bf_next not NULL!

[Andrew Stevenson]

Hi,

I have an Atheros 9227 card in AP mode. It looks like there is some packet loss at the wireless layer, resulting in large delays at the IP layer. Also, every few days, nothing seems to be able to associate. Restarting the interface (/etc/rc.d/netif restart wlan0) fixes that but the possible packet loss remains.

I notice quite numerous errors in dmesg. Bursts of:

ath0: ath_tx_default_comp: bf 0xfffffe0000826aa0: seqno 550: bf_next not NULL!
ath0: ath_tx_default_comp: bf 0xfffffe0000831d20: seqno 551: bf_next not NULL!
ath0: ath_tx_default_comp: bf 0xfffffe0000827298: seqno 552: bf_next not NULL!
ath0: ath_tx_default_comp: bf 0xfffffe0000815bb0: seqno 553: bf_next not NULL!
ath0: ath_tx_default_comp: bf 0xfffffe0000821160: seqno 554: bf_next not NULL!

That can go on for about 20 lines, plus the ubiquitous:

ath0: stuck beacon; resetting (bmiss count 4)
ath0: stuck beacon; resetting (bmiss count 4)
ath0: stuck beacon; resetting (bmiss count 4)

that seems to be pretty regular.

My card from dmesg:

ath0: <Atheros 9227> mem 0x48100000-0x4810ffff irq 21 at device 0.0 on pci4
ath0: [HT] enabling HT modes
ath0: [HT] enabling short-GI in 20MHz mode
ath0: [HT] 1 stream STBC receive enabled
ath0: [HT] 1 stream STBC transmit enabled
ath0: [HT] 2 RX streams; 2 TX streams
ath0: Enabling register serialisation
ath0: AR9227 mac 384.2 RF5133 phy 15.15
ath0: 2GHz radio: 0x0000; 5GHz radio: 0x00c0

And ifconfig output:

wlan0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
        ether 64:70:02:f0:c8:03
        inet 10.0.1.1 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 10.0.1.255 
        inet6 fe80::6670:2ff:fef0:c803%wlan0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x6 
        nd6 options=61<PERFORMNUD,AUTO_LINKLOCAL,NO_RADR>
        media: IEEE 802.11 Wireless Ethernet autoselect mode 11g <hostap>
        status: running
        ssid UgH channel 11 (2462 MHz 11g) bssid 64:70:02:f0:c8:03
        regdomain ETSI country DE indoor ecm authmode WPA2/802.11i
        privacy MIXED deftxkey 3 AES-CCM 2:128-bit AES-CCM 3:128-bit
        txpower 30 scanvalid 60 protmode CTS wme burst dtimperiod 1 -dfs

I had previously been using 11ng but have just tried switching to see if 11g had the same problems (it seems to).

I'm running 10.3-STABLE r302736.

Any ideas?

Thanks,

Andrew