem: Atheros Communications Inc. Device 1602
 Control: I/O- Mem+ BusMaster- SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx-
 Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=medium >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx-
 Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 17
 Region 0: Memory at c2100000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
 Capabilities: [44] Power Management version 2
  Flags: PMEClk- DSI- D1- D2- AuxCurrent=375mA PME(D0-,D1-,D2-,D3hot-,D3cold-)
  Status: D0 NoSoftRst- PME-Enable- DSel=0 DScale=2 PME-
 Kernel modules: ath5k

Here's a workaround for me: downgrade the kernel to 2.6.37.6 and everything's OK now.

my lspci output:
06:02.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR2413 802.11bg NIC (rev 01)