11.10 wired network problem

[praseodym]

The strange thing with kernel 3.0 and r8169 is, that sometimes it works, but most of the time, it doesnt.

[ratcheer]

The strange thing with kernel 3.0 and r8169 is, that sometimes it works, but most of the time, it doesnt.

True, but in a sense, that is worse than it not working at all.

One way that gets it working is to disconnect the PC from power. Not just turn it off, but unplug it. Then, when you plug it back in and start up, r8169 usually works for a while. This assumes you are using a desktop machine.

Tim

[ahendriks]

@ratcheer; I can confirm your findings! When pulling out the power plug and wait some time the network card is working 'some' time at full speed... I can confirm this but can not explain it...

How is the above possible? Anyone?

[praseodym]

@ahendriks:

Please show:

sudo apt-get install ethtool
sudo ethtool eth0

You can try to deactivate the auto-negotiation with:

sudo ethtool -s eth0 speed 100 autoneg off

[ratcheer]

IMHO, the best workaround is to install the r8168 driver. It works and is reliable.

Tim

[ahendriks]

deleted because not of any intrest for this thread...

[praseodym]

You dont have a Realtek card, its a NVIDIA. These gigabit cards often need 2 additional module parameters:

echo "options forcedeth msi=0 msix=0" | sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/forcedeth.conf
sudo modprobe -rfv forcedeth  #either these commands from here or reboot
sudo modprobe -v forcedeth
sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart

[martin1969]

I have used ubuntu for a few years now, and have been quite happy with it, the last few iterations though have been not satisfactory.

I am not an expert in command line but i can get by. I have my house set up for wired connection and choose not to use wireless most of the time. This problem with the wired connection driver is very frustrating and i cant find any instruction that gives a solution. Do all the people that work at Ubuntu/Canononical not know how to correct this? If so can someone please post a plain step by step solution to getting my wired connection working again before i give up on Ubuntu and try something else (maybe even windows for christ sake).

[ratcheer]

@martin1969, it is not an Ubuntu problem, the problem is the r8169 driver in the Linux kernel. It affects many, if not all, distros. It has been on bug reports for several years. Why it is never fixed is beyond me.

Sometimes r8169 does work in the very latest kernels, but it will then have regressions. For example, on Arch Linux, r8169 worked in a few of the 3.1.x and 3.2.x kernels, but it does not work again in 3.2.7 and 8. Or maybe it is working and other bugs are fouling up the connection.

Tim

[varunendra]

can someone please post a plain step by step solution to getting my wired connection working again....

Did you try what praseodym suggested on the first page of this thread (followed by added modifications later)?

A summary of all the required exercise (slightly modified and recently tested successfully here, although with older driver) is running the following commands while you are connected via wireless (if not, you can simply download the driver on another system directly from realtek's site or from here, copy it to your home directory in Ubuntu, then continue with the fourth command below (EDIT: you must become 'root' by entering sudo su command before continuing. Thanks to abriano for the heads up). In case of any problems, please post back the errors you get):

sudo su
apt-get install --reinstall linux-headers-$(uname -r) build-essential dkms
wget http://r8168.googlecode.com/files/r8168-8.028.00.tar.bz2
tar -xvf r8168-8.028.00.tar.bz2
cd r8168-8.028.00
modprobe -rfv r8169
echo "blacklist r8169" | tee -a /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf
make
cp src/r8168.ko /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/kernel/drivers/net/
depmod -a
modprobe -v r8168
mkinitramfs -o /boot/initrd.img-`uname -r` `uname -r`
echo "r8168" >> /etc/modules
exit

[Note: The "`" is a "grave accent" mark in `uname -r` entry in the third last line, not single quotes. It is located above "Tab" key in my US keyboard layout (with ~). Just copy-paste the code to avoid mistakes]

Also, the downloaded file contains its own way of installation (which I personally have tested once) which is just extracting the files, then running:

sudo ./autorun.sh

Obviously it is a piece of cake in comparison to above bunch of commands, if works. But sometimes it doesn't work as expected, hence the above manual method.

However, any attempt to 'build' a driver assumes you already have the kernel-headers and build-essential installed. If not, any attempts to build the driver would fail unless you install them manually (build-essential and dkms are available on the live cd, and headers are installed by default on a fresh installation).