From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-path: Received: from mail-wi0-f178.google.com ([209.85.212.178]:63107 "EHLO mail-wi0-f178.google.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751459Ab2JFVoT (ORCPT ); Sat, 6 Oct 2012 17:44:19 -0400 Received: by mail-wi0-f178.google.com with SMTP id hr7so2135751wib.1 for ; Sat, 06 Oct 2012 14:44:18 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <5070A61B.6070903@googlemail.com> (sfid-20121006_234449_639593_5BBD64C8) Date: Sat, 06 Oct 2012 23:43:55 +0200 From: Sven Barth MIME-Version: 1.0 To: linux-wireless@vger.kernel.org Subject: RT2500 and hard block Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Sender: linux-wireless-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: Hello together! I'm the owner of a 7 year old notebook with a RT2500 chipset. As I use the computer mostly stationary as a "desktop replacement" I'm normally using a wired network connection, but sometimes the connection to the router (using powerline) chokes up and I resort to a wireless connection. Now since some time I have the problem that I can't use my wireless connection anymore, because the wireless device is reported as hard blocked by the rfkill subsystem. Toggling the wireless button on the laptop does not change anything. So I googled around and hit this forum post https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=147906 . As I'm using ArchLinux with currently a 3.5 kernel as well I had the idea to check the changes that happened in the RT2500 drivers since the branching of 3.0. I discovered the following two commits related to rfkill: http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git;a=commit;h=a396e10019eaf3809b0219c966865aaafec12630 http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git;a=commit;h=e2bc7c5f3cb8756865aa0ab140d2288f61599dda I then downloaded the source of my current kernel version and checked what state my drivers are currently in. I already have the second change, so I decided to patch the first one in as well, but that didn't change anything. After that I simply reverted the second one (but kept the first one in) and after updating the modules my device was indeed no longer hard blocked! I was also able to initiate a wireless connection (though it isn't that stable, but that isn't something new sadly... :( ). Using the hardware button now also correctly toggles the hard blocked state. So now my question is: what could be the reason that I need to revert that second commit to get my device unblocked and what could be done to fix this without breaking some other devices in the progress? If you answer, please CC me as I'm not subscribed to the list. Regards, Sven