Netgear WPN111 connection drops

[itsjareds]

Ah, ok, thanks. It never hurts to confirm that it's not "just me".

[itsjareds]

I just lost connection and did the commands you said. Here's my terminal output for dmesg and rmmod usb_storage.

I didn't read through dmesg, but usb_storage gave me an error that there was no such module. I am running 9.04 Jaunty, so I'm not sure why it's not working.

Unplugging/replugging the device does not crash my computer, but I can't get the adapter blinking again once I replug. I also can't successfully scan for networks as I could when it was blinking but disconnected.

What do you think?

Edit: Ugh, the terminal must have only copied up to so many characters when I selected all. The beginning of the output got cut off. The only command you can't see is dmesg, but part of the output of that is still visible.

Edit2: Running dmesg again when I restarted and can connect, I get the same last lines as I did when I couldn't connect.

Edit3: Shouldn't have that problem with the terminal output getting cut off, changed some preferences to allow more lines.

[pytheas22]

hmmm, the dmesg.txt file seems to be empty when I try to download it. Could you check on this and let me know.

As for rmmod usb_storage, it turns out that usb_storage is only used for USB storage devices (surprise), not all USB devices. So it doesn't affect your USB wireless card. I'm not sure if there is a separate driver for USB wireless cards in Jaunty and Google doesn't seem to have an answer. (There were major changes to the USB driver scheme for Jaunty and I still don't understand how it works now.)

It's interesting that you mention the issues with bluetooth, and I'm wondering if that might have to do with the wireless device crashing. You can disable bluetooth permanently by adding all the bluetooth modules to your /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf file. You can get a list of all the bluetooth modules by typing:

ls /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/kernel/drivers/bluetooth/

You can also stop the bluetooth service and tell the system not to auto-start it at boot by typting:

sudo /etc/init.d/bluetooth stop
sudo update-rc.d bluetooth remove

Also, what happens if, after a crash, you unplug the wireless card, then rmmod ndiswrapper; modprobe ndiswrapper, then plug it back in?

And have you tried to uninstall the Windows driver from ndiswrapper (ndiswrapper -r driver_name) and then reinstall it? I've seen situations where people report having to do this.

[itsjareds]

hmmm, the dmesg.txt file seems to be empty when I try to download it. Could you check on this and let me know.

Yeah, I'm not sure what happened but the first 100 or so lines are blank. If you scroll down a bit you'll see it. Something strange happened.

I disabled bluetooth through sysv-rc-conf. I'll have to see if that stops the freezing on shutdown. I did lose connection once after I disabled bluetooth and restarted, though.

Also, what happens if, after a crash, you unplug the wireless card, then rmmod ndiswrapper; modprobe ndiswrapper, then plug it back in?

I still get no response after I type either of those commands in. Seems like it's frozen.

And have you tried to uninstall the Windows driver from ndiswrapper (ndiswrapper -r driver_name) and then reinstall it? I've seen situations where people report having to do this.

Yeah, that was the first thing I tried last summer. Typing anything that deals with my already installed driver seems to be unresponsive in the terminal. And opening ndisgtk also freezes.

==

I ran those commands to disable bluetooth already because I don't have to be disconnected. Here's my output:

jared@jared-desktop:~$ ls /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/kernel/drivers/bluetooth/
bcm203x.ko  bluecard_cs.ko  bt3c_cs.ko  btuart_cs.ko  dtl1_cs.ko   hci_vhci.ko
bfusb.ko    bpa10x.ko       btsdio.ko   btusb.ko      hci_uart.ko
jared@jared-desktop:~$ sudo /etc/init.d/bluetooth stop
 * Stopping bluetooth                                                    [ OK ] 
jared@jared-desktop:~$ sudo update-rc.d bluetooth remove
update-rc.d: /etc/init.d/bluetooth exists during rc.d purge (use -f to force)

I'm not sure if the last line about rc.d purge means that the module didn't get removed, or if it's just a warning.

==

Edit: I just disconnected, ran those rmmod ndiswrapper; modprobe ndiswrapper and the terminal got nothing as usual. I blacklisted all of the bluetooth modules in /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf, disabled bluetooth in sysv-rc-conf, and disabled bluetooth through sudo update-rc.d -f bluetooth remove. I already had bluetooth disabled in sysv-rc-conf, and unplugging the adapter and restarting seemed to not hang on "Stopping bluetooth...". That's one problem fixed.

[deankovell]

"When I try to run a command from the terminal or open ndisgtk, I get an unresponsive application which I have to force kill. I restarted once when I lost connection and while Ubuntu was in the process of shutting down before the reboot, it got stuck at "Disabling Bluetooth"."

I'm not sure if this is even relevant, but I tried installing my wpn111 on jaunty from the instructions on one of your other threads, and the same thing happened to me. however, after I shut it down I rebooted into windows. The weird thing was that the adapter was still blinking the whole time I was booting into windows. it doesn't normally do that until vista's up and running. also I still had to physically remove it and plug it in while in vista to get it to work.

anyway, Thanks to everybody who's trying to figure this out.

[itsjareds]

I've had the same issue. It's definitely relevant, for some reason Ubuntu is not turning the adapter off. My solution for the longest time was to just unplug after my computer restarted, and before Ubuntu or Windows tried to start up the adapter. I found out recently that I could also shut down the computer instead of restart, and the adapter stops blinking. It's easier to press the computer's On button than to unplug/replug the adapter.

Windows seems to turn off the adapter fine when it's shutting down or restarting. Ubuntu doesn't turn it off, then whenever you boot into either Windows or Ubuntu, the systems seem to notice it's busy. That's what I was hoping removing the usb_storage module would fix.

Do you need to have Bluetooth enabled? If not, do what Pytheas posted above and disable all of your Bluetooth modules. That way Ubuntu won't even start it on boot -- so there's nothing to get stuck on while you're shutting down.

[itsjareds]

Now that I've used Ubuntu quite a bit more, I'm starting to notice a trend. It seems that most of the time, my adapter will freeze while I'm downloading continuously for things such as installing software. It's annoying but thankfully Ubuntu keeps temporary files and continues where it left off.

But my adapter also freezes if I leave the computer alone for a while -- maybe an hour. Maybe it's because the adapter is working too hard? This confuses me because it works fine with WEP.

[deankovell]

try pointing a fan at it. mine does the same thing in vista with large downloads or after about 45 minutes of streaming fairly high quality video. the adapter always seems to be pretty hot when I disconnect/reconnect it.

[itsjareds]

The thing is, mine doesn't do that in Windows XP or Windows 7. Not sure where I'll get or place the fan.. I don't have that much desk real estate.

[carcar1]

This little usb dongle is poorly made. All there is to say, its a physical problem, I had mine for like 1 week with no problems in xp then it started freaking out when I went to download things. Netgear does not make solid card, try encore.