Qualcomm Wifi Adapter problems on 802.11r WLANs after KBKB5032288 update

Question

Dear Microsoft,

I'm a local IT guy at an university in Belgium and we had 4 students with exactly the same problem after this update. They can't connect to our wifi-network. Only a removal of this windows update fixes the problem at the moment.

All the wifi adapters are Qualcomm ones.

We have two wifi networks one that has 802.11r (Fast BSS transition) enabled and one where it is disabled. The students only have this problem on the enabled Fast BSS Transition wifi network.

I've also heard that two other universities, one in the Netherlands have exactly the same problems with the Qualcomm Adapters and this update.

Could you look into this?

Kind regards,

KevinDP

Answer 1

The KB5033375 for Windows 11 did not fix the problem.

Answer 2

Hi

We have also found this the 4 way handshake to the AP is failing, so after all the authentication has succeeded

Reason:element in 4-Way Handshake different from (Re)Association Request/Probe Response/Beacon frame ReasonCode: 17

For us was only when we were doing 802.1x

and also same as you uninstall update and it works again, and we only have the issue with qualcomm wireless cards

I can repreduce the Wi-Fi problem on a WPA2 Enterprise SSID together with 802.11r. After installing KBKB5032288 several (also new) wlan adapters will no longer come online after this. As soon as 802.11r is disabled, the clients come back online.

tested ipacted devices: (Windows 11, 23h2)

-MediaTek Wi-Fi 6 MT7921

-Netgear A8000 Wi-Fi 6E (1.0.0.108) = MediaTek(!)

-Qualcomm QCA61x4A (versie 12.0.0.1016)

KB5033375 does not fix the problem.

Many reports are received from other universities (educause). This is a very big problem and has a lot of impact. The fastest workaround is now to disable 802.11r on the SSID, but this is certainly not desirable due to... roaming issues than.

My guess is that the problem lies in the 4 Way handshack. Things seem to be going wrong in M2 "(PA] 802.1x 'timeoutEvt' Timer expired for station (MAC address) and for message = M2"

Message 2 (M2): The client uses the ANonce, its own Supplicant Nonce (SNonce), the Pairwise Master Key (PMK), and other parameters to calculate the PTK. It sends the SNonce and the Message Integrity Code (MIC) to the access point.

Upon completion of the 4-Way Handshake, both the wireless client and the access point have derived the PTK and are ready to exchange data using the derived temporary keys.

In the context of 802.11r (Fast BSS Transition or Fast Roaming), the Supplicant Nonce (sNonce) plays a significant role during the 4-Way Handshake, where a new Pairwise Transient Key (PTK) is derived. The sNonce is a random value generated by the wireless client (supplicant) and is used in conjunction with other parameters during the calculation of the PTK.

Answer 3

Hi

We have also found this the 4 way handshake to the AP is failing, so after all the authentication has succeeded

Reason:element in 4-Way Handshake different from (Re)Association Request/Probe Response/Beacon frame ReasonCode: 17

For us was only when we were doing 802.1x

and also same as you uninstall update and it works again, and we only have the issue with qualcomm wireless cards

Answer 4

Hi Ravi,

Thank you for your reply, but the Qualcomm wifi adapters already have the latest drivers.

It also seems that it also does not work anymore with KB5033375 from yesterday.

Answer 5

There have been no configuration changes to our wireless network. Oh and I'm team Android. lol