Thinkpad T430s stuck on airplane mode on Ubuntu 20.04 (Focal Fossa)

[ron4ld]

Hello fellow Ubuntu-ers,

I tried Focal Fossa on T430s but somehow it kept stuck on airplane mode.
It worked fine on Windows 10 ....

The wifi hardware button is on.

I tried a few commands like
nmcli r wifi on
rfkill unblock al


But still stuck on airplane mode

Any idea?

TIA 🙏

[blackbird34]

How are its function keys set up?

Many laptops have function keys (F1, F2 etc) that double as hardware keys for things like play/pause, airplane mode etc, with an "FN" key somewhere on the keyboard to toggle between a "function key" mode and a "hardware key" mode.

Have you accidentally activated the "function key" mode? (on my laptop it requires pressing fn + esc, but I didn't find out for several months and frequently had problems like this)

[ron4ld]

It's Fn + F5 for turning off/on wifi on the keyboard, yes I've tried this couple of times but still didn't work,
also has restarted the laptop many times...

[blackbird34]

I poked around Google for a bit and it appears there is a hardware switch for Wi-fi on the side of the T430s. Are you sure it's switched on?