TP-Link wireless router stopped doing DHCP on wireless

Router: TP-Link TD-w8960N

I am aware of similarity with other topics in the forum.

Router installed 10 months ago and worked without problems until yesterday.

Following an unexpected reboot of the wireless router (cause unknown) I have been unable to connect to the router via the wireless interface (unless I set both IP address and DNS server manually), Ethernet was OK.

This problem affected all wireless connected devices (PCs both XP and W7, PS3, WII and phones).

I have checked configuration and performed factory reset both from the menus and via the reset button and repeated the setup without success.

I then performed a firmware upgrade as per bundled instructions (uk tp-link com /Resources/software/TD-W8960N_V1_V3_111108.zip) and found I was still unable to get DHCP addresses on the wireless interface (Ethernet was OK)..

Having repeated the upgrade actions and still had no success, I connected to the router via the telnet interface.

Via this inteface, DHCP appears to be configured for the br0 interface only. Using brctl show I get the response:

> brctl show
bridge name bridge id STP enabled interfaces
br0 8000.001018630000 no eth0
>

I.e. the bridge does not include the wireless interface.(Note:This response was obtained both before and after configuring the router).

An attempt to use brctl to add the wl0 interface (identified via ifconfig) to br0 using brctl addif failed:

> brctl addif br0 wl0
can't add wl0 to bridge br0: Invalid argument
> ifconfig wl0
wl0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 07:76:65:72:73:69
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:3 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:21913
TX packets:5 errors:8 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:1026 (1.0 KiB ) TX bytes:1186 (1.1 KiB )
Interrupt:39

>

Can you help me resolve the issue, as the use of static addresses for wireless will cause problems when my family connect to other networks?

Update:

The router syslog shows the following records shortly after powering up:

Jan 1 00:00:51 user info kernel: device wl0 left promiscuous mode
Jan 1 00:00:51 user info kernel: br0: port 2(wl0) entering disabled state
Jan 1 00:00:51 user info kernel: device wl0 entered promiscuous mode
Jan 1 00:00:51 user info kernel: br0: port 2(wl0) entering learning state
Jan 1 00:00:51 user info kernel: br0: topology change detected, propagating
Jan 1 00:00:51 user info kernel: br0: port 2(wl0) entering forwarding state
Jan 1 00:00:51 user warn kernel: Scratch pad is not initialized.
Jan 1 00:00:51 user info kernel: br0: port 2(wl0) entering disabled state
Jan 1 00:00:51 user info kernel: br0: port 2(wl0) entering learning state
Jan 1 00:00:51 user info kernel: br0: topology change detected, propagating
Jan 1 00:00:51 user info kernel: br0: port 2(wl0) entering forwarding state
Jan 1 00:00:51 user info kernel: device wl0 left promiscuous mode
Jan 1 00:00:51 user info kernel: br0: port 2(wl0) entering disabled state

So it appears that for some reason the bridge is disabling the wireless interface.

Curious that wl0 'entering disabled state' is only an info message!

Following advice from TP-Link, I am arranging for a warranty replacement of the router.

Hopefully my old 11g router will survive until the replacement arrives...

This was replaced due to increasing rate of lockups (it got to an average of 1 per day) and poor signal in parts of the house (11g not n).