WPA fails to renew automatically?

My BEFW11S4 sets up fine with my wife's MN-510 USB adapter. Running
unsecured, I had no problems for years. Since I activeated WPA the wife
looses the ability to connect to the internet once a day, or so.
I thought this was a DCHP problem and changed her to a static IP.
No joy.
The router is set to renew the key every hour. That does not coincide with
the failure [more like 24 hours.]
Even when she can't connect to the internet, the wife's task bar connectoid
always shows that the status is fine, signal very good, etc.
ip/release ip/renew or "repair" don't restore the connection.
WZC shows "automatic" connection to my network.
Reboot [tedious] restores connection.
Using WZC to disconnect and reconnect restores the connection when I
manually enter the WPA.
I'm guessing this is a security issue.
The disconnect/reconnect/reenter work around is OK but I'd like to make this
a bit easier.
Any clue as to why this happens?
Thank you.


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"John Keiser" <(E-Mail Removed)> hath wroth:

>My BEFW11S4 sets up fine with my wife's MN-510 USB adapter.

The BEFW11S4 does not support WPA. It will only do WEP.

>Running
>unsecured, I had no problems for years. Since I activeated WPA the wife
>looses the ability to connect to the internet once a day, or so.

If you activated WPA on your wife's computah, and it works, then
there's an excellent chance she's connecting to someone elses wireless
router.

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Jeff Liebermann (E-Mail Removed)
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

Jeff,
I respect and enjoy your insightful comments. But, indeed, the BEFW11S4
[firmware 1.52.02 and earlier, as I recall] set up screen does support WPA
[pre-shared or radius - I'm using pre-shared].
Wife is definitely logged on my router [and we share files as well].

You may mean that the MN-510 does not support WPA. It worked even with the
MS Broadband Utility [I thought the software perhaps did not support WPA]
but to eliminate that as an issue, I disabled the Utilty and rely on WZC.
Since it works fine until it disconnected, and then works fine again once I
reconnect, is it a MN-510 issue?
Thanks for the comment.



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"John Keiser" <(E-Mail Removed)> hath wroth:

>I respect and enjoy your insightful comments. But, indeed, the BEFW11S4
>[firmware 1.52.02 and earlier, as I recall] set up screen does support WPA
>[pre-shared or radius - I'm using pre-shared].

Oops. So much for my photographic memory. Sorry.
| http://www.linksysdata.com/ui/BEFW11....52.02/WPA.htm
I even have one of these routers (v4), but it's sitting in a pile
waiting to go to the local thrift shop.

>Wife is definitely logged on my router [and we share files as well].

OK, so much for that theory.

>You may mean that the MN-510 does not support WPA. It worked even with the
>MS Broadband Utility [I thought the software perhaps did not support WPA]
>but to eliminate that as an issue, I disabled the Utilty and rely on WZC.
>Since it works fine until it disconnected, and then works fine again once I
>reconnect, is it a MN-510 issue?

I don't know. The default WPA renewal interval is set by the router
at 3600 seconds (60 minutes). As you noted, it does not coincide with
the 24 hour failure interval. Therefore, it's not a re-keying
problem.

Does the wifes computer have any power save options or time on/off
options enabled? There are several to check.
1. The properties for the MN-510 under power saver.
2. The Windoze Control Panel -> Power Options.
3. BIOS "green" features for power save and timer on/off.

Re-reading the description, the failure sound like the machine went
into hibernate mode, but didn't quite recover gracefully when it
resumed. The wireless status is whatever it was before the machine
went into hybernate, but the wireless adapter can no longer
synchronize with the router. Try turning off hibernate under:
Control Panel -> Power Options -> Hibernate
and see if it run for 24 hours without problems.

Please note that I have a very dim view of the BEFW11s4 v4 router.
Until recently, my home and neighborhood wireless system was using
one. It would hang often (erratically), disconnect one user leaving
the others running just fine, hang on streaming media, and generally
drive me nuts. Power cycling the router was the only effective fix.

If you don't get any result tinkering with power save features, my
next best (and more expensive) suggestion is to substitute something
else for either the router or the MN-510. I don't know which one to
replace as both are equally old. I guess the BEFW11s4 as I consider
it a known (different) problem.

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Jeff Liebermann (E-Mail Removed)
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

Hibernate was off but I did toggle the power switch under advanced
properties for the MN-510 in Device Manager. [The power tab under general
properties was already disabled.]

I know this is "dated" stuff but it works fine for our little world. I'm in
the rural part of Oahu and didn't bother with security at all until recently
when NetStumbler showed another network nearby [but no useable signal].

I'll give it a few days.

Thank you for you kind assistance.
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All has been good for the past 2 days. I'm assuming it was the second power
switch under advanced settings which I had over-looked.
Thanks, Jeff.

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"John Keiser" <(E-Mail Removed)> hath wroth:

>All has been good for the past 2 days. I'm assuming it was the second power
>switch under advanced settings which I had over-looked.
>Thanks, Jeff.

Y'er welcome.

I forgot to suggest a simple test. Connect to your BEFW11S4 via
wireless and unplug the MN-150. Wait a few seconds and then plug it
back in. Does it re-connect normally and work as expected? I've
noticed that some devices will do this successfully, while others will
not. Based on very limited experience, I suspect that any USB device
that cannot survive such a power cycle, also cannot survive a power
save initiated power cycle. I haven't done any formal testing and
have never even tried it comparing no encryption and WPA. If you have
the time or interest, could you try the plug/unplug test with both no
encryption and WPA to see what happens?

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Jeff Liebermann (E-Mail Removed)
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558

Interesting.

Would not renew automatically or reconnect manually with WPA but no problem
if unencrypted. [The task bar connectoid shows good status in both cases
but can't get to the internet.]





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On Mon, 2 Oct 2006 12:23:28 -1000, "John Keiser"
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>Interesting.

Wierd.

>Would not renew automatically or reconnect manually with WPA but no problem
>if unencrypted. [The task bar connectoid shows good status in both cases
>but can't get to the internet.]

Ahah. That explains quite a bit. The IP stack and USB driver can
recover properly from a power cycle, but not the WPA encryption
supplicant/shim. It might be something inherent in the WPA encryption
key exchange. I might also be something inherent in Microsofts
implimentation of WPA.

That was quite illuminating. I'll try the same test on other USB
devices and see if I can find a pattern. Thanks for running the test.
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# Jeff Liebermann 150 Felker St #D Santa Cruz CA 95060
# 831-336-2558 (E-Mail Removed)
# http://802.11junk.com (E-Mail Removed)
# http://www.LearnByDestroying.com AE6KS

The disconnect problem resurfaced after a few days.
I viewed "hidden" devices in device manager and found a duplicate MS
Broadband Adapter. I uninstalled all of them and started anew.
So far [3 days] all if fine even with WPA enabled.
Possible WinXP was confused by the other "hidden" adapter or there was some
legacy settings I was unable to change without a complete reinstallation.

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