Venue 8 Pro Wifi Failure Log

Hi! I have:

• Dell Venue 8 Pro 5830 BIOS Version A09 (Yes)
• Intel Atom Z3000 Series Driver Version 603.9600.2067.27988,A05 (Yes)
• Intel Platform Driver Installer Version 603.9600.2067.26305,A03 (Yes)
• Dell Wireless 1538 WiFi+BT Driver Version 3.7.2.59,A04 (Yes)
• Dell Wireless 1538 WAPI Application Version 2.0.0.7, A00 (Never explicity installed/updated, since I think this is a China-exclusive wireless standard)

Just to confirm though, could you list the items+versions in device manager (or just file pathnames to check the version properties) that demonstrate the installation of each of these (especially the platform driver)? For example, msinfo32.exe shows the BIOS is A09, the  device manager entry for the wifi adapter shows the proper version, etc. http://i.imgur.com/A3B5uVl.png http://i.imgur.com/fXLrwo4.png

As for the issue itself, it's relatively frequent and has no relation to standby. It tends to drop during sustained network activity, such as youtube viewing/streaming, downloads, etc. Although it happens less frequently with the changes I made to the router settings mentioned above, the connection still drops; the only difference is it can more easily be restarted by simply toggling the network off/on from the charms bar.

Before, and even now on occasion, the driver/firmware would fail and write the log mentioned in the first post and the adapter would still show as active in device manager without a yellow bang. It would show the network as unavailable from the charms bar, however (the first post has additional details). If lucky, it could be brought back online by disabling/enabling the adapter in device manager. This isn't guaranteed to work, though, and often the device appears with the yellow bang ONLY AFTER attempting to restart it. In these cases, additional adapter restart attempts may be required to revive it. However, sometimes one or more full system restarts is necessary.

I think we would love to see this issue permanently resolved. Thanks for your time!

Note: I've made several edits to this post to add more detail, so it's a bit different from the original that would have been sent in the notification email.

Appreciate your detailed input, it's very helpful. You can probably disregard WAPI even though it's offered on the US support site. I haven't tested throughput yet on the tablet but will now that you mention it. Most of the symptoms I have been looking into have to do with Wi-Fi/Sleep on reletively low throughput devices and specifically the following symptoms:

• Issue may occur when the unit is being moved to different access points during sleep
• Wireless card may not appear in Windows upon resume from standby or show Error Code 43

The Dell Wireless 1538 WiFi+BT Driver Version 3.7.2.59, A04 was supposed to address the above symptoms and customers have reported that it did but if anyone is still having the symptoms with this current version, I'd like to look into it further.

Drops during network activity may have a diferent root cause. In checking the C:\AR6K_FW_Recovery.log on the Venue 8 Pro I am evaluating shows " Recovery Reason: Target Association Failure" which could be an acess point issue, I'll need to look into it a little more to be certain. 

I can confirm that with the latest wifi driver, I've never experienced the network being disabled upon resuming from connected standby if it was operational beforehand. The current "Control Endpoint TX Hang" log issue occurs exclusively during active use. 

One method to repro more consistently might be to get the Hyper youtube app from the windows store, ensure it's set to receive at least 720p or higher video and just watch a playlist of videos. After a while (as short as ~5min or as long as half a day), one of the videos will be forced to pause due to the loss of connectivity. At this point, you can check the network status from the charms bar to see if it changes to unavailable (the actual log issue here) or limited. When it does change to unavailable, most, if not all, nearby routers will not be found in the access point list. At this point, you'll be unable to toggle the wifi switch, as it will just revert to On without taking any action. Finally, a new entry will have been appended to C:\AR6K_FW_Recovery.log for the TX hang issue.

Thank you for looking into this!

Latest log instance from earlier this week:

Firmware Recovery #001

Firmware Version: 0x31C87571

Recovery Start: 2015-01-01 23:13:21.485

Recovery Reason: Control Endpoint TX Hang

Information:

Control Endpoint (1): Credit = 0, Queue Depth = 17

Last Credit Consummed: 2015-01-01 23:13:14.427

Last Credit Returned: 2015-01-01 23:13:08.614

Recovery Finish: 2015-01-01 23:13:27.251

Recovery Status: ERROR (0xFFFFFFFF)

It doesn't sound like you have the same issue I've been looking into but I can test by streaming some video. If I can reproduce the issue, I'll post up. Problem is there are so many variables with wireless that it's hard to pin point the actual root cause. Is anyone else experiencing wireless drops during use? 

Yes, I think it's a separate issue, and is likely the underlying cause of most recent v8p wifi issue reports. I think everyone in this thread has seen the same log issue as I have as they were able to confirm the same log error (TX hang), along with several on the forum thread I linked in the first post, and more in the other active wifi thread here. Here is the current network setup:

802.11n-only mode, WPA2-only mode, AES

Wifi Channel Fixed (not Auto): 1, Width Fixed: 20hz, Disable Short GI

Transmit Power: High, Beacon Interval: 100ms, Router MTU: 1500 bytes

RTS Threshold: 2346, DTIM Interval: 1, WMM Enabled

I've found that it fails more frequently with Auto (1-11) channel id and Auto (20/40hz) channel width with Short GI enabled. Bluetooth has been disabled 99.9% of the time (haven't enabled it in months).

Have you run any type of packet traces? If the connection is dropping during use, it may be helpful. Here's the steps for NETSH Logging, it's pretty easy just remember to start the service, capture the issue then stop the service.

NETSH Logging Test Steps:

o First create a directory C:\wlogs

o Open a Command prompt in Windows.  For this it might be required to right click the command prompt and choose ‘run as administrator’.   Then enter the next two commands at the prompt: 
• netsh ras set tracing * enable
----------------------
• Netsh  trace start scenario=wlan traceFile=c:\wlogs\wlan001.etl capture=yes persistent=yes maxsize=250 report=yes filemode=append
----------------------
o Now, reproduce the issue as seen in the normal working environment.   If the issue happens more than once, or if there is a good/bad portion of time, that is ok.  Just take a few notes on what is happening during the time of the log collection.  For example, I started the tracing, then went into a web browser.  After a common browsing task like google news, I lost the connection after a few minutes.  The connection came back after some time, or some user action like reset the wlan card, logging off/on, re-boot, etc. 

o After the issue is reproduced,  disable tracing at the cmd prompt with 'netsh trace stop'
o Collect all the logs from c:\wlogs directory, Zip the logs/files.

o Collect logs from the %systemroot%\tracing directory (typically C:\windows\tracing) for any logs from the date(s) of testing.  Zip the logs/files.

o If you’re going to run multiple tests, it is best to choose a different .etl file name (just increment the wlan001 to wlan002, 003, etc).  Also for the files in c:\windows\tracing – delete these in between test runs.

Hi DELL-Steveb,

I am highly doubtful you will glean any useful information from a packet trace. I can reproduce the problem with no traffic, wifi slider turned off in Windows 8.1. The wifi will crash when not even connected to an AP if you are using the Bluetooth radio. The exact same log will be produced as mentioned at the beginning of this post. Once you crash, even to recover Bluetooth you must disable and re enable the wifi adapter. When using Bluetooth only and the wifi adapter enabled but wifi slider turned off, it will take many more days for the problem to occur.

You can disable the wifi adapter completely, then at least the Bluetooth will work correctly when connected via Ethernet. You can not simply move the wifi slider in windows 8.1, as the adapter will remain enabled allowing the DV8 to crash.

Again, the issue can be reproduced with no TCP traffic going across it the wifi adapter.

Also, as Nobody31 mentioned, this issue is quite easy to reproduce on your side, just start streaming continuously until it happens - it will happen.

Understood. I had thought that the issue only occurs during periods of high network traffic. Thanks for the updated info.

My Venue won't wake from sleep mode of when the WIFI adapter fails. I have to do a hard shutdown to get turn it back on.

I have the same problem with my Venue 8 Pro.

Firmware Recovery #001
Firmware Version: 0x31C8755A
Recovery Start: 2014-12-23 19:41:01.990
Recovery Reason: Control Endpoint TX Hang
Information:
 Control Endpoint (1): Credit = 0, Queue Depth = 0
  Last Credit Consummed: 2014-12-23 19:40:55.064
  Last Credit Returned: 2014-12-23 19:39:55.066
Recovery Finish: 2014-12-23 19:41:07.861
Recovery Status: ERROR (0xFFFFFFFF)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Firmware Recovery #001
Firmware Version: 0x31C8755A
Recovery Start: 2014-12-23 20:24:14.023
Recovery Reason: Control Endpoint TX Hang
Information:
 Control Endpoint (1): Credit = 0, Queue Depth = 0
  Last Credit Consummed: 2014-12-23 20:24:07.756
  Last Credit Returned: 2014-12-23 20:23:43.156
Recovery Finish: 2014-12-23 20:24:19.786
Recovery Status: ERROR (0xFFFFFFFF)

BIOS: A09

Atom driver: 603.9600.2067.27988

WiFi driver: 3.7.2.59655

WiFi security; WPA2 Personal AES

Bluetooth; On

32gb micro sdxc

Has anyone enabled the

WLAN-Autoconfig Analytic and Debug logs to see if there are any notable events?

Here's a walkthrough for windows 7 but the Windows 8/8.1 process should be the same.

http://bit.ly/1AUus0n

WLAN AutoConfig service failed to connect to a wireless network.

Network Adapter: Dell Wireless 1538 802.11 a/g/n Adapter

Interface GUID: {13fee1f8-5dd5-48de-bc39-5c24c1081017}

Connection Mode: Automatic connection with a profile

Profile Name: HOME-2EA2

SSID: HOME-2EA2

BSS Type: Infrastructure

Failure Reason:An internal failure prevented the operation from completing.

RSSI: 255

I am having the same problem with my vp8 if I know that this was a problem I would never have bought  it. I am very disappointed with the tablet. 

I messed around with the windows updates and my WiFi has been stable for 2 days.