Comprehensive ndiswrapper troubleshooting guide

[Rodney2]

No I do not have another wireless card in the computer. I tried to do the steps shown in the above post #30 and seemed to get in trouble after I typed in the
tar -xzvf rt73*
included is a copy of the terminal screen after I did that. Any suggestions.

[pytheas22]

It looks like you downloaded the driver file twice, which confused the utility 'tar' a little, but it's not serious. Try opening a terminal and running:

cd rt73-cvs-2008091011
cd Module
make
sudo make install

(I assume that you ran all of the commands before you got to the 'tar' line successfully; if there were errors anywhere else, let me know please.) That should do it--reboot and see if the wireless works. If not, again, please post the output of:

iwconfig
lshw -C Network
lsmod | grep rt
dmesg | grep -e rt -e wlan

By the way, you can copy-and-paste text from the terminal by highlighting the text you want to copy, right-clicking and selecting 'copy.' Then you can paste it with control-v. For several reasons, it's better to paste your output here as text instead of attaching a screenshot, if possible.

[Rodney2]

Thanks for your patience.
I tried to do the first part of your above post with the following results shown in the screen shot enclosed; still confused here:

[pytheas22]

It worked the way it's supposed to. The error about the module being too big can be ignored. Now just finish by running:

sudo make install

in the same terminal (if you already closed the terminal window, run those commands from my last post again, and continue with the "sudo make install" command). Then reboot; hopefully the wireless will work.

[Rodney2]

I think I followed your instructions but still no wireless. Here is a copy of the terminal activity I did:
rodney@rodney-desktop:~$ iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

wlan1 RT73 WLAN ESSID:""
Mode:Managed Frequency=2.437 GHz Bit Rate=18 Mb/s
RTS thrff Fragment thrff
Link Quality=61/100 Signal level:-78 dBm Noise level:-115 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

rodney@rodney-desktop:~$ lshw -C Network
WARNING: you should run this program as super-user.
*-network
description: Ethernet interface
product: RTL-8169 Gigabit Ethernet
vendor: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.
physical id: c
bus info: pci@0000:00:0c.0
logical name: eth0
version: 10
serial: 00:14:6c:c1:a0:30
width: 32 bits
clock: 66MHz
capabilities: bus_master cap_list ethernet physical
configuration: broadcast=yes driver=r8169 driverversion=2.2LK ip=192.168.2.4 latency=64 maxlatency=64 mingnt=32 module=r8169 multicast=yes
*-network DISABLED
description: Wireless interface
physical id: 2
logical name: wlan1
serial: 00:fd:07:91:aa:38
capabilities: ethernet physical wireless
configuration: broadcast=yes multicast=yes wireless=RT73 WLAN
rodney@rodney-desktop:~$ lsmod | grep rt
rt73usb 27136 0
rt2x00usb 12800 1 rt73usb
rt2x00lib 22528 2 rt73usb,rt2x00usb
rfkill 8592 1 rt2x00lib
input_polldev 5896 1 rt2x00lib
crc_itu_t 3072 1 rt2x00lib
mac80211 165652 2 rt2x00usb,rt2x00lib
rt73 216320 0
gameport 16008 2 emu10k1_gp
parport_pc 36260 1
parport 37832 3 ppdev,lp,parport_pc
agpgart 34760 1 via_agp
usbcore 146028 8 rt73usb,rt2x00usb,usblp,rt73,usb_storage,libusual, uhci_hcd
rodney@rodney-desktop:~$ dmesg | grep -e rt -e wlan
[ 0.000000] Movable zone start PFN for each node
[ 0.000000] ACPI: PM-Timer IO Port: 0x808
[ 0.000000] Allocating PCI resources starting at 20000000 (gap: 18000000:e7ff0000)
[ 21.869686] virtual kernel memory layout:
[ 22.661041] Booting paravirtualized kernel on bare hardware
[ 22.680432] ACPI: (supports S0 S1 S4 S5)
[ 22.690015] Linux Plug and Play Support v0.97 (c) Adam Belay
[ 22.693561] PCI: If a device doesn't work, try "pci=routeirq". If it helps, post a report
[ 24.522454] Serial: 8250/16550 driver $Revision: 1.90 $ 4 ports, IRQ sharing enabled
[ 24.525991] input: Macintosh mouse button emulation as /devices/virtual/input/input0
[ 24.526658] serio: i8042 KBD port at 0x60,0x64 irq 1
[ 24.526669] serio: i8042 AUX port at 0x60,0x64 irq 12
[ 24.534282] Using IPI No-Shortcut mode
[ 26.076373] ACPI: Processor [CPU1] (supports 16 throttling states)
[ 28.333584] hub 1-0:1.0: 2 ports detected
[ 28.437248] hub 2-0:1.0: 2 ports detected
[ 28.905760] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
[ 28.905988] sd 0:0:0:0: [sda] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
[ 29.686505] USB Mass Storage support registered.
[ 29.802876] swsusp: Resume From Partition 8:5
[ 29.873624] kjournald starting. Commit interval 5 seconds
[ 34.687111] scsi 2:0:0:0: Direct-Access HP Photosmart C3180 1.00 PQ: 0 ANSI: 2
[ 45.144546] Linux agpgart interface v0.102
[ 45.309389] parport_pc: VIA 686A/8231 detected
[ 45.309399] parport_pc: probing current configuration
[ 45.309419] parport_pc: Current parallel port base: 0x378
[ 45.309500] parport0: PC-style at 0x378 (0x778), irq 7, using FIFO [PCSPP,TRISTATE,COMPAT,ECP]
[ 45.351952] agpgart: Detected VIA Twister-K/KT133x/KM133 chipset
[ 45.359267] agpgart: AGP aperture is 64M @ 0xe0000000
[ 45.396611] parport_pc: VIA parallel port: io=0x378, irq=7
[ 45.709984] gameport: EMU10K1 is pci0000:00:09.1/gameport0, io 0xeff0, speed 1242kHz
[ 46.733044] input: Power Button (FF) as /devices/virtual/input/input3
[ 46.745183] input: Power Button (CM) as /devices/virtual/input/input4
[ 51.551168] rt73: init
[ 51.551281] rt73: idVendor = 0x148f, idProduct = 0x2573
[ 55.141581] rt73: using permanent MAC addr
[ 55.141593] rt73: Active MAC addr: 00:fd:07:91:aa:38
[ 55.141599] rt73: Local MAC = 00:fd:07:91:aa:38
[ 55.152041] usbcore: registered new interface driver rt73
[ 55.333152] usbcore: registered new interface driver rt73usb
[ 55.345569] udev: renamed network interface wlan0 to wlan1
[ 56.021632] lp0: using parport0 (interrupt-driven).
[ 140.687483] ppdev: user-space parallel port driver
[ 143.818582] rt73: driver version - 1.0.3.6 CVS
[ 143.940865] rt73: using net dev supplied MAC addr
[ 143.940880] rt73: Active MAC addr: 00:fd:07:91:aa:38
[ 143.940887] rt73: Local MAC = 00:fd:07:91:aa:38
[ 162.148969] wlan1: no IPv6 routers present
[ 202.549379] rt73: closed
rodney@rodney-desktop:~$

Sorry to be so much trouble, again thanks for your patience with me.

[geezerone]

I see that wlan0 is being changed to wlan1 by udev and found the following link which may help:

Linky

To quote a pertinent part:

"...
udev: renamed network interface wlan0 to wlan1


This one had me stumped for a second but then I remembered that a few months back I had tried to get a SpeedTouch 121G Wi-Fi USB stick working which was not a success. And that udev has persistence these days so that might have something to do with choosing wlan1 over wlan0. Next I checked out /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules and the ndiswrapper entry with name wlan0 for the SpeedTouch 121G was in there. I removed the entry, changed the name of the rt2500pci entry to wlan0, rebooted the box and then the rt2500pci card came up as wlan0..."

[pytheas22]

It appears that, even though the new driver was installed without a problem, the old driver is still claiming the card instead. Please try running (and post output):

sudo apt-get install rutilt
sudo rmmod rt73usb
sudo rmmod rt2x00usb
sudo rmmod rt73usb
sudo rmmod rt2x00lib
sudo rmmod rt73
sudo modprobe rt73
sudo ifconfig wlan0 up
sudo ifconfig wlan1 up
sudo ifconfig wlan2 up
iwlist scan
sudo rutilt

That should open a program that will allow you to connect. Let me know if it works. If it does, we can write a script to simplify all of this so that the wireless will "just work" from now on.

[Rodney2]

Here is the result of typing in the suggested inputs. Made a couple of errors but restarted as shown in the printout. Still not the expected results.
rodney@rodney-desktop:~$ sudo apt-get install rutilt
[sudo] password for rodney:
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following NEW packages will be installed:
rutilt
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 275kB of archives.
After this operation, 823kB of additional disk space will be used.
Get:1 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com hardy/universe rutilt 0.16-0ubuntu1 [275kB]
Fetched 275kB in 1s (200kB/s)
Selecting previously deselected package rutilt.
(Reading database ... sudo rmmod rt73us116360 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking rutilt (from .../rutilt_0.16-0ubuntu1_i386.deb) ...
bSetting up rutilt (0.16-0ubuntu1) ...

rodney@rodney-desktop:~$ sudo rmmod rt73usb
ERROR: Module rt73usb does not exist in /proc/modules
rodney@rodney-desktop:~$ sudo apt-get install rutilt
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
rutilt is already the newest version.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
rodney@rodney-desktop:~$ sudo rmmod rt73usb
ERROR: Module rt73usb does not exist in /proc/modules
rodney@rodney-desktop:~$ sudo rmmod rt2x00usb
ERROR: Module rt2x00usb does not exist in /proc/modules
rodney@rodney-desktop:~$ sudo remod rt73usb
sudo: remod: command not found
rodney@rodney-desktop:~$ sudo rmmod rt73usb
ERROR: Module rt73usb does not exist in /proc/modules
rodney@rodney-desktop:~$ sudo rmmod rt2x00lib
ERROR: Module rt2x00lib does not exist in /proc/modules
rodney@rodney-desktop:~$ sudo rmmod rt73
ERROR: Module rt73 does not exist in /proc/modules
rodney@rodney-desktop:~$ sudo modprobe rt73
rodney@rodney-desktop:~$ sudo ifconfig wlan0 up
wlan0: ERROR while getting interface flags: No such device
rodney@rodney-desktop:~$ sudo ifconfig wlan1 up
wlan1: ERROR while getting interface flags: No such device
rodney@rodney-desktop:~$ sudo ifconfig wlan2 up
wlan2: ERROR while getting interface flags: No such device
rodney@rodney-desktop:~$ iwlist scan
lo Interface doesn't support scanning.

eth0 Interface doesn't support scanning.

rodney@rodney-desktop:~$ sudo rutilt
Can't find any wireless network interface.
Code : -3
rodney@rodney-desktop:~$

[pytheas22]

Rodney,

A dumb question, but are you sure that the wireless card was inserted into the USB port when you ran those commands? It looks like everything proceeded as expected, but the rt73 driver couldn't find any wireless device to drive. You may want to try running:

sudo modprobe rt73

Then insert or reinsert your USB device (you may want to choose a different port in case there are problems with the first one), then type:

sudo rutilt

Does it still think that no wireless interfaces exist? If so, does the command:

lsusb

mention your wireless card?

According to this page, rt73 is definitely the right driver for your card (with ID 148f:2573) so I don't know what else could be going on other than that the hardware was not inserted or not detected for some reason.

[Rodney2]

I was guilty, did not have the USB adapter plugged in. Did the sudo modprobe rt73 with it unplugged. the plugged in the USB adapter and did the sudo rutilt command and then got the results shown in the screenshot enclosed (did not know how to show these results in any other way than the screenshot) but I am again stumped. I have no idea of what caused the critical error flag to show up.