[Bug 34039] bcm43xx module is highly unstable

[Johan Brannlund]

Public bug reported:
https://launchpad.net/malone/bugs/34039

Affects: linux-source-2.6.15 (Ubuntu)
       Severity: Normal
       Priority: (none set)
         Status: Unconfirmed

Description:
I saw in some old bugs that you weren't really taking reports for this
module, but I was encouraged on #ubuntu-devel to file a bug, so here
goes...

The bcm43xx module does not work well for me, causing hard locks and
general system instability, apart from the connection itself not being
very stable. Loading the module works (with firmware from the HP 32-bit
drivers) and I can then scan, associate with an AP and transfer data.
The connection is sometimes dropped for seemingly no reason and doing
"ifdown eth1" always locks the system hard. Using ndiswrapper gives me a
stable connection.

This is on a 64-bit HP nx6125 running current Dapper (with kernel
2.6.15-17-amd64-k8).

lspci lists the chip I have as

0000:02:02.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4309 802.11a/b/g (rev 03)
        Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company: Unknown device 12f9
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 64, IRQ 11
        Memory at d0010000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=8K]

and in /etc/network/interfaces I have

iface eth1 inet dhcp
pre-up /usr/sbin/wpa_supplicant -Bw -Dwext -ieth1 -c/etc/wpa_supplicant.conf
post-down killall -q wpa_supplicant

I get quite a lot of debug spew in syslog, such as

Mar  7 12:32:59 localhost kernel: [  919.172381] SoftMAC: Recieved deauthentication packet from 00:0f:34:de:fd:01, but that network is unknown.
Mar  7 12:32:59 localhost kernel: [  919.182572] SoftMAC: Authentication response received from 00:0f:34:de:fd:01 but no queue item exists.

When I do "ifdown eth1" the last few lines I get in syslog before the
hard lock are

Mar  7 12:34:22 localhost dhclient:
Mar  7 12:34:22 localhost dhclient: Listening on LPF/eth1/00:90:4b:ea:5e:ce
Mar  7 12:34:22 localhost dhclient: Sending on   LPF/eth1/00:90:4b:ea:5e:ce
Mar  7 12:34:22 localhost dhclient: Sending on   Socket/fallback

Please let me know how I can be of further help in debugging this.