[GRLUG] WiFi Weirdness

[Adam Tauno Williams]

On Thu, 2014-09-18 at 17:08 -0500, L. V. Lammert wrote: 
> At a conference with a bunch of folks, .. WiFI is a big issue - even
> sitting in front of the AP with nobody around, my machine cannot connect,
> while a Mac has no problem!
> It's hard to tell anything from the logs, am I missing something?
> 2014-09-18T16:42:56.921486-05:00 Envy kernel: [24273.462396] wlo1: deauthenticating from d8:c7:c8:39:5d:22 by local choice (reason=3)

deauthenticating from d8:c7:c8:39:5d:22 by local choice (reason=3)

Reason#3: Sending station has left or is leaving IBSS or ESS

- The AP is experiencing congestion and channel-hopping and you got
dropped out.
- The AP's mode [n/b/g] or implementation of that mode is not compatible
with your Supplicant.  
    - This is more common than most people think.  Don't buy cheap or
wierdo-brand APs.   Linksys made several series of APs that are plagued
with compatibility issues [AP541N,....]
    - Or it could be configured that way - a 2.4GHz AP configured to
only actually offer one mode, as that helps performance, but that mode
is one your supplicant does not support, or your supplicant is so stupid
it is just trying an unavailable mode anyway [more common than most
people think].

-- 
Adam Tauno Williams <mailto:awilliam at whitemice.org> GPG D95ED383
Systems Administrator, Python Developer, LPI / NCLA