Comprehensive ndiswrapper troubleshooting guide

[pytheas22]

mytaz: I notice that the build of at76c50x-usb that ships with Ubuntu 10.04 doesn't say it supports the PCI ID of your device (03eb:7614), at least according to the output of "modinfo at76c50x-usb", so that's why it didn't work for you.

However, it may be possible to get it to work by making some minor changes to the source code and recompiling the module. If you have a little free time and are interested in trying that approach, let me know and I'll write instructions on what to do.

[mytaz]

Yes, you are right & I think there is a problem with at76c50x_usb ; when rmmod ndiswrapper & modprobe this driver, I have well a wlan0, but nothing good, and after disconnect & reconnect the dongle, dmesg shows :

[ 7577.941977] at76c50x-usb 2-1.1:1.0: downloading external firmware
[ 7578.264882] phy1: Selected rate control algorithm 'minstrel'
[ 7578.272803] phy1: USB 2-1.1:1.0, MAC 00:06:f4:08:ad:4e, firmware 1.102.0-113
[ 7578.272817] phy1: regulatory domain 0x30: ETSI (most of Europe)
[ 7579.607309] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlan0: link is not ready

So, how to activate this link ???
Moreover, iwlist wlan0 scan shows some errors lines at the end of each scanned AP, e.g. :
ESSID:"AP_Name"
Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 11 Mb/s; 18 Mb/s
24 Mb/s; 36 Mb/s; 54 Mb/s
Bit Rates:6 Mb/s; 9 Mb/s; 12 Mb/s; 48 Mb/s
Mode:Master
Extra:tsf=00000176f0c72190
Extra: Last beacon: 384ms ago
IE: Unknown: 000D4E657566205769466920464F4E
IE: Unknown: 010882848B962430486C
IE: Unknown: 03010B
IE: Unknown: 050401030000
IE: Unknown: 2A0100
IE: Unknown: 2F0100
IE: Unknown: 32040C121860
IE: Unknown: DD090010180200F0040000
IE: Unknown: DD180050F2020101800003A4000027A4000042435E0062322F 00
instead lines like (for the same AP when net is OK, after the XP first boot & use ndiswrapper) :
ESSID:"AP_Name"
Protocol:IEEE 802.11b
Mode:Managed
Frequency:2.462 GHz (Channel 11)
Quality:23/100 Signal level:-81 dBm Noise level:-96 dBm
Encryption keyff
Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 11 Mb/s
Extra:bcn_int=100
Extra:atim=0

Nevertheless, all firmwares for Atmel are well in /lib/firmware & my dongle seems to use the "atmel_at76c505a-rfmd2958.bin" (according to the device manager of XP)
I have never tried to modify a driver & recompile a kernel, but why not, if it is not a burden for you !!!!
Thousands thanks....

[pytheas22]

mytaz: I was wrong: it appears that the at76c50x_usb module does support your device, so there may be no need to recompile the driver or kernel.

The "IE: Unknown" lines that you see in the "iwlist scan" output are also not necessarily a problem. They appear normally sometimes.

Have you tried connecting using something other than NetworkManager? You can try installing wicd from the Ubuntu Software Center, or you can try connecting manually from the command line with:

sudo iwconfig wlan0 mode managed essid "AP_Name" channel 11
sudo dhclient wlan0

(Replace AP_Name as appropriate, but keep the "" quotation marks.)

If you can't connect even by typing the commands from the command line, then we can try compiling the driver from source using the most up-to-date code and see if that helps, or we can try to find a different firmware file that may work better. But right now, since the driver is able to claim your device, I think it would be worth trying a little harder to get connected with it before giving up.

[lkraemer]

pytheas22,
Excellent guide.....

I do have one suggestion that will help folks REMOVE Drivers installed
with ndiswrapper......and it should to be incorporated into your Guide.

REMOVE WINDOWS DRIVERS:
If you want to REMOVE the Windows Drivers:...............
If the output of ndiswrapper -l shows any drivers loaded,
remove ALL of them. The command is: (EXAMPLES)

sudo ndiswrapper -e bcmwl5
sudo ndiswrapper -e ssb

This should clean up nidswrapper & drivers and:

ndiswrapper -l

should return nothing as being loaded.

Then remove ndiswrapper:

sudo modprobe -r ndiswrapper

Remove from startup file by editing:

sudo nano /etc/modules

to remove ndiswrapper.


lk

[mytaz]

Thank you for all these good ideas...

[pytheas22]

lkraemer: thanks for the suggestion. I'm a little hesitant to add it to the guide, though, for a few reasons.

First, the tutorial is about troubleshooting ndiswrapper, and I'm not sure that uninstalling it quite falls into that category.

In addition, on Ubuntu native Linux drivers should always be given preference over ndiswrapper--meaning that if you no longer want to use ndiswrapper, you don't really need to uninstall it because it will not get in the way of an alternate driver.

Finally, as far as I know, a simple:

sudo apt-get remove --purge ndiswrapper-common ndiswrapper-utils-1.9

should remove ndiswrapper and all of its configuration files--so it's the same as using the "ndiswrapper -e" command.

Feel free to disagree. I may well be overlooking something that might change my mind. But for the time being, in the interest of keeping things as concise as possible (the tutorial is already quite long), I'll leave it as is.

[arjay1]

Problems getting Ovislink evo-w301usb stick to work. This uses an Atheros chipset. It covers 802.11n, 11e, and 11b. I am resuscitating an older notebook which works fine except for a broken (physically) Ethernet socket, so I need a wireless connection. I am running Lubuntu Lucid. I have:

1. Successfully set up the wireless usb on two Windows PCs - one win 2000 and one win xp. So at least wusb is working.

2. I have installed ndiswrapper 1.55 and ndisgtk on the notebook from the repos (downloading debs on another linux PC and copying over to notebook)

3. I have copied over the driver files from the Win XP machine to the same directory on the notebook. They are athuw.sys, netathuw.cat, netathuw.inf.

4. Before installing the driver I have run (as root) ndiswrapper -l:

[root@Galaxy ovislink]# ndiswrapper -l
airforceone : driver installed
airplus : driver installed
bcmwl5 : driver installed
bcmwl5a : driver installed
lstinds : driver installed
net8185 : driver installed
netma521 : driver installed
netr33x : driver installed
prismnic : driver installed
wlannic : driver installed
wlipnds : driver installed
[root@Galaxy ovislink]#

5. Then I ran ndiswrapper -i netathuw.inf

[root@Galaxy ovislink]# ndiswrapper -i netathuw.inf
installing netathuw ...
[root@Galaxy ovislink]#

6. Then repeated step 4. Netathuw shows up as invalid driver:

[root@Galaxy ovislink]# ndiswrapper -l
airforceone : driver installed
airplus : driver installed
bcmwl5 : driver installed
bcmwl5a : driver installed
lstinds : driver installed
net8185 : driver installed
netathuw : invalid driver!
netma521 : driver installed
netr33x : driver installed
prismnic : driver installed
wlannic : driver installed
wlipnds : driver installed
[root@Galaxy ovislink]#

7. I also tried installing as above on a PC running PCLinuxOS with the same results.

8. I have also tried copying over the files direct from the install CD. Same results.

Other info:

Unplugging and plugging the wusb gives this in dmesg:

usb 1-4: USB disconnect, address 6
usb 1-4: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 7
usb 1-4: New USB device found, idVendor=0cf3, idProduct=9271
usb 1-4: New USB device strings: Mfr=16, Product=32, SerialNumber=48
usb 1-4: Product: USB2.0 WLAN
usb 1-4: Manufacturer: ATHEROS
usb 1-4: SerialNumber: 12345
usb 1-4: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice

lsusb shows:

Bus 001 Device 007: ID 0cf3:9271 Atheros Communications, Inc.

uname -rm shows:

2.6.32-21-generic i686

I have searched this thread and the ID shows up in various posts about TL devices. Nothing on ovislink. Searched ndiswrapper site and your database for 0cf3:9271 but no joy. Done all the usual searches on Google but nothing helpful turned up.

Can you help?
EDIT: I found 2 other driver files on the windows CD that were NOT the ones used in my previous windows installs. But thought I might as well try them anyway. The files are netathur.inf and athur.sys. I stuck these in the Lubuntu install, unistalled the netathuw driver and installed netathur.inf. This time it got as far as showing it's presence:

[root@Galaxy ovislink]# ndiswrapper -l
airforceone : driver installed
airplus : driver installed
bcmwl5 : driver installed
bcmwl5a : driver installed
lstinds : driver installed
net8185 : driver installed
netathur : driver installed
        device (0CF3:9271) present
netma521 : driver installed
netr33x : driver installed
prismnic : driver installed
wlannic : driver installed
wlipnds : driver installed

Looked promising but there is still an error:

 [root@Galaxy ovislink]# tail /var/log/messages
Aug 24 16:15:00 Galaxy klogd: ndiswrapper (load_sys_files:206): couldn't prepare driver 'netathur'
Aug 24 16:15:00 Galaxy klogd: ndiswrapper (load_wrap_driver:108): couldn't load driver netathur; check system log for messages from 'loadndisdriver'
Aug 24 16:15:00 Galaxy klogd: usbcore: registered new interface driver ndiswrapper

also wlan0 doesn't show up in network list - just my two ethernet cards:

root@Galaxy ovislink]# lshw -C Network
  *-network               
       description: Ethernet interface
       product: RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller
       vendor: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:02:00.0
       logical name: eth0
       version: 01
       serial: 00:19:66:05:55:b3
       size: 100MB/s
       capacity: 1GB/s
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm vpd msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet physical tp mii 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt 1000bt-fd autonegotiation
       configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=r8169 driverversion=2.3LK-NAPI duplex=full ip=192.168.1.2 latency=0 link=yes module=r8169 multicast=yes port=MII speed=100MB/s
  *-network DISABLED
       description: Ethernet interface
       physical id: 1
       logical name: vboxnet0
       serial: 0a:00:27:00:00:00
       capabilities: ethernet physical
       configuration: broadcast=yes multicast=yes

[pytheas22]

arjay1: what is the output of the command:

dmesg | grep -e ndis -e wlan -e netathur

after you try bringing the interface up using ndiswraper with the netathur.inf file?

Hopefully the dmesg output will reveal an obvious solution. If not, there's an experimental native driver that may work, detailed here (in German). But let's try the ndiswrapper path first.

[arjay1]

arjay1: what is the output of the command:

dmesg | grep -e ndis -e wlan -e netathur

Thanks so much for replying. You must be so patient (this threads being over 90 pages and all)

Here is the output:

[root@Galaxy richard]# dmesg | grep -e ndis -e wlan -e netathur
ndiswrapper version 1.55 loaded (smp=yes, preempt=no)
ndiswrapper (import:242): unknown symbol: ntoskrnl.exe:'RtlIsServicePackVersionInstalled'
ndiswrapper (import:242): unknown symbol: ntoskrnl.exe:'KeInitializeGuardedMutex'
ndiswrapper (import:242): unknown symbol: ntoskrnl.exe:'KeReleaseGuardedMutex'
ndiswrapper (import:242): unknown symbol: ntoskrnl.exe:'KeAcquireGuardedMutex'
ndiswrapper (import:242): unknown symbol: NDIS.SYS:'NdisAllocateMdl'
ndiswrapper (import:242): unknown symbol: NDIS.SYS:'NdisRetreatNetBufferDataStart'
ndiswrapper (import:242): unknown symbol: NDIS.SYS:'NdisAdvanceNetBufferDataStart'
ndiswrapper (import:242): unknown symbol: NDIS.SYS:'NdisFreeMdl'
ndiswrapper (import:242): unknown symbol: NDIS.SYS:'NdisOpenConfigurationEx'
ndiswrapper (import:242): unknown symbol: NDIS.SYS:'NdisMSetBusData'
ndiswrapper (import:242): unknown symbol: NDIS.SYS:'NdisAllocateNetBufferAndNetBufferList'
ndiswrapper (import:242): unknown symbol: NDIS.SYS:'NdisMAllocateNetBufferSGList'
ndiswrapper (import:242): unknown symbol: NDIS.SYS:'NdisMFreeNetBufferSGList'
ndiswrapper (import:242): unknown symbol: NDIS.SYS:'NdisMDeregisterScatterGatherDma'
ndiswrapper (import:242): unknown symbol: NDIS.SYS:'NdisMIndicateReceiveNetBufferLists'
ndiswrapper (import:242): unknown symbol: NDIS.SYS:'NdisAllocateNetBufferListPool'
ndiswrapper (import:242): unknown symbol: NDIS.SYS:'NdisAllocateNetBufferPool'
ndiswrapper (import:242): unknown symbol: NDIS.SYS:'NdisFreeNetBufferListPool'
ndiswrapper (import:242): unknown symbol: NDIS.SYS:'NdisFreeNetBufferPool'
ndiswrapper (import:242): unknown symbol: NDIS.SYS:'NdisAllocateNetBuffer'
ndiswrapper (import:242): unknown symbol: NDIS.SYS:'NdisFreeNetBuffer'
ndiswrapper (import:242): unknown symbol: NDIS.SYS:'NdisMGetBusData'
ndiswrapper (import:242): unknown symbol: NDIS.SYS:'NdisMSendNetBufferListsComplete'
ndiswrapper (import:242): unknown symbol: NDIS.SYS:'NdisMSynchronizeWithInterruptEx'
ndiswrapper (import:242): unknown symbol: NDIS.SYS:'NdisMRegisterMiniportDriver'
ndiswrapper (import:242): unknown symbol: NDIS.SYS:'NdisAllocateMemoryWithTagPriority'
ndiswrapper (import:242): unknown symbol: NDIS.SYS:'NdisFreeIoWorkItem'
ndiswrapper (import:242): unknown symbol: NDIS.SYS:'NdisAllocateIoWorkItem'
ndiswrapper (import:242): unknown symbol: NDIS.SYS:'NdisMResetComplete'
ndiswrapper (import:242): unknown symbol: NDIS.SYS:'NdisMDeregisterMiniportDriver'
ndiswrapper (import:242): unknown symbol: NDIS.SYS:'NdisQueueIoWorkItem'
ndiswrapper (import:242): unknown symbol: NDIS.SYS:'NdisMDeregisterInterruptEx'
ndiswrapper (import:242): unknown symbol: NDIS.SYS:'NdisMSetMiniportAttributes'
ndiswrapper (import:242): unknown symbol: NDIS.SYS:'NdisMIndicateStatusEx'
ndiswrapper (import:242): unknown symbol: NDIS.SYS:'NdisMOidRequestComplete'
ndiswrapper (import:242): unknown symbol: NDIS.SYS:'NdisGetSystemUpTimeEx'
ndiswrapper (import:242): unknown symbol: NDIS.SYS:'NdisAllocateNetBufferList'
ndiswrapper (import:242): unknown symbol: NDIS.SYS:'NdisFreeNetBufferList'
ndiswrapper (import:242): unknown symbol: WDFLDR.SYS:'WdfVersionUnbind'
ndiswrapper (import:242): unknown symbol: WDFLDR.SYS:'WdfVersionBind'
ndiswrapper (load_sys_files:206): couldn't prepare driver 'netathur'
ndiswrapper (load_wrap_driver:108): couldn't load driver netathur; check system log for messages from 'loadndisdriver'
usbcore: registered new interface driver ndiswrapper
[root@Galaxy richard]#

Please remember, as I said earlier in the thread, that this is not the win XP driver (which never even installed correctly). It is an alternative on the same win XP disk....

Cheers

Richard

[pytheas22]

arjay1: that's the kind of output I was afraid of. It looks like ndiswrapper seriously dislikes the Windows driver that you loaded into it. Since the driver that you tried previously also didn't work at all, it seems worth giving the native Linux driver a try.

The native Linux driver is called ath9k_htc. After some more research, I found instructions here for installing this driver that should be easier to follow than those on the German forum that I linked to earlier. (The German instructions don't work well because they're based on a dead link; they're also a little out of date. And of course they're in German, which I can only barely read thanks to some obscure college course on the DDR, but I digress.)

Please give this new link a try and let me know how it goes. Those instructions aren't 100% user-friendly for non-geeks, so if you have trouble following them and need explicit step-by-step directions, let me know and I'll write them out.

After you finish installing the driver, reboot and hopefully your wireless card will be detected and working. If it's not, please post the output of these commands (some commands may have no output):

lsmod | grep ath9k
sudo rmmod ndiswrapper
sudo modprobe ath9k_htc
dmesg | grep -e ath9k -e wlan -e firmware