Re: 802.11 Association not noticed by device

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If the GPRS Radio is turned off (device set to flight mode) the 802.11
interface is then used. It does indeed have a DHCP IP address assigned
to it. I've learned that the cause of my problem is The Connection
Manager. Because it didn't create the association it will not "allow"
other apps to use it. It always wants to create a GPRS connection. It
seems the solution is to either somehow tell it that there's an 802.11
connection up, or get rid of Connection Manager entirely and replace
it. That's where we are. Stuck. No one can figure out how to disable
connection manager and still have IE and other apps work and we also
cannot figure out how to tell it that there's a valid 802.11
connection.


Dan McCarty wrote:
One other thing I forgot to mention: is your wifi adapter successfully
ARP'ing out? This is a problem that has the sam symptoms as yours
(successful association, can't pass traffic).

-Dan.


Dan McCarty wrote:
I worked on a project that used multiple interfaces and multiple IP
addresses on one interface. It was harrowing. It took a team of a
half dozen guys--some extremely proficient in networking--to figure out
the root cause. The problem is that you're coming up against the
boundaries of what MS tests CE against, so while your setup may be
valid, you could very easily run into a problem no one has seen before.

If I've read your post correctly, it sounds like your problem boils
down to:
1. How do you get the device to prioritize one adapter over the other
2. Why did this work when based on CE42 but not 50?

I can't help you with #2, but here are some things to try with #1:
- Try the Network Utilities--Ping, Ipconfig, Route? What does your
routing table look like?
- You say your AP association is "perfectly valid," but is it really?
Have you authenticated and received a DHCP address and can pass
traffic? Have you verified this with a wireless packet sniffer? Can
you test your AP connection with WEP disabled?
- Are you receiving an NDISUIO message for the wifi adapter that you've
established a connection?
- Can you run the Netlog utility and see what kind of network traffic
you're producing? What's the difference betwee a 4.2 device and a 5.0
one?
- Can you run your dev env in debug mode in platform builder (or with
retail messages) and see that you're getting a valid DHCP address for
the wifi adapter? Try turning on debug zones for other modules, too:
NDIS, NDISUIO. (Also watch what happens with your setup vs. when you
have WZC enabled.)

-Dan.


Jack Maclean wrote:
Hello,

We have an application that we developed initially for Win Mobile 4.2.
This application establishes an 802.11 association when the device is
in range of "special" access points. "Special" basically means an AP is
in a database of known APs that provide the services the consumer is
authorized to use. This is for a VoIP application. This application
works well on PPC 2002 and has for over 2 years over multiple devices
in multiple countries.

After upgrading the app to support some new features in Win Mobile 5
(Pocket PC 2005), the application is still able to establish a
perfectly valid 802.11 association (valid IP address included) but when
the VoIP part of the application goes to make a connection the device
thinks that there is no available IP connection and attempts to
establish a GPRS connection. If the phone part of the device is placed
into flight mode, ie turning off the GSM radio, the device then
realizes there's an 802.11 connection and traffic is routed over it.
It is not feasible or acceptable for my application to do this in a
production environment (turn the phone off).

The application is written in C++ without.NET. We cannot use .NET since
the OEMs will not allow it mainly due to resource constraints. The
802.11 association is created with NDIS 5.1 OIDs though NDISUIO. WZC is
disabled. With WZC enabled it is not possible to control the 802.11
device, though NDISUIO or other such NDIS interfaces. Our application
cannot use Connection Manager because a part of the necessary
association process is to authenticate the access point partly though
its mac address and then a dynamic WEP key must be used that is
calculated based on various factors all of which are irrelevant to this
discussion not to mention extreeeeemy proprietary.

Again, the association to the AP is perfectly valid and it works
perfectly when the GSM radio is disabled, I don't need any help on the
process of associating with an AP. Since 802.11 associations created
with WZC work fine, ie the device doesn't think it needs to create a
GPRS connection, I'm assuming there's some IOCTL call that tells the
system there's an 802.11 connection (or some similar methods) that WZC
uses.

I understand this is because the Connection Manager is interfering. If
we could just shut it down completely that would be the ultimate
option. The OEM's that will ship our software have told us that they
are perfectly willing to have the Connection Manager disabled since our
app will be the real connection manager for the device.



Please, someone must know what the magic is here to make this all work!!

.

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