Re: Assertion failed in ieee80211softmac_wx_get_rate

["John W. Linville" <linville@tuxdriver.com>]

On Fri, Mar 02, 2007 at 01:26:59AM -0500, Pavel Roskin wrote:
> Hello!
> 
> If I load bcm43xx and run iwconfig without bringing the interface up,
> I'm getting this in the kernel log:
> 
> SoftMAC: ASSERTION FAILED (0)
> at: /home/proski/src/linux-2.6/net/ieee80211/softmac/ieee80211softmac_wx.c:306:ieee80211softmac_wx_get_rate()
> 
> It's an x86 system with the 2.6.20 kernel (actually, it's the master
> branch from the mb repository, which is wireless-dev before the 2.6.21
> switchover plus broadcom fixes).
> 
> The assert assures that the interface has a valid tx rate.  But since
> the interface has never been up, the rate has not been assigned.
> 
> Either softmac should tolerate rate 0, at least when the interface is
> down, or it should initialize the rate much earlier, perhaps in
> alloc_ieee80211softmac().
> 
> I can test another tree, e.g. wireless-2.6, if there are chances that
> the problem has been fixed.

Does the tree you are using have this commit?

commit 6bbdce5ac755e3b3cdcf9bb9fdbcc2af78ad34d0
Author: John W. Linville <linville@tuxdriver.com>
Date:   Tue Jan 2 21:22:05 2007 -0500

    [PATCH] softmac: avoid assert in ieee80211softmac_wx_get_rate

    Unconfigured bcm43xx device can hit an assert() during wx_get_rate
    queries.  This is because bcm43xx calls ieee80211softmac_start late
    (i.e. during open instead of probe).

       bcm43xx_net_open ->
          bcm43xx_init_board ->
             bcm43xx_select_wireless_core ->
                ieee80211softmac_start

    Fix is to check that device is running before completing
    ieee80211softmac_wx_get_rate.

    Signed-off-by: John W. Linville <linville@tuxdriver.com>

It is in linux-2.6, wireless-2.6, and wireless-dev.  If you don't
want to use those trees, you should be able to apply the patch to
the tree you are using.

Hth!

John
-- 
John W. Linville
linville@tuxdriver.com