Hello folks!

 

I'm investigating an odd issue of the OPi R1 board, with the image Armbian_5.83_Orangepi-r1_Debian_stretch_next_4.19.38.

With this version of software the board works fine, but apparently the wifi cannot reconnect after a disconnection (error: association request to the driver failed)

The only workaround I found is to manually bring down the wifi interface and then back up; then the reconnect is almost immediate.

I tried to disable the NetworkManager and now I'm using /etc/network/interfaces file to handle the connections but the problem still persists.

I checked the issue with another R1 board and so I can exclude that the board is defective.

I tried to reconfigure the board for using the latest kernel available (5.1.0) but the problem is still here.

Is this a known problem/limit and/or has anyone experienced a similar issue or found any solution?

Or at least point me to some direction to investigate further?

 

For everyone interested..

I made several experiments, and I found out that the issue happens only if the wifi connection is teared down from the user.

It doesn't happen if the connection is severed from AP side, for example. When the AP is restored the association is renegotiated almost immediately and works fine.

Very, very strange.

 

I'm pretty sure the problem is not in wpa_supplicant, because it works fine if I don't use the onboard wifi (for example using an USB wifi dongle);

it must definitively be something wrong/missing with the 8189es driver

 

Nevertheless, there are several quick workarounds. 

For example: don't disconnect from nmtui or wpa_cli, use ifdown instead.