I’m running Armbian debian minimal image on my Orange Pi Zero 3, using the onboard WiFi (wlan0) with the unisoc_wifi driver. The WiFi consistently drops with logs like these:

 

[   11.048517] unisoc_wifi wlan0: mixed HW and IP checksum settings.
[259241.515808] unisoc_wifi wlan0: sprdwl_report_connection Asus failed status code:30!
[345665.483530] unisoc_wifi wlan0: sprdwl_report_connection sm_state (5), status: (2)!
[345665.483567] unisoc_wifi wlan0: sprdwl_report_connection Asus failed status code:1!

 

NetworkManager also reports:

 

link timed out.
Activation failed for connection 'Asus'

After the crash, restarting NetworkManager doesn’t resolve the issue. Trying modprobe -r unisoc_wifi fails, saying the module is not found. The only way to fix it is to reboot the system.

My USB WiFi dongle works fine without these issues, so it seems specific to the onboard WiFi.

 

Has anyone else experienced this or found a solution for this driver?

 

I'm getting to the point I'm going to write a cron job when the network drops to reboot the machine 🙃

Edited October 5, 20242 yr by Thomas Waterfall

Which available kernel version makes this WiFi work correctly?

I wish i knew. I have my system fully updated and it lasts for about 5 days before the onboard wifi stops working. I have it on the back of my TV for a hyperion setup and I can't/won't run ethernet there.

Edited October 6, 20242 yr by Thomas Waterfall

  

If your board in unstable, it hangs, kernel panics with

Unable to handle kernel paging request at virtual address ffff7fffbef91008

Or MicroSD read errors, and you use Wi-Fi,

Put Wi-Fi antenna outside of the board!

Apparently EMI from the Wi-Fi module is so high it influence RAM and/or MicroSD if the antenna is in closest proximity.

I've tested it on tens of Zero 3's, and could reliably reproduce the issue.

Edited January 19, 20251 yr by ValdikSS

I think I'm seeing the same issue as described in OP.

 

wpa_supplicant[25499]: wlan0: Trying to associate with xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx (SSID='xxx' freq=2452 MHz)
wpa_supplicant[25499]: FT: Invalid key management type (2)
wpa_supplicant[25499]: wlan0: Association request to the driver failed

 

Restarting wpa_supplicant (the network is controlled by ifupdown in my case) does not help.

FT hints that the issue is related to 802.11r Fast Transition feature, and here's the similar (although not the same) bug described in NetworkManager: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/NetworkManager/NetworkManager/-/issues/4

 

Created a bug in linux-orangepi official repo, and also emailed Orange Pi regarding this issue.

https://github.com/orangepi-xunlong/linux-orangepi/issues/98

I found a workaround: disabling BSS transition management from AP to STA seems to work. There won't be roaming on AP's request obviously.

 

wpa_cli set disable_btm 1

 

or in Debian's interfaces configuration file:

 

iface wlan0 inet dhcp
  wpa-ssid YourSSIDJere
  wpa-psk blablabla
  post-up wpa_cli set disable_btm 1

Regular roaming (device-initiated) still works fine.