WLE200NX can’t connect to AP

MNT Reform
1

I think this is more an issue with my AP configuration (Ubiquiti AP AC Lite) but was hoping someone might have some insight.

The WLE200NX card in my Reform is unable to connect to my 2.4GHz network on channel 6, and doesn’t even see the 5GHz network on channel 40.

When attempting to connect to the 2.4GHz network via wpa_cli I get a loop of:

CTRL-EVENT-SCAN-STARTED
CTRL-EVENT-SCAN-RESULTS
WPS-AP-AVAILABLE
CTRL-EVENT-NETWORK-NOT-FOUND

Similarly, when trying to connect via nmcli I get Error: Connection activation failed: (53) The Wi-Fi network could not be found.

I am able to connect to some other networks, e.g. my phone’s hotspot.

2

Hi,

it might be a regulatory DB issue. You can try to set a different regulatory zone with iwl reg set. Alternatively, maybe the antenna is not connected well. You can also try swapping the antenna connectors.

3

iw reg set US did result in a change. Now I’m able to see the 5GHz network as well. However, I now get an authentication timeout loop.

I’ll see if there’s any logs I can get from the router’s end. Thanks!

1 Like
4

I am trying to set the regulatory domain of the Compex WLE200NX included in the DIY kit. I am seeing an effect, but channels 100-140 (DFS) remain unavailable (marked “disabled.”) I can confirm the card is “blind” to those channels via nmcli device wifi list output missing all entries for those channels.

I can confirm the output of iw phy phy0 info changes depending on the regulatory domain set (i.e. DE shows 13dBm vs US shows 20dBm on channels 149-165).

Anyone gotten DFS channels to work?

➜  ~ sudo iw phy phy0 info
...
			* 5180 MHz [36] (20.0 dBm) (no IR)
			* 5200 MHz [40] (20.0 dBm) (no IR)
			* 5220 MHz [44] (20.0 dBm) (no IR)
			* 5240 MHz [48] (20.0 dBm) (no IR)
			* 5260 MHz [52] (20.0 dBm) (no IR, radar detection)
			* 5280 MHz [56] (20.0 dBm) (no IR, radar detection)
			* 5300 MHz [60] (20.0 dBm) (no IR, radar detection)
			* 5320 MHz [64] (20.0 dBm) (no IR, radar detection)
			* 5500 MHz [100] (disabled)
			* 5520 MHz [104] (disabled)
			* 5540 MHz [108] (disabled)
			* 5560 MHz [112] (disabled)
			* 5580 MHz [116] (disabled)
			* 5600 MHz [120] (disabled)
			* 5620 MHz [124] (disabled)
			* 5640 MHz [128] (disabled)
			* 5660 MHz [132] (disabled)
			* 5680 MHz [136] (disabled)
			* 5700 MHz [140] (disabled)
			* 5745 MHz [149] (20.0 dBm) (no IR)
			* 5765 MHz [153] (20.0 dBm) (no IR)
			* 5785 MHz [157] (20.0 dBm) (no IR)
			* 5805 MHz [161] (20.0 dBm) (no IR)
			* 5825 MHz [165] (20.0 dBm) (no IR)
...

Seems I am stuck on a “DFS-UNSET” domain or maybe this is output to ignore (based on other searches I have done).

➜  ~ sudo iw phy phy0 reg get
phy#0
country 99: DFS-UNSET
	(2402 - 2472 @ 40), (N/A, 20), (N/A)
	(5140 - 5360 @ 80), (N/A, 30), (N/A), PASSIVE-SCAN
	(5715 - 5860 @ 80), (N/A, 30), (N/A), PASSIVE-SCAN
5

Looks like DFS may not be a given for this chipset, but there is an indication of “radar detect” in the output of iw for the hardware. Much of what I find was back in 2011 and related to initiating radiation vs “no IR” (i.e. for Access Point use):
http://www.linuxwireless.sipsolutions.net/attachments/en/developers/DFS/Vancouver2011-Slides-DFS.pdf
https://lwn.net/Articles/466177/
https://cateee.net/lkddb/web-lkddb/ATH9K_DFS_CERTIFIED.html

6

I am also having trouble with connection to a QCA9890-BR4A (ath10k) card in an OpenWRT flashed Extreme Networks AP3825i when configured with VHT40 and VHT80. Connection is successful when configured QCA9890 in VHT20 mode (20MHz channel width).

A datapoint which indicates there is an incompatibility with the QCA9890 (or related setup):
I can max the WLE200NX at 300MBit/s connecting at 40MHz MCS 15 short GI to my Cisco 3700 series AP configured for 4x4:3SS VHT80MHz (in autonomous mode).

I haven’t tested any other 802.11n and 802.11a devices with the QCA9890 yet.

Aside: Found a cool project which allow introspection at the PHY layer to play around with it to monitor what is happening over the air using ath9k cards including the AR9590 which I happen to have laying around.

I confirmed a Samsung SPH-L710 (older LineageOS 14.1) connected to the QCA9890 at 40MHz (HT-)MCS 7 (single spatial stream), so that may rule out gross incompatibility with QCA9890 with 802.11n devices. The notable difference may be the WLE200NX is attempting to use two spatial streams.

Next steps for me are to try to capture traffic in iw phy monitor mode.

1 Like
7

The suggested command executes without error, but phy0 appears to be stuck on 99 regulatory code. Currently running system-imagev3 (at least with 6.0.0-reform2-arm64 kernel)

root@reform:/sys/class/ieee80211# iw --debug reg set US
-- Debug: Sent Message:
--------------------------   BEGIN NETLINK MESSAGE ---------------------------
  [NETLINK HEADER] 16 octets
    .nlmsg_len = 28
    .type = 30 <0x1e>
    .flags = 5 <REQUEST,ACK>
    .seq = 1672115228
    .port = -2134899589
  [GENERIC NETLINK HEADER] 4 octets
    .cmd = 27
    .version = 0
    .unused = 0
  [PAYLOAD] 8 octets
    **07 00 21 00 55 53 00 00                         ..!.US..**
---------------------------  END NETLINK MESSAGE   ---------------------------
-- Debug: Received Message:
--------------------------   BEGIN NETLINK MESSAGE ---------------------------
  [NETLINK HEADER] 16 octets
    .nlmsg_len = 36
    .type = 2 <ERROR>
    .flags = 256 <ROOT>
    .seq = 1672115228
    .port = -2134899589
  [ERRORMSG] 20 octets
    .error = 0 "Success"
  [ORIGINAL MESSAGE] 16 octets
    .nlmsg_len = 16
    .type = 30 <0x1e>
    .flags = 5 <REQUEST,ACK>
    .seq = 1672115228
    .port = -2134899589
---------------------------  END NETLINK MESSAGE   ---------------------------
root@reform:/home/achasen# iw --debug phy phy0 reg get
-- Debug: Sent Message:
--------------------------   BEGIN NETLINK MESSAGE ---------------------------
  [NETLINK HEADER] 16 octets
    .nlmsg_len = 28
    .type = 30 <0x1e>
    .flags = 5 <REQUEST,ACK>
    .seq = 1672115598
    .port = 591398101
  [GENERIC NETLINK HEADER] 4 octets
    .cmd = 31
    .version = 0
    .unused = 0
  [PAYLOAD] 8 octets
    08 00 01 00 00 00 00 00                         ........
---------------------------  END NETLINK MESSAGE   ---------------------------
-- Debug: Received Message:
--------------------------   BEGIN NETLINK MESSAGE ---------------------------
  [NETLINK HEADER] 16 octets
    .nlmsg_len = 220
    .type = 30 <0x1e>
    .flags = 0 <>
    .seq = 1672115598
    .port = 591398101
  [GENERIC NETLINK HEADER] 4 octets
    .cmd = 31
    .version = 1
    .unused = 0
  [PAYLOAD] 200 octets
    08 00 01 00 00 00 00 00 07 00 21 00 39 39 00 00 ..........!.**99**..
    b8 00 22 00 3c 00 00 00 08 00 01 00 00 00 00 00 ..".<...........
    08 00 02 00 d0 a6 24 00 08 00 03 00 40 b8 25 00 ......$.....@.%.
    08 00 04 00 40 9c 00 00 08 00 05 00 00 00 00 00 ....@...........
    08 00 06 00 d0 07 00 00 08 00 07 00 00 00 00 00 ................
    3c 00 01 00 08 00 01 00 80 00 00 00 08 00 02 00 <...............
    20 6e 4e 00 08 00 03 00 80 c9 51 00 08 00 04 00  nN.......Q.....
    80 38 01 00 08 00 05 00 00 00 00 00 08 00 06 00 .8..............
    b8 0b 00 00 08 00 07 00 00 00 00 00 3c 00 02 00 ............<...
    08 00 01 00 80 00 00 00 08 00 02 00 38 34 57 00 ............84W.
    08 00 03 00 a0 6a 59 00 08 00 04 00 80 38 01 00 .....jY......8..
    08 00 05 00 00 00 00 00 08 00 06 00 b8 0b 00 00 ................
    08 00 07 00 00 00 00 00                         ........
---------------------------  END NETLINK MESSAGE   ---------------------------
phy#0
**country 99: DFS-UNSET**
        (2402 - 2472 @ 40), (N/A, 20), (N/A)
        (5140 - 5360 @ 80), (N/A, 30), (N/A), PASSIVE-SCAN
        (5715 - 5860 @ 80), (N/A, 30), (N/A), PASSIVE-SCAN

-- Debug: Received Message:
--------------------------   BEGIN NETLINK MESSAGE ---------------------------
  [NETLINK HEADER] 16 octets
    .nlmsg_len = 36
    .type = 2 <ERROR>
    .flags = 256 <ROOT>
    .seq = 1672115598
    .port = 591398101
  [ERRORMSG] 20 octets
    .error = 0 "Success"
  [ORIGINAL MESSAGE] 16 octets
    .nlmsg_len = 16
    .type = 30 <0x1e>
    .flags = 5 <REQUEST,ACK>
    .seq = 1672115598
    .port = 591398101
---------------------------  END NETLINK MESSAGE   ---------------------------

The netlink response to iw reg get does not match US “Country alpha2” mentioned in driver initialization:

[   14.841818] ath9k 0000:01:00.0: enabling device (0000 -> 0002)
[   15.273123] ath: EEPROM regdomain: 0x0
[   15.273134] ath: EEPROM indicates default country code should be used
[   15.273136] ath: doing EEPROM country->regdmn map search
[   15.273139] ath: country maps to regdmn code: 0x3a
[   15.273142] ath: Country alpha2 being used: US
[   15.273144] ath: Regpair used: 0x3a
[   15.353021] ath9k 0000:01:00.0 wlp1s0: renamed from wlan0

I found the following thread which indicates setting a parameter on cfg80211 module may help and it appears to set phy0 to the expected domain. I added a modprode.d file to set the parameter and a dependency for module loading order.

root@reform:/home/achasen# cat /etc/modprobe.d/wifi-regdomain.conf
softdep ath9k pre: cfg80211
options cfg80211 ieee80211_regdom=US
# iw reg get
global
country US: DFS-FCC
        (902 - 904 @ 2), (N/A, 30), (N/A)
        (904 - 920 @ 16), (N/A, 30), (N/A)
        (920 - 928 @ 8), (N/A, 30), (N/A)
        (2400 - 2472 @ 40), (N/A, 30), (N/A)
        (5150 - 5250 @ 80), (N/A, 23), (N/A), AUTO-BW
        (5250 - 5350 @ 80), (N/A, 24), (0 ms), DFS, AUTO-BW
        (5470 - 5730 @ 160), (N/A, 24), (0 ms), DFS
        (5730 - 5850 @ 80), (N/A, 30), (N/A), AUTO-BW
        (5850 - 5895 @ 40), (N/A, 27), (N/A), NO-OUTDOOR, AUTO-BW, PASSIVE-SCAN
        (5925 - 7125 @ 320), (N/A, 12), (N/A), NO-OUTDOOR, PASSIVE-SCAN
        (57240 - 71000 @ 2160), (N/A, 40), (N/A)

phy#0
country US: DFS-FCC
        (902 - 904 @ 2), (N/A, 30), (N/A)
        (904 - 920 @ 16), (N/A, 30), (N/A)
        (920 - 928 @ 8), (N/A, 30), (N/A)
        (2400 - 2472 @ 40), (N/A, 30), (N/A)
        (5150 - 5250 @ 80), (N/A, 23), (N/A), AUTO-BW
        (5250 - 5350 @ 80), (N/A, 24), (0 ms), DFS, AUTO-BW
        (5470 - 5730 @ 160), (N/A, 24), (0 ms), DFS
        (5730 - 5850 @ 80), (N/A, 30), (N/A), AUTO-BW
        (5850 - 5895 @ 40), (N/A, 27), (N/A), NO-OUTDOOR, AUTO-BW, PASSIVE-SCAN
        (5925 - 7125 @ 320), (N/A, 12), (N/A), NO-OUTDOOR, PASSIVE-SCAN
        (57240 - 71000 @ 2160), (N/A, 40), (N/A)

But this does not appear to enable the frequency for the device:

# iw phy0 info | grep disable
...
                        * 5500 MHz [100] (disabled)
                        * 5520 MHz [104] (disabled)
                        * 5540 MHz [108] (disabled)
                        * 5560 MHz [112] (disabled)
                        * 5580 MHz [116] (disabled)
                        * 5600 MHz [120] (disabled)
                        * 5620 MHz [124] (disabled)
                        * 5640 MHz [128] (disabled)
                        * 5660 MHz [132] (disabled)
                        * 5680 MHz [136] (disabled)
                        * 5700 MHz [140] (disabled)
...

Here is a sample of similar ath9k kernel module code which lines up with dmesg output and it appears that ath9k is defaulting to US but for some reason the card is still not allowing the DFS frequencies according to iw phy0 info.

The FCC filing for the TK4WLE200NX (as marked on the card included in the kit) indicates support for DFS frequencies including DFS compliance tests.