[IOXperts Wireless-Discuss] Problem eject/reinserting

[IOXperts Support]

On Nov 6, 2003, at 4:14 PM, Mohammad A. Haque wrote:
> Interesting item to note is that when I eject the card, the interface 
> doesn't go away (as seen by running /sbin/ifconfig). I think it's 
> supposed to go away when the card is ejected, correct?

It should, although early versions of MacOS X had problems with tearing 
down the interface, and even Jaguar and Panther occasionally get a bit 
cranky about it.

> Kernel panic log is pasted after the system.log messages.

Thanks, that helps quite a bit.

> If the driver does happen reattach the card works fine but with some 
> other problems. As noted above, the interface doesn't go away when the 
> card is ejected. When this happens, the addresses the card was using 
> doesn't seem to get released either. This is probably related to the 
> DHCP release failure from configd in system.log. The issue is that the 
> card now has two addresses. One from the first time it was inserted 
> and requested an address and another from this time. The card is now 
> listening on both IP addresses. But wait there's more! If I happen to 
> eject the card, reinsert it, and get the driver to attach again ... 
> yup, it now has three addresses.

Hmm.  We don't control how the OS is allocating addresses (we just tell 
it when the link goes up and down).

> Some of these issues might be related to OS X itself. I am an ADC 
> member and can file a detailed bug. However, I would like to first 
> determine if the problem is with the drivers or PCMCIA subsystem 
> before doing so.

At first glance, it looks like a problem with the network subsystem.  
MacOS X still doesn't really believe in removable network interfaces, 
but I'd thought we'd worked around all of the problem spots.  Evidently 
not.

 From your log, it looks like what is happening is:

- card is ejected
- we inform the OS that the link is down
- MacOS tries to release the DHCP address, which fails (since it can't 
can't transmit the release packet)
- MacOS does not remove the address from the interface, since the 
release failed
- Since the interface is still "active", it doesn't get removed

and complications ensue from there.

> This looks like a lot of information. Let me know if anything is 
> unclear or if more information is needed.

This was a very good bug report, and gives us something to work with 
and a place to start looking.  If I can't reproduce it, we may contact 
you for more info or to test a potential fix.


Amanda Walker
Sr. Software Engineer
IOXperts, Inc.