I use a compatibility mode b/g network with a US Robotics wireless router (WPA-PSK security), and an Atheros-based b/g card in my Linux box. Now when I associate a /b mode device to the network, my Linux box disassociates almost immediately. All that is logged in syslog is wpa_cli: interface ath0 DISCONNECTED NOTHING fixes this condition, no restarting net.ath0, no rebooting, except turning off or disassociating the /b mode client. This problem happens only since I upgraded madwifi-ng. With madwifi-ng-0.0.1531, the overall speed dropped when associating a /b mode client, but everything went on working. I'm now downgrading to 0.0.1531, since I didn't notice any problems with it, but I'm still concerned about what causes this trouble. I guess it would be nice to upgrade sometime, but only after this issue is fixed.
What the holy cow is going on with this bug? Am I the only one on Earth who has experienced it? I mean, for me it was rather consistent. And now the old madwifi-ng versions got removed.
If there is a known workaround, it is not critical. While I may be the maintainer, I do not have the hardware, I have semi-easy access to it (a co-worker has a card that I can use from time to time.) I haven't seen anyone else report this, so yes, it IS possible that you are the only one experiencing this. If you would care to donate the hardware so that I could better deal with bugs with madwifi-ng in a more timely manner to your satisfaction, then I would be greatly appreciative. As it stands, I cannot reproduce this, and no one else has seemed to.
I finally found a solution. Applying the madwifi-association-fix.patch fixes the problem, and seemingly improves the stability of the association greatly. I use a US Robotics wireless router as an access point, with WPA-PSK by wpa-supplicant. As this patch does seem to cause trouble for some (bug#146459), but is needed in other setups, I suggest using a new USE flag for toggling it until it becomes unnecessary.
