Losing connection with Atheros wifi

[noonereallycares]

I have been running a FreeBSD box for a while and using it as an AP with hostapd. My atheros-based card appears to be working and other computers can join the wireless network.

A random intervals, the routed service detects that the ath0 connection has been dropped. This causes all routes to the network to be removed. After 5-30 minutes (can vary as fair bit), the routed service identifies the link as coming back online and then everything works again.

The logs look like this:

routed[572]: interface ath0 to <router_ip> broken: in=0 ierr=217 out=0 oerr=0
kernel: arplookup <laptop_ip> failed: host is not on local network
routed[572]: interface ath0 to <router_ip> restored

Since the AP was the only features that was failing, I have been putting off rebuilding the system. However, I just spent four days building a custom 7.0 install script that contains all the required settings. I have installed on new hardware with a new atheros-based wireless card.

The problem remains.