I am running Vistumber on a Dell E6500 and have used both the internal Dell Wireless 1397 WLAN Mini-Card and a Cisco Aironet AIR-CB21AG-A-K9 Cardbus Adapter. For some SSIDs that are on the same AP, I get a nice steady graph. For others I get graphs that are constantly changing from something like 87% Signal to 0%. The Active / Dead flip flops about every other second. Those SSIDs are using WAP2 and I believe are not broadcasting their SSIDs while the ones that stay steady are WEP encrypted and broadcasting their SSIDs.
I have tried this with connecting to those networks and disconnected with the same results.
Is this a known issue with WPA2 encrypted networks, especially those that may not be broadcasting an SSID?
We are also using AirMagnet to check this and it does not show the fluctuation in its graph.
I can submit screenshots if needed, but the WPA2 networks are pretty much /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ versus --------------------.
Vistumber showing SSIDs Active/Dead
-
ACalcutt
- Vistumbler / TechIdiots Admin
- Posts: 1302
- Joined: Sun Oct 21, 2007 6:50 pm
- Location: Rutland, MA
- Contact:
Re: Vistumber showing SSIDs Active/Dead
My friend(pferland) has the same Dell wireless card and he has the same problem. It seems to be caused by vistumbler refreshing networks. (see http://forum.techidiots.net/forum/viewt ... ?f=8&t=198)
You can turn off "Auto Refresh Networks", but this will hurt your results a lot because netsh does not update fast enough without it on.
You can also raise the refresh time(Settings -> Auto Save / Auto Sort -> Auto Refresh Networks) if you want to limit how often it drops to dead. This effect seemed to take place in older versions that used window automation to refresh networks instead of native wifi, but it only refreshed every 4 seconds instead of the 1 second it does now.
Does it have the same problem when you change your interface to the cisco adapter? My Intel 3945ABG card does not have this problem, so I'm surprised a good cisco card has this problem.
You can turn off "Auto Refresh Networks", but this will hurt your results a lot because netsh does not update fast enough without it on.
You can also raise the refresh time(Settings -> Auto Save / Auto Sort -> Auto Refresh Networks) if you want to limit how often it drops to dead. This effect seemed to take place in older versions that used window automation to refresh networks instead of native wifi, but it only refreshed every 4 seconds instead of the 1 second it does now.
Does it have the same problem when you change your interface to the cisco adapter? My Intel 3945ABG card does not have this problem, so I'm surprised a good cisco card has this problem.
-
ACalcutt
- Vistumbler / TechIdiots Admin
- Posts: 1302
- Joined: Sun Oct 21, 2007 6:50 pm
- Location: Rutland, MA
- Contact:
Re: Vistumber showing SSIDs Active/Dead
Just to let everyone know I added a feature in Vistumbler 9.4 Beta 3 to try and help fix this problem
I got a Intel AGN card and it had the problem where it would go active/dead repetedly. I looked into what was happening and found that every other time netsh returned data it only had SSID, AUTH., ENCR., and no other information (Like BSSID, Signal). This meant that every other scan had no data and marked everything dead.
To fix this I have added a setting to change how many seconds to wait before marking an access point dead. (Settings -> Vistumbler Settings -->Time to wait before marking AP dead). This setting makes vistumbler wait to set the access point 0% signal for the amount of time specified(from the last time the access point was updated).
2 seconds seems to work the best for my Intel AGN card, so that is what i made the default.
The other N card I got today (RNX-EasyN1) had the other similar problem where only WPA networks would go Active/Dead. This also seems to fix that issue. 1 second seemed to work well for this card.
If anyone has a card that does not have this problem (like my old Intel 3945 ABG) you can set this setting to 0 seconds and it will function as it did before (If netsh doesn't return data than mark everything dead instanty)
I got a Intel AGN card and it had the problem where it would go active/dead repetedly. I looked into what was happening and found that every other time netsh returned data it only had SSID, AUTH., ENCR., and no other information (Like BSSID, Signal). This meant that every other scan had no data and marked everything dead.
To fix this I have added a setting to change how many seconds to wait before marking an access point dead. (Settings -> Vistumbler Settings -->Time to wait before marking AP dead). This setting makes vistumbler wait to set the access point 0% signal for the amount of time specified(from the last time the access point was updated).
2 seconds seems to work the best for my Intel AGN card, so that is what i made the default.
The other N card I got today (RNX-EasyN1) had the other similar problem where only WPA networks would go Active/Dead. This also seems to fix that issue. 1 second seemed to work well for this card.
If anyone has a card that does not have this problem (like my old Intel 3945 ABG) you can set this setting to 0 seconds and it will function as it did before (If netsh doesn't return data than mark everything dead instanty)