Bug report: Can connect with 'wext', but not 'nl80211'

[Johannes Berg]

On Wed, 2022-11-30 at 20:44 +0100, Matthias G. wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I hope this is the right place to report. I can connect via WiFi to my LTE router with the legacy 'wext' driver but not with 'nl80211'.
> 
> The router is a rebranded version of this one:
> https://forum.openwrt.org/t/alcatel-tlc-hh40-lte-router-based-on-openwrt/77580
> 
> This command fails:
> # wpa_supplicant -c wpa-home-lte.conf -i wlan0
> 
> wlan0: SME: Trying to authenticate with dc:9b:d6:de:d4:27 (SSID='<redacted>' freq=2452 MHz)
> wlan0: Trying to associate with dc:9b:d6:de:d4:27 (SSID='<redacted>' freq=2452 MHz)
> wlan0: SME: Trying to authenticate with dc:9b:d6:de:d4:27 (SSID='<redacted>' freq=2452 MHz)
> wlan0: Trying to associate with dc:9b:d6:de:d4:27 (SSID='<redacted>' freq=2452 MHz)
> wlan0: SME: Trying to authenticate with dc:9b:d6:de:d4:27 (SSID='<redacted>' freq=2452 MHz)
> wlan0: Trying to associate with dc:9b:d6:de:d4:27 (SSID='<redacted>' freq=2452 MHz)
> wlan0: SME: Trying to authenticate with dc:9b:d6:de:d4:27 (SSID='<redacted>' freq=2452 MHz)
> wlan0: Trying to associate with dc:9b:d6:de:d4:27 (SSID='<redacted>' freq=2452 MHz)
> wlan0: CTRL-EVENT-SSID-TEMP-DISABLED id=0 ssid="<redacted>" auth_failures=1 duration=10 reason=CONN_FAILED
> 
> while this succeeds:
> # wpa_supplicant -Dwext -c wpa-home-lte.conf -i wlan0
> 
> Successfully initialized wpa_supplicant
> ioctl[SIOCSIWENCODEEXT]: Invalid argument
> ioctl[SIOCSIWENCODEEXT]: Invalid argument
> wlan0: Trying to associate with dc:9b:d6:de:d4:27 (SSID='<redacted>' freq=2452 MHz)
> wlan0: Associated with dc:9b:d6:de:d4:27
> wlan0: WPA: Key negotiation completed with dc:9b:d6:de:d4:27 [PTK=CCMP GTK=CCMP]
> wlan0: CTRL-EVENT-CONNECTED - Connection to dc:9b:d6:de:d4:27 completed [id=0 id_str=]
> 
> Kernel logs, failure:
> Nov 30 20:24:41 papaya kernel: wlan0: authenticate with dc:9b:d6:de:d4:27
> Nov 30 20:24:41 papaya kernel: wlan0: bad VHT capabilities, disabling VHT
> Nov 30 20:24:41 papaya kernel: wlan0: Invalid HE elem, Disable HE
> Nov 30 20:24:41 papaya kernel: wlan0: 80 MHz not supported, disabling VHT
> Nov 30 20:24:42 papaya kernel: wlan0: send auth to dc:9b:d6:de:d4:27 (try 1/3)
> Nov 30 20:24:42 papaya kernel: wlan0: authenticated
> Nov 30 20:24:42 papaya kernel: wlan0: associate with dc:9b:d6:de:d4:27 (try 1/3)
> Nov 30 20:24:42 papaya kernel: wlan0: associate with dc:9b:d6:de:d4:27 (try 2/3)
> Nov 30 20:24:42 papaya kernel: wlan0: associate with dc:9b:d6:de:d4:27 (try 3/3)
> Nov 30 20:24:42 papaya kernel: wlan0: association with dc:9b:d6:de:d4:27 timed out
> Nov 30 20:24:45 papaya kernel: wlan0: authenticate with dc:9b:d6:de:d4:27
> Nov 30 20:24:45 papaya kernel: wlan0: bad VHT capabilities, disabling VHT
> Nov 30 20:24:45 papaya kernel: wlan0: Invalid HE elem, Disable HE
> Nov 30 20:24:45 papaya kernel: wlan0: 80 MHz not supported, disabling VHT
> Nov 30 20:24:45 papaya kernel: wlan0: send auth to dc:9b:d6:de:d4:27 (try 1/3)
> Nov 30 20:24:45 papaya kernel: wlan0: authenticated
> Nov 30 20:24:45 papaya kernel: wlan0: associate with dc:9b:d6:de:d4:27 (try 1/3)
> Nov 30 20:24:45 papaya kernel: wlan0: associate with dc:9b:d6:de:d4:27 (try 2/3)
> Nov 30 20:24:46 papaya kernel: wlan0: associate with dc:9b:d6:de:d4:27 (try 3/3)
> Nov 30 20:24:46 papaya kernel: wlan0: association with dc:9b:d6:de:d4:27 timed out
> 

Sounds like the AP is broken and doesn't like some elements wpa_s
includes when nl80211 has certain capabilities ...

Not sure what we can do about that - maybe there's a way to selectively
disable certain capabilities in wpa_s?

johannes