Pinebook Pro keeps disconnecting from WFI if 802.11r Fast Transition is enabled

ARM Technical Assistance
1

I have a Mikrotik hAP ac with OpenWrt 19.07.7 and 802.11r Fast Transition enabled. Whenever I try to connect with Pinebook Pro, NetworkManager enters in a connect-disconnect loop. Once Fast Transition is disabled, WIFI connects.

May 20 00:25:25 lowry-pb NetworkManager[2005]: <info>  [1621463125.0945] device (wlan0): supplicant interface state: disconnected -> scanning
May 20 00:25:25 lowry-pb NetworkManager[2005]: <info>  [1621463125.0947] device (p2p-dev-wlan0): supplicant management interface state: disconnected -> scanning
May 20 00:25:27 lowry-pb NetworkManager[2005]: <info>  [1621463127.6073] device (wlan0): supplicant interface state: scanning -> associating
May 20 00:25:27 lowry-pb NetworkManager[2005]: <info>  [1621463127.6076] device (p2p-dev-wlan0): supplicant management interface state: scanning -> associating
May 20 00:25:27 lowry-pb NetworkManager[2005]: <info>  [1621463127.6806] device (wlan0): supplicant interface state: associating -> disconnected
May 20 00:25:27 lowry-pb NetworkManager[2005]: <info>  [1621463127.6809] device (p2p-dev-wlan0): supplicant management interface state: associating -> disconnected
May 20 00:25:37 lowry-pb NetworkManager[2005]: <info>  [1621463137.7010] device (wlan0): supplicant interface state: disconnected -> scanning
May 20 00:25:37 lowry-pb NetworkManager[2005]: <info>  [1621463137.7013] device (p2p-dev-wlan0): supplicant management interface state: disconnected -> scanning
May 20 00:25:40 lowry-pb NetworkManager[2005]: <info>  [1621463140.2290] device (wlan0): supplicant interface state: scanning -> associating
May 20 00:25:40 lowry-pb NetworkManager[2005]: <info>  [1621463140.2292] device (p2p-dev-wlan0): supplicant management interface state: scanning -> associating
May 20 00:25:40 lowry-pb NetworkManager[2005]: <info>  [1621463140.2900] device (wlan0): supplicant interface state: associating -> disconnected

Any idea where to start debugging?

2

I don’t have any helpful advice other than to just disable 802.11r Fast Transition. That is what I had to do to get my PineBook Pro (and maybe Pinephone) on my network.

3

The Wifi card in the PBP only support b/g/n/ac.

It does not support r.

Source: Pinebook Pro - PINE64

4

To be fair, I had no problems with the Pinebook Pro when using 802.11r, which is the kind of option you find on mesh WiFi networks. However, my PinePhone was showing the kind of behaviour you described, so I had to turn it off.

I filed a bug report a few months back:

5

As an update to this issue, I updated my routers to OpenWRT 21.02 this week and enabled WPA3/WPA2 mixed mode. While I was at it, I decided to try out 802.11r again…It worked!
Both my Pinephone and Pinebook Pro now use WPA3 to connect which appears to not suffer from the bug described by @lowry with 802.11r enabled.

2 Likes
6

Thanks. Will update my PinePhone then give it another go.

7

Can also confirm that my PinePhone now works on networks using 802.11r.