Brother HL 2270DW Printer and AP-STA-POSSIBLE-PSK-MISMATC

Installing and Using OpenWrt
1

Hi all,

I am new to OpenWRT but really enjoying it so far.

My Apple Airport Extreme died last week, and I've had a TP-Link Archer C59 v2 sitting around with OpenWRT installed on it for years waiting for such an occasion, so I got it set up.

So far, I'm loving it. The configuration is incomparably better.

I am having one problem -- my printer, which has worked fine via WiFi for years, won't maintain a connection.

The printer is a Brother HL 2270DW. It's connecting to my 2.4 WPA2 network via WPS, which I got set up after a little Googling (and only leave enabled for the duration of establishing a connection -- unfortunately I have no other way to establish the connection).

After the connection is established, the printer prints a page confirming the connection details, and then it successfully prints anything in the print queue, and soon thereafter loses its connection and cannot reestablish. If I go through the WPS setup again, it connects and we go through the same cycle.

It is sitting about 4 feet away from the router / AP, so it shouldn't be a signal strength issue.

I've tried a bunch of combinations of WPA2 -> WPA, legacy mode, legacy rates to see if it was a problem there, but the behavior stays the same (and I would think that these issues should prevent a connection from establishing at all, and since it is able to connect and print documents that seems less likely).

I've done a factory reset on the router to see if having the old AP stored was a problem (the new AP uses the same SSID and passphrase for now). No difference.

When I ssh in, logread -f shows me a continuous scroll of the following (with the printer's MAC address redacted).

Tue Oct 26 17:05:10 2021 daemon.info hostapd: wlan1: STA REDACTED IEEE 802.11: authenticated
Tue Oct 26 17:05:10 2021 daemon.info hostapd: wlan1: STA REDACTED IEEE 802.11: associated (aid 9)
Tue Oct 26 17:05:10 2021 daemon.notice hostapd: wlan1: AP-STA-POSSIBLE-PSK-MISMATCH REDACTED
Tue Oct 26 17:05:12 2021 daemon.notice hostapd: wlan1: AP-STA-POSSIBLE-PSK-MISMATCH REDACTED
Tue Oct 26 17:05:13 2021 daemon.notice hostapd: wlan1: AP-STA-POSSIBLE-PSK-MISMATCH REDACTED
Tue Oct 26 17:05:16 2021 daemon.info hostapd: wlan1: STA REDACTED IEEE 802.11: authenticated
Tue Oct 26 17:05:16 2021 daemon.info hostapd: wlan1: STA REDACTED IEEE 802.11: associated (aid 9)
Tue Oct 26 17:05:16 2021 daemon.notice hostapd: wlan1: AP-STA-POSSIBLE-PSK-MISMATCH REDACTED
Tue Oct 26 17:05:17 2021 daemon.notice hostapd: wlan1: AP-STA-POSSIBLE-PSK-MISMATCH REDACTED
Tue Oct 26 17:05:18 2021 daemon.notice hostapd: wlan1: AP-STA-POSSIBLE-PSK-MISMATCH REDACTED
Tue Oct 26 17:05:19 2021 daemon.notice hostapd: wlan1: AP-STA-POSSIBLE-PSK-MISMATCH REDACTED

Does anyone have any suggestions on how I can get this printer to maintain a connection?

Thanks in advance for any help, I think the printer is the last step in getting the wife approval factor.

Hostname OpenWrt
Model TP-Link Archer C59 v2
Architecture Qualcomm Atheros QCA956X ver 1 rev 0
Firmware Version OpenWrt 21.02.0 r16279-5cc0535800 / LuCI openwrt-21.02 branch git-21.285.75922-4fd8c83
Kernel Version 5.4.143
Local Time 2021-10-26 16:59:19
Uptime 3h 57m 31s
Load Average 0.03, 0.08, 0.02
2

Run cat /etc/config/wireless, remove the Key info, and then post the results.

3

You'll see a third wireless network -- I'm working on getting a guest network set up, not working quite yet. These printer issues predate me starting work on the guest network.

root@OpenWrt:~# cat /etc/config/wireless

config wifi-device 'radio0'
	option type 'mac80211'
	option hwmode '11a'
	option path 'pci0000:00/0000:00:00.0'
	option htmode 'VHT80'
	option disabled '0'
	option channel 'auto'
	option cell_density '0'
	option country 'US'

config wifi-iface 'default_radio0'
	option device 'radio0'
	option network 'lan'
	option mode 'ap'
	option key 'REDACTED'
	option ssid 'REDACTED'
	option encryption 'psk2'
	option ft_over_ds '1'
	option mobility_domain '7890'
	option ft_psk_generate_local '1'
	option ieee80211r '1'

config wifi-device 'radio1'
	option type 'mac80211'
	option hwmode '11g'
	option path 'platform/ahb/18100000.wmac'
	option channel 'auto'
	option cell_density '0'
	option country 'US'
	option htmode 'HT20'

config wifi-iface 'default_radio1'
	option device 'radio1'
	option network 'lan'
	option mode 'ap'
	option key 'REDACTED'
	option ssid 'REDACTED'
	option wps_pushbutton '1'
	option ft_over_ds '1'
	option mobility_domain '7890'
	option ft_psk_generate_local '1'
	option ieee80211r '1'
	option encryption 'psk2'

config wifi-iface 'wifinet2'
	option ssid 'REDACTED'
	option device 'radio1'
	option mode 'ap'
	option isolate '1'
	option key 'REDACTED'
	option network 'guest'
	option encryption 'psk2'
4

WPS is a security risk.

The printer needs to provide the same credentials you specified in the wireless interface.

I would configure the network connection on the printer manually.

You can download the Network User's Guide from Brother here...

I would also take the channel selection off of auto, and use 1, 6, or 11, whichever is being used less frequently in your area.

5 Ghz -

iwinfo wlan0 scan | grep Channel

2.4 Ghz -

iwinfo wlan1 scan | grep Channel

Finally, try setting the Maximum Transmit Power to 20, and then test.

5

Thanks for your thoughts!

Correct, this is why I only allowed it for 30 seconds or so for the printer to join. At least that is my understanding -- I have to run hostapd_cli -i wlan1 wps_pbc for it to temporarily enable WPS, and outside of the brief timeframe while it is active, it is not posing a security risk. I live in a rural area with only 1 neighbor nearby, so I think this is an acceptable risk in this circumstance if I've understood it correctly.

You can download the Network User's Guide from Brother here...

Thanks for the edit! I had been referring to the user guide, I hadn't noticed there was a separate networking manual. This led me to the webapp (which I had no idea existed), which I could access via ethernet connection to configure the wireless.

It looks like the wireless settings had channel 11 hardcoded (I'm not used to wireless clients having to specify the channel?); it so happens that channel 11 also has the fewest neighbors, so I set it in OpenWRT and the connection now seems stable.

As noted this may have been the trick. Just curious, I had figured that auto would be the best, as I anticipated there would be some logic about the number of neighboring stations and their signal strength leading to automatically choosing the best channel. Is this not the case?

Thank again for your help!

6

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