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Re: Bug#1091799: installation-reports: Qualcomm Atheros AR9485 detected, wifi networks seen but no network connection

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Hi John,

When I received you email I recognized your name and
email address:

magnus@debian3:~$ apt-cache show firmware-ath9k-htc | grep 'Maintainer:'
Maintainer: John Scott <jscott@posteo.net>
magnus@debian3:~$

firmware-free: Recommend or Suggest firmware-ath9k-htc
Reported by: John Scott <jscott@posteo.net>
Date: Sun, 27 May 2018 03:42:02 UTC
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=900171

Great!


On 2025-10-13 00:39, John Scott wrote:
> magnus@autistici.org wrote:
>> Hi Debian Linux kernel maintainers,
> 
> Hello! Thanks for the poke. I'm a newcomer to helping with the kernel 
> but know this particular family of devices well, so I'll do my best to 
> help. I apologize that your very detailed report has been stagnant for 
> a while.

Thank you very much! Well, I did not write earlier to d-kernel
as I couldn't help with debugging without the notebook which
was at my friend's home.


>> As the problem described in this bug is present not only in the 
>> installer but also in the installed system (one time it worked) I'm 
>> asking you for help to debug it: according to Cyril it's "most likely 
>> a problem with the Linux kernel modules and/or firmware"
>> https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=1091799#10
>> 
>> I believe that the Linux kernel module is this one: 
>> https://wiki.debian.org/ath9k
> 
> You're correct. In your initial report, some of this 
> automatically-included hardware information has what we need to know:
>> 02:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Qualcomm Atheros AR9485 Wireless 
>> Network Adapter [168c:0032] (rev 01)
>> 	Subsystem: Lite-On Communications Inc AR9485 Wireless Network Adapter 
>> [11ad:6627]
>> 	Kernel driver in use: ath9k
>> 	Kernel modules: ath9k
> 
>> According to the firmware-summary attached to my installation report I 
>> suppose that the firmware package is the following: firmware-atheros
> That shouldn't be needed. firmware-atheros is the package with non-free 
> firmware for some of Qualcomm Atheros's other products, but non-USB 
> devices in the ath9k family don't require any firmware at all. As 
> you've figured out when using your AR9271, the USB version does require 
> extra firmware, but it's libre and it sounds like that's working okay.

Yes, my AR9271 works like a charm, with the libre firmware build
from source and the Debian package maintained by you. Thank you!


>> Using the 12.8.0 Netinst I tried to install on 2024-12-05 experiencing
>> the problem described in the Subject, with the two different mobile
>> phones. You can find the syslog of the installation attached to the
>> bug log. 
> 
> Here are some lines I find interesting:
>> Dec  5 08:39:41 kernel: [   58.988490] ath9k 0000:02:00.0 wlp2s0: 
>> renamed from wlan0
> ath9k is the non-USB driver, so this means that in all lines that 
> follow, the name "wlp2s0" refers to that internal card (not the USB 
> one).
> 
> Then:
>> Dec  5 08:40:17 netcfg[4247]: INFO: Activating interface wlp2s0
>> Dec  5 08:40:18 netcfg[4247]: INFO: Scan of wireless interface wlp2s0 
>> succeeded.
>> Dec  5 08:40:23 kernel: [  100.645660] wlp2s0: authenticate with 
>> 8e:b5:68:52:60:5f
>> Dec  5 08:40:23 kernel: [  100.645710] wlp2s0: 80 MHz not supported, 
>> disabling VHT
>> Dec  5 08:40:23 netcfg[4247]: INFO: Taking down interface wlp2s0
>> Dec  5 08:40:23 kernel: [  100.664025] wlp2s0: send auth to 
>> 8e:b5:68:52:60:5f (try 1/3)
>> Dec  5 08:40:23 kernel: [  100.664163] wlp2s0: aborting authentication 
>> with 8e:b5:68:52:60:5f by local choice (Reason: 3=DEAUTH_LEAVING)
>> Dec  5 08:40:23 netcfg[4247]: INFO: Network chosen: moto e(7) plus 
>> 3650. Proceeding to connect.

The "moto e(7) plus 3650" is the mobile phone of my friend.


> and the lines that follow show it trying to connect to the access 
> point, but failing to authenticate and timing out over and over again. 
> After some time the following messages can be seen:
>> Dec  5 08:42:17 main-menu[312]: (process:4246): SIOCSIWMODE: Invalid 
>> argument
>> Dec  5 08:42:17 main-menu[312]: (process:4246): Successfully 
>> initialized wpa_supplicant
> 
> The SIOCSIWMODE ioctl() is used to set what kind of wireless user you 
> want to be: a client ("station"), an access point, a passive 
> eavesdropper ("monitor"), or whatever else. wpa_supplicant should be 
> using this command to affirm that you'd like to be an ordinary client; 
> it strikes me as odd that this would fail here.
> The second line is more interesting: this is the first time it appears, 
> even though you've been attempting authentication for almost two 
> minutes by the time that appears. That seems weird.
> 
> There's nothing blatantly wrong here but we do see it set the 
> regulatory domain as follows:
>> Dec  5 08:39:41 kernel: [   58.940089] ath: EEPROM regdomain: 0x60
>> Dec  5 08:39:41 kernel: [   58.940090] ath: EEPROM indicates we should 
>> expect a direct regpair map
>> Dec  5 08:39:41 kernel: [   58.940092] ath: Country alpha2 being used: 
>> 00
>> Dec  5 08:39:41 kernel: [   58.940093] ath: Regpair used: 0x60
> 
> The details are fuzzy, but I think seeing on the linux-wireless mailing 
> list that there was some kind of issue with ath9k handling the '00' 
> country code differently from how it used to. Also, I believe the 0x60 
> regpair maps to this same "world" regulatory domain concept.
> 
> It is a long-standing issue that, unfortunately, the majority of 
> GNU/Linux wireless devices don't have their regulatory domain correctly 
> set to indicate where the user is actually located. There is no 
> interface for a user to conveniently do this to my knowledge, nor is it 
> a thing most users are aware they need to do. There's an open issue in 
> Network Manager to consider if they want to pick up that job, and I 
> hope to see that happen in the future. In the meantime, this needs to 
> be addressed. (Newer versions of the Debian Installer *might* handle 
> this, but I'd have to look into it, and that's only a crutch for the 
> problem at large.) Possibly-old wiki documentation suggests the "world 
> regpair" was specially interpreted as meaning "United States" by these 
> Atheros drivers.
> 
> If I may ask, in what country is your friend using this computer? 
> Setting the regulatory domain appropriately might help, and my hunch is 
> informed by this:

We are living both in Italy.


>> Months later instead the wifi network did successful connect, with an 
>> access point of an Internet café and both mobile phones.
> Perhaps merely being near the café enticed any of these devices to pick 
> different wireless channels than they normally would. This would 
> explain why a change in location helped even if you were just intent on 
> connecting to the same cell phones.
> 
> So, in addition to letting me know what country the computer is being 
> used (or planned to be used) in, could you run this command in a 
> terminal and let us know what it says: sudo iw reg get

root@debian2:~# iw reg get
global
country 00: DFS-UNSET
         (755 - 928 @ 2), (N/A, 20), (N/A), PASSIVE-SCAN
         (2402 - 2472 @ 40), (N/A, 20), (N/A)
         (2457 - 2482 @ 20), (N/A, 20), (N/A), AUTO-BW, PASSIVE-SCAN
         (2474 - 2494 @ 20), (N/A, 20), (N/A), NO-OFDM, PASSIVE-SCAN
         (5170 - 5250 @ 80), (N/A, 20), (N/A), AUTO-BW, PASSIVE-SCAN
         (5250 - 5330 @ 80), (N/A, 20), (0 ms), DFS, AUTO-BW, 
PASSIVE-SCAN
         (5490 - 5730 @ 160), (N/A, 20), (0 ms), DFS, PASSIVE-SCAN
         (5735 - 5835 @ 80), (N/A, 20), (N/A), PASSIVE-SCAN
         (57240 - 63720 @ 2160), (N/A, 0), (N/A)

phy#0
country 99: DFS-UNSET
         (2402 - 2472 @ 40), (N/A, 20), (N/A)
         (2457 - 2482 @ 40), (N/A, 20), (N/A), PASSIVE-SCAN
         (2474 - 2494 @ 40), (N/A, 20), (N/A), NO-OFDM, PASSIVE-SCAN
         (5140 - 5360 @ 80), (N/A, 30), (N/A), PASSIVE-SCAN
         (5460 - 5860 @ 80), (N/A, 30), (N/A), PASSIVE-SCAN

root@debian2:~#


> If the output suggests the regulatory domain is still nonsense, we can 
> try to address that. I'll provide directions on how to set it right.

Ok, thank you!


> Also from your email address I guess you might already be familiar with 
> Jabber/XMPP (info at

Well, I have never used Jabber/XMPP but if you thing that the
debugging is easier I'm willing to try it to help you!


[>] https://www.autistici.org/docs/jabber/ about it). If it'd make 
troubleshooting this easier, we can try to work this out in real-time if 
you'd like. I can be reached at xmpp:me@johnscott.me and in the meantime 
I'll also be doing more research on your card in particular.

Thank you very much!

Kind regards, Magnus

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Fwd: Re: Bug#1091799: installation-reports: Qualcomm Atheros AR9485  detected, wifi networks seen but no network connection magnus@autistici.org - 2025-10-12 23:10 +0200
  Re: Bug#1091799: installation-reports: Qualcomm Atheros AR9485  detected, wifi networks seen but no network connection magnus@autistici.org - 2025-10-14 02:10 +0200

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