Solve Error “mon0 is on channel -1, but the AP uses channel X”

One of the problems I had when using WiFi security programs as aircrack-ng has been this: mon0 is on channel -1, but the AP uses channel X. (X being the channel that we set our WiFi device).

To fix this you need to download drivers for WiFi devices found in Linux Wireless, Put a couple of patches on these and then install them, replacing those we have today.

Open the terminal to install the applications required to compile the drivers:

sudo apt-get install build-essential

Then download the package with the drivers. The command below Download driver dated 16/06/11 but you can always download the latest version (recommended) from Linux Wireless:

wget http://wireless.kernel.org/download/compat-wireless-2.6/compat-wireless-2011-06-16.tar.bz2

Unzip the downloaded package and apply the patches:

tar -jxf compat-wireless-2011-06-16.tar.bz2
cd compat-wireless-2011-06-16
wget http://patches.aircrack-ng.org/mac80211.compat08082009.wl_frag+ack_v1.patch
patch -p1 < mac80211.compat08082009.wl_frag+ack_v1.patch
wget http://patches.aircrack-ng.org/channel-negative-one-maxim.patch
patch ./net/wireless/chan.c channel-negative-one-maxim.patch

Finally, compile and install the drivers:

make && sudo make install

We only have to reboot to see if the changes have fixed the problem. If not, you can undo the changes by running the command:

sudo make uninstall