Security upgrades killed connectivity

[Brian Vaughan]

After today's updates, under 2.6.27-11, my wireless card is no longer recognized. Under 2.6.27-9, everything is still fine.

Shortly after your computer boots up, you should see a menu for a few seconds -- the GRUB loader. You can choose between different versions of the kernel. Most likely, 2.6.27-9 will be the third one from the top.

[Bylund951]

So Ive had the same problem as you all of losing connectivity after the updates, and I have only tried this,

"Go to System-->Administration-->Synaptic Package Manager, search for the following package "linux-restricted-modules-2.6.27-11-generic(2.6.27-11.16)" right click on the package and click "Mark for Removal" after removal restart the system and you should be able to connect to your wireless network."

Which did not work for me, I tried reverting to a previous Kernel, However, upon start up Im never given the opprotunity to do this.

Im new to Ubuntu running 8.04 on a Toshiba Satellite...
Any help would be greatly appreciated, right now Im running off a hardwire connection.

[Piraja]

How do you boot into the previous kernel?

Shortly after your computer boots up, you should see a menu for a few seconds -- the GRUB loader. You can choose between different versions of the kernel. Most likely, 2.6.27-9 will be the third one from the top.

In some cases you might have to press the ESC button during the couple of seconds after the POST phase in order to see the GRUB menu.

[Brian Vaughan]

I seem to have fixed my problem, at least.

There were two major problems, from what I can tell. The original problem, which I first encountered right after the initial upgrade to 2.6.27-11, was that Network Manager would indicate it was trying to connect to my usual wireless networks, but would fail after the point when it tried to obtain an IP address. This problem was solved when I followed the instructions for wireless troubleshooting in yelp, which were edit a file to disable IPv6.

gedit /etc/modprobe.d/aliasesdprobe.d/aliases

then find the line

alias net-pf-10 ipv6

and change it to

alias net-pf-10 off

then reboot. After that, my wireless connects, as normal.

The second problem, which showed up after one of the succeeding patches in the last couple of days, and which I had to fix before I could fix the first problem, was that my wireless driver disappeared. (Only when running 2.6.27-11 -- everything was fine under 2.6.27-9.) I use the Broadcom STA restricted driver, and it shows up as the wl module. I'm less sure which of the things I tried to fix it actually did it, so I wouldn't recommend following what I did without checking things first. I'm mostly posting this part for the sake of experts who can figure out more clearly how to describe what the problem is and how to fix it.

I think the key things were that somehow, the ndiswrapper module was loaded, and displacing the wl module, and that somehow, the wl module was no longer in modprobe's database. So, I unloaded the ndiswrapper module using

sudo modprobe -r b43 b44 ssb ndiswrapper

and rebuilt the database for modprobe using

sudo depmod

then reloaded the modules for my wireless card using

sudo modprobe wl
sudo modprobe b44

[zika]

This problem was solved when I followed the instructions for wireless troubleshooting in yelp, which were edit a file to disable IPv6.

gedit /etc/modprobe.d/aliasesdprobe.d/aliases

then find the line

alias net-pf-10 ipv6

and change it to

alias net-pf-10 off

then reboot.

while You're at it, to complete that issue, You might also edit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist and add line blacklist ipv6. that is the other side of the same coin that goes with what You've done.
in FireFox (if You use it) in about:config turn on network.dns.disable.IPv6.

[Piraja]

Hmm... Below you can see screenshots from kernel 2.6.27-9 (left) and kernel 2.6.27-11 (right). As you can see, it's the proprietary Broadcom STA wl driver that is missing in the 2.6.27.11 shot.

At the moment I guess I'm too lazy to try and fix this manually, so I'll simply just keep booting the old kernel for a while.

Actually there was an interesting detail in this update, because the GrUB menu was not automatically updated (no *.11 item in menu.lst), so I tried adding it manually. Could it be that the update process had such a smart feature that a system with this specific proprietary driver would automatically disregard the new kernel and boot the old *.9 kernel instead?

Just a wild guess.

[bayvista]

I have the same problem with 8.10 on a desktop. I followed your advice and removed 2.6.27.11 in Synaptic, and installed 2.6.27.9 which seems to work OK. However, how do I fix GRUB, which still shows 2.6.27.11?

[Brian Vaughan]

Hmm... Below you can see screenshots from kernel 2.6.27-9 (left) and kernel 2.6.27-11 (right). As you can see, it's the proprietary Broadcom STA wl driver that is missing in the 2.6.27.11 shot.

That's the problem I ran into, that I fixed by mucking about with modprobe. Once I did, the Broadcom STA driver showed up in Hardware Drivers, already activated.

[ItsManaged]

Going back to 2.6.27.9 kernel fixed wireless. Thanks for the hint.
Funny thing with my Aspire One - both wireless and LAN were killed. Luckily I have an HSPA modem too!

An easy way to choose another kernel to boot by default is to run (install if not already installed) StartUp-Manager. You can set the default kernel in that.

I have an Aspire One, these use an atheros chipset, and with Intrepid at least it does not work out of the box - There are two methods described in the AspireOne ubuntu forum here. Whichever method one chooses it most likely will need to be re-applied after a kernel upgrade.

I'll be doing that soon with the new kernel 2.6.27.11 - I will let you know.

OK - done and working!
I used the "ath5k method" in the above link. Basically, install new driver
sudo aptitude install linux-backports-modules-intrepid
Then select the new driver using "Hardware Drivers" and deslect any previous hardware drivers that are activated - reboot and all is well!

[onthenarrowpath]

Thanks a lot, ItsManaged, for the key link to the community-page of the aao (https://help.ubuntu.com/community/AspireOne110L).

Being new with ubuntu, I was just happy to get that wlan working (with madwifi), but overread what it tells about the procedure necessary after every kernel update. I'll cite it here for all AAO and madwifi-users:

"Every time there is a kernel update you will need to perform the following steps to make the wireless work. Go to the directory (madwifi-hal-0.10.5.6-r3835-20080801) and run:

make clean
make
sudo make install"
(from: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/AspireOne110L)

The great thing: You can perform it easily without internet connection (which you'll lack, since that driver broke down).

Thanks again, ItsManaged!