wlan0 disappears after few seconds [Hostap problem]

[Gianni Costanzi]

Hi,
I've installed hostap on a Gentoo Linux box with kernel 2.4.31 (I need
to use a 2.4 kernel) and a Netgear MA401 PCMCIA card and everything
seems to work: I can change wlan0 to Master mode (even if I get an
error, as if the request was illegal, but then iwconfig shows me wlan0
and wifi0 in Master mode.. is it normal?) and other laptops are able
to connect to my laptop as if it was an access point (two laptops
associated themselves to my laptop and then they were able to ping one
each other).. The problem is that after few seconds something wrong
happens and the access point stops working (iwconfig tells me that
wlan0 has "no wireless extensions").. I'll put here the relevant
content of dmesg, perhaps some of you can help me (i need to make this
stuff work for my thesis):


pci_hotplug: PCI Hot Plug PCI Core version: 0.5
pciehp: PCI Express Hot Plug Controller Driver version: 0.5
Linux Kernel Card Services 3.1.22
 options:  [pci] [cardbus] [pm]
Yenta ISA IRQ mask 0x0050, PCI irq 7
Socket status: 30000010
cs: IO port probe 0x0c00-0x0cff: clean.
cs: IO port probe 0x0800-0x08ff: excluding 0x810-0x87f
cs: IO port probe 0x0100-0x04ff: excluding 0x370-0x377 0x3b0-0x3df
0x3f0-0x3f7 0x480-0x4bf 0x4d0-0x4d7
cs: IO port probe 0x0a00-0x0aff: clean.
cs: memory probe 0xa0000000-0xa0ffffff: clean.
hostap_crypt: registered algorithm 'NULL'
hostap_cs: 0.3.7 - 2005-02-12 (Jouni Malinen <jkmaline at cc.hut.fi>)
hostap_cs: setting Vcc=33 (constant)
hostap_cs: CS_EVENT_CARD_INSERTION
hostap_cs: setting Vcc=50 (from config)
Checking CFTABLE_ENTRY 0x01 (default 0x01)
IO window settings: cfg->io.nwin=1 dflt.io.nwin=1
io->flags = 0x0046, io.base=0x0000, len=64
hostap_cs: Registered netdevice wifi0
hostap_cs: index 0x01: Vcc 5.0, irq 7, io 0x0100-0x013f
prism2_hw_init: initialized in 190 ms
wifi0: NIC: id=0x800c v1.0.0
wifi0: PRI: id=0x15 v1.0.7
wifi0: STA: id=0x1f v1.3.6
wifi0: defaulting to host-based encryption as a workaround for
firmware bug in Host AP mode WEP
wifi0: defaulting to bogus WDS frame as a workaround for firmware bug
in Host AP mode WDS
wifi0: registered netdevice wlan0
wlan0: Host AP mode does not support 'Any' essid
prism2: wlan0: operating mode changed 3 -> 2
wifi0: LinkStatus=2 (Disconnected)
wifi0: LinkStatus: BSSID=00:09:5b:54:7a:c1
wifi0: LinkStatus=2 (Disconnected)
wifi0: LinkStatus: BSSID=44:44:44:44:44:44
wifi0: LinkStatus=2 (Disconnected)
wifi0: LinkStatus: BSSID=44:44:44:44:44:44
wifi0: LinkStatus=1 (Connected)
wifi0: LinkStatus: BSSID=00:14:a8:24:b6:b0
wlan0: CMD=0x0121 => res=0x7f, resp0=0x0004
wlan0: hfa384x_set_rid: CMDCODE_ACCESS_WRITE failed (res=127, rid=fc04, len=34)
wlan0: CMD=0x0121 => res=0x7f, resp0=0x0004
wlan0: hfa384x_set_rid: CMDCODE_ACCESS_WRITE failed (res=127, rid=fc04, len=34)
prism2: wlan0: operating mode changed 2 -> 3
wifi0: Interrupt, but SWSUPPORT0 does not match: 0000 != 8A32 - card removed?
wifi0: scheduled card reset
hostap_cs: wifi0: resetting card
prism2_pccard_cor_sreset: original COR 41
wifi0: removed pending cmd_queue entry (type=0, cmd=0x0002, param0=0x0000)
prism2_hw_init: initialized in 200 ms
wlan0: hfa384x_cmd: command was not completed (res=0, entry=f73b8260,
type=0, cmd=0x0002, param0=0x0000, EVSTAT=0000 INTEN=e09f)
wlan0: reset port failed to disable port
wifi0: 00:0e:35:7c:a3:0e auth_cb - alg=0 trans#=2 status=0 - STA authenticated
wifi0: 00:0e:35:7c:a3:0e assoc_cb - STA associated
wifi0: 00:e0:98:b4:2f:4d auth_cb - alg=0 trans#=2 status=0 - STA authenticated
wifi0: assoc from 00:e0:98:b4:2f:4d with extra data (10 bytes)
[<32><08><0c><12><18><24><30><48><60><6c>]
wifi0: 00:e0:98:b4:2f:4d assoc_cb - STA associated
wifi0: Deauthenticate all stations
wlan0: hfa384x_cmd: entry still in list? (entry=f77a4d60, type=0, res=200)
wlan0: hfa384x_cmd: interrupted; err=-4
wlan0: MAC port 0 enabling failed
wlan0: could not enable MAC port
wifi0: Command completion event, but no pending commands


Perhaps it's something related to the "MAC port 0 enabling failed" error...
Any idea?

Thank you in advance for any suggestion,
Gianni

--
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|  Gianni Costanzi (gianni.costanzi at gmail.com)
|
|  Gentoo Documentation Project (GDP) Member - Italian Translator
|       (http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/gdp/)
|       (http://ares.science.unitn.it/~gianni.costanzi/)
|
|  Free Software Foundation Member #3844 (www.fsf.org)
|
|  Why GNU/Linux? (http://www.gnu.org/gnu/why-gnu-linux.html)
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