Excessive "Invalid misc"??

I am running linux 2.4.29 with ndiswrapper around the
windows wireless card driver.

Things work good. But when I run "iwconfig wlan0", I get
what seem to be excessive "Invalid misc". For example,
the system has been up for 28 minutes, and I get the
following

> iwconfig wlan0

wlan0 IEEE 802.11g ESSID:"xxxxx"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.457 GHz Access Point:
Bit Rate:54 Mb/s Tx-Power:25 dBm
RTS thr:2347 B Fragment thr:2346 B
Power Managementff
Link Quality:100/100 Signal level:-61 dBm Noise level:-256 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:275 Invalid misc:114879 Missed beacon:0


Is this overly strange? Is it something I should worry about? Or
would it just be the 2.4Ghz telephones which I have around the
house creating some invalid packets?

Any information would be appreciated.

--

Best regards,

Stephen Jenuth
((E-Mail Removed))

Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.

pgp/gpg public key available at http://www.keyserver.net

On Mon, 21 Mar 2005 23:31:23 GMT, Stephen Jenuth
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>I am running linux 2.4.29 with ndiswrapper around the
>windows wireless card driver.
>
>Things work good. But when I run "iwconfig wlan0", I get
>what seem to be excessive "Invalid misc". For example,
>the system has been up for 28 minutes, and I get the
>following
>
>> iwconfig wlan0
>
>wlan0 IEEE 802.11g ESSID:"xxxxx"
> Mode:Managed Frequency:2.457 GHz Access Point:
> Bit Rate:54 Mb/s Tx-Power:25 dBm
> RTS thr:2347 B Fragment thr:2346 B
> Power Managementff
> Link Quality:100/100 Signal level:-61 dBm Noise level:-256 dBm
> Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
> Tx excessive retries:275 Invalid misc:114879 Missed beacon:0
>
>
>Is this overly strange? Is it something I should worry about? Or
>would it just be the 2.4Ghz telephones which I have around the
>house creating some invalid packets?
>
>Any information would be appreciated.

114,000 misc errors might be normal if its a small percentage of total
traffic or if you're in an interference infested environment.

Dive into the proc file system and see what it calls "misc". This one
is running HostAP so it might be somewhat different from yours. I
don't have a Linux client system handy.

# iwconfig wlan0

wlan0 IEEE 802.11b ESSID:"GetLost"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.437GHz Access Point:
00:40:05:ca:e0:42
Bit Rate:11Mb/s Sensitivity=1/3
Retry min limit:8 RTS thrff Fragment thrff
Encryption keydeleted) Security mode:restricted
Power Managementff
Link Quality:48/70 Signal level:-45 dBm Noise level:-90 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:5 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:7 Invalid misc:7601 Missed beacon:0


# cd /proc/net/hostap/wlan0
# cat stats

TxUnicastFrames=12315
TxMulticastframes=0
TxFragments=14779
TxUnicastOctets=2145645
TxMulticastOctets=0
TxDeferredTransmissions=3001
TxSingleRetryFrames=211
TxMultipleRetryFrames=80
TxRetryLimitExceeded=4
TxDiscards=0
RxUnicastFrames=5784
RxMulticastFrames=137125
RxFragments=151843
RxUnicastOctets=8811129
RxMulticastOctets=7904751
RxFCSErrors=7603
RxDiscardsNoBuffer=11
TxDiscardsWrongSA=0
RxDiscardsWEPUndecryptable=5
RxMessageInMsgFragments=0
RxMessageInBadMsgFragments=0


--
# Jeff Liebermann 150 Felker St #D Santa Cruz CA 95060
# 831.336.2558 voice http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
# (E-Mail Removed)
# (E-Mail Removed) AE6KS

Its now been up 24 hours.

# cat stats
signal_level=-41 dBm
tx_frames=77565
tx_multicast_frames=4
tx_failed=0
tx_retry=1903
tx_multi_rerty=422
tx_rtss_success=0
tx_rtss_fail=0
ack_fail=2562
frame_duplicates=60
rx_frames=0
rx_multicast_frames=1520204
fcs_errors=2639360

It looks like there are a loarge number of fcs_errors.

However, the connection seems to work pretty good. Is there
something I should be looking for?

--

Best regards,

Stephen Jenuth
((E-Mail Removed))

Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.

pgp/gpg public key available at http://www.keyserver.net

On Tue, 22 Mar 2005 22:28:39 GMT, Stephen Jenuth
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>Its now been up 24 hours.
>
># cat stats
>signal_level=-41 dBm
>tx_frames=77565
>tx_multicast_frames=4
>tx_failed=0
>tx_retry=1903
>tx_multi_rerty=422
>tx_rtss_success=0
>tx_rtss_fail=0
>ack_fail=2562
>frame_duplicates=60
>rx_frames=0
>rx_multicast_frames=1520204
>fcs_errors=2639360
>
>It looks like there are a loarge number of fcs_errors.

fcs_errors are packets received with CRC errors. That's usually
caused by some form of interference with co-channel users.

Please don't truncate the /proc/.../wlan0 output.

If you're using wireless tools, try the following incantations and see
if there's anything displayed that's useful.
iwconfig (
iwspy (link quality per node)
iwlist (list of connected devices with speed, errors, etc)
iwpriv (permissions)

>However, the connection seems to work pretty good. Is there
>something I should be looking for?

How many megabloats per second thruput is "pretty good"? Numbers, not
vague prose.

Methinks you might get better answers in a Linux specific wireless
group, forum, BLOG, or mailing list.



--
# Jeff Liebermann 150 Felker St #D Santa Cruz CA 95060
# 831.336.2558 voice http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
# (E-Mail Removed)
# (E-Mail Removed) AE6KS