Networking dropping out on fresh install

03 April 2022, 10:09:56

I just did a clean install of artix base openrc, (dual booted with win10 LTSC IOT in case that's relevant) and I have no idea what is going on with the wireless networking. It is perfectly fine in the live installation environment, but as soon as I boot into the actual install, the network keeps dropping out. I run pacman -Syy and it seems to run perfectly fine, until mid sync it just completely stops for a while, maybe 30 or so seconds, and then resumes with an extremely slow speed, dropping in and out for the rest of the process.
when i run dmesg it shows this when I run pacman -Syy

[   98.727100] wlan0: authenticate with 50:6a:03:c0:b5:08
[   98.743838] wlan0: send auth to 50:6a:03:c0:b5:08 (try 1/3)
[   98.832954] wlan0: authenticated
[   98.835720] wlan0: associate with 50:6a:03:c0:b5:08 (try 1/3)
[   98.855863] wlan0: RX AssocResp from 50:6a:03:c0:b5:08 (capab=0x1411 status=0 aid=5)
[   98.856101] wlan0: associated
[   98.916032] wlan0: Limiting TX power to 30 (30 - 0) dBm as advertised by 50:6a:03:c0:b5:08
[ 105.680551] wlan0: authenticate with 50:6a:03:c0:b5:08
[ 105.697240] wlan0: send auth to 50:6a:03:c0:b5:08 (try 1/3)
[ 105.701496] wlan0: authenticated
[ 105.702413] wlan0: associate with 50:6a:03:c0:b5:08 (try 1/3)
[ 105.706679] wlan0: RX AssocResp from 50:6a:03:c0:b5:08 (capab=0x1411 status=0 aid=5)
[ 105.706837] wlan0: associated
[ 105.749458] wlan0: Limiting TX power to 30 (30 - 0) dBm as advertised by 50:6a:03:c0:b5:08
[ 117.720334] wlan0: authenticate with 50:6a:03:c0:b5:08
[ 117.739085] wlan0: send auth to 50:6a:03:c0:b5:08 (try 1/3)
[ 117.741343] wlan0: authenticated
[ 117.742404] wlan0: associate with 50:6a:03:c0:b5:08 (try 1/3)
[ 117.746707] wlan0: RX AssocResp from 50:6a:03:c0:b5:08 (capab=0x1411 status=0 aid=5)
[ 117.746865] wlan0: associated
[ 117.846183] wlan0: Limiting TX power to 30 (30 - 0) dBm as advertised by 50:6a:03:c0:b5:08

I had a previous fresh install in which the same issue was occurring and I tried some troubleshooting things which didn't work. I am using NetworkManager to manage the networking but i tried temporarily disabling NetworkManager and using connman instead, but the issue was still present, so I assume it is not a NetworkManager issue, although I could be wrong. I attempted to disable power saving in NetworkManager config files, there was no apparent change. I also attempted manually inputting the AP's mac address in the bssid field to disable network scans, no apparent change. It is not the mirrorlist order as it worked perfectly fine both in a VM and the live install environment. the issue also occurred when attempting to install a package from the aur with makepkg -si. in the end I wiped the install and started from scratch just in case it was an installation error, but the same issue still persists. when I checked with lspci -v, the driver in use is the same as the installation environment.

I searched around online but I couldn't find anything of relevance that worked. Really I'm completely lost here, I'm assuming it is just a stupid mistake or something I'm overlooking. I know for sure that it can be fixed and work normally, as it is completely fine in the installation environment; So the devs know how to make it work if it's just a firmware issue or something. I really don't have much of an idea to go on though, help would be appreciated, below will be attached the outputs of dmesg, lspci -v, as well as pacman.log and rc.log

Thanks for any help in advance - Jax

Re: Networking dropping out on fresh install

Reply #1 – 03 April 2022, 10:33:35

I think I've had the same issue. See my post below "WiFi connection unstable and randomly stops working after system upgrade". Also dmesg returned the same repeating output "Limiting TX power to 30".

My problem was solved yesterday by switching to linux-zen kernel. In fact, now it works better than ever.

[EDIT by a mod: linkified post]

Re: Networking dropping out on fresh install

Reply #2 – 03 April 2022, 14:21:57

Sorry for taking a while to reply, I had to deal with another thing for a while.

Thanks, that actually worked, it's technically not a proper fix as it's still broken under the default kernel, and I'm just switching to using something else. But at least it is functional, and I was looking into switching to zen anyways.
Optimally there would be a patch or setting or something to change to make it function under default kernel as well in case someone encountered this issue but still wanted to use the default kernel (possibly on a workstation or server because default kernel is more suited to that).

But this works fine for me since I was considering zen anyways, so no complaints here.

have a good day - Jax

Re: Networking dropping out on fresh install

Reply #3 – 06 April 2022, 08:45:53

Installing the linux-zen kernel solved the problem for me too on a 2014 laptop.

Network kept disconnecting/connecting randomly with the standard kernel, now it is fine. It had been working fine up until recently.