14.04 fresh install with wireless button disabled > no wireless now

[bapoumba]

Hello all, I need help :)

That was stupid, I know, I fresh installed 14.04 to rearrange my partitions. In the process, I somehow disabled the bluetooth/wireless button (it is a small slider on the laptop front, I must have moved it unintentionally). Now I cannot get my wireless to work. To note, on a previous 14.04 install, it used to work without any intervention from my part (other than the wireless password of course). I've tried to fiddle around and changed my /etc/network/interfaces to what it used to be in ancient times when I had to do it manually, and sudo ifup wlan0 gives

bapoumba@SonyBlue:~$ sudo ifup wlan0
ifup: interface wlan0 already configured
But :

bapoumba@SonyBlue:~$ ifconfig
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr <snip>
inet addr:192.168.1.22 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::213:a9ff:fea5:6782/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:2784 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:2616 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:1610861 (1.6 MB) TX bytes:375477 (375.4 KB)
Interrupt:16

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:65536 Metric:1
RX packets:528 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:528 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:41376 (41.3 KB) TX bytes:41376 (41.3 KB)


I'm not that network savvy, so attached is the wireless script output. My router is within the reported access points so it sees it. I'm sure I'm not very far from having it working, but I'm kinda stuck for now..

Thanks much !

[wildmanne39]

Hi bapoumba, according to the information from the script the switch is not off and it is not softblocked either.

This file:

/etc/network/interfaces
should only have:

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback
if you are using network manager.

What is the network name you are trying to connect too?
Please try:

sudo modprobe -rv iwl3945
sudo modprobe iwl3945 disable_hw_scan=1
if it connects we will need to make this change permanent so please do not reboot.
Thanks

[bapoumba]

Hello Wild Man, and thanks :)

After some more reading around, I had reverted back to the previous /etc/network/interface and rebooted. With the other one, booting up would take a long time with messages related to waiting for network access (or similar wording), so I figured it was not working that way.

bapoumba@SonyBlue:~$ cat /etc/network/interfaces
# interfaces(5) file used by ifup(8) and ifdown(8)
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

So to answer your suggestions :


bapoumba@SonyBlue:~$ sudo modprobe -rv iwl3945
rmmod iwl3945
rmmod iwlegacy
rmmod mac80211
rmmod cfg80211
bapoumba@SonyBlue:~$ sudo modprobe iwl3945 disable_hw_scan=1
bapoumba@SonyBlue:~$

It does not connect.
From some other reading, I had a look in the bios and there is nothing for wireless there.

Ethernet works OK, but is not comfortable with a regular size ethernet cable.

I also had a look here, which looks empty:

cat /proc/net/wireless
Inter-| sta-| Quality | Discarded packets | Missed | WE
face | tus | link level noise | nwid crypt frag retry misc | beacon | 22


sudo iwconfig wlan0 essid "My Router"
Which gives no error but does not connect either.

If I manually enter wlan0 in the panel applet and try to configure it from there, it says the interface does not exist.

Thanks again!

Edit : the router is <bip>.

[wildmanne39]

Did you do a fresh install of 14.04? Lubuntu 14.04 has a bug where nm-applet does not show up in the panel does your? You may look here.
http://askubuntu.com/questions/451593/nm-applet-wi-fi-icon-missing/451599#451599
I would use the commands just as written:

sudo modprobe -rv iwl3945
sudo modprobe iwl3945 disable_hw_scan=1
if you remove all those modules one at a time you would have to add them back one at a time to make it work.

In your router change your channel to 1 or 11 you should have less interference and wpa2 is the best encryption with (CCMP) (AES) not TKIP.

You should set IPV6 to ignore in network manager.

I recommend removing all networks and rebooting and letting network manager find your network.

Your device is scanning so it is just a matter of getting it to connect.
Thanks

[bapoumba]

It worked after a reboot, logging out and back in was not enough.

What I did was remove and add back the iwl3945 module as suggested and add the nm-applet in the panel.

Yes, this is a fresh install. My previous 14.04 was an upgrade from 13.10, that was itself upgraded from 13.04. 13.04 was a fresh install. So the previous 14.04 must have been working from previous installs. I could choose the router from the list and enter the passphrase.
I have not changed the IPV6 setting, yet, it is set to auto and working.

I have changed the router to channel 11 and WPA2 (AES). I had set it to TKIP because one of the kids has a 3DS that could not connect to wifi unless it was set up that way. He's not using it much anymore, so I'll see if and when he complains ^^
To note, I set up my router to filter on MAC addresses and easy pairing (their wording, that's a button you can press to have any device auto connect during 1 minute) disabled.

Infinite thanks, Wild Man, all my best :)

[wildmanne39]

Your very welcome! glad it is working.

[bapoumba]

Looks like the nm-applet bug got fixed for Utopic : https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/lxsession/+bug/1308348, comment #50.

[bapoumba]

Update : installing lxsession0.4.9.2 from the trusty-proposed repositories fixes the issue. nm-applet does show in the panel after I removed it from Prefs > Default Applications for LXSession > Autostart tab after a reboot.

Procedure to enable the trusty-proposed repos : https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed
Create /etc/apt/preferences and include :

Package: *
Pin: release a=trusty-proposed
Pin-Priority: 400


sudo apt-get update
bapoumba@SonyBlue:/etc/apt$ sudo apt-get install lxsession/trusty-proposed
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Selected version '0.4.9.2+git20140410-0ubuntu1.1' (Ubuntu:14.04/trusty-proposed [i386]) for 'lxsession'
Suggested packages:
lxde-common
The following packages will be upgraded:
lxsession
1 to upgrade, 0 to newly install, 0 to remove and 5 not to upgrade.
Need to get 86,9 kB of archives.
After this operation, 6 144 B of additional disk space will be used.
Get:1 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ trusty-proposed/universe lxsession i386 0.4.9.2+git20140410-0ubuntu1.1 [86,9 kB]
Fetched 86,9 kB in 0s (258 kB/s)
(Reading database ... 189780 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../lxsession_0.4.9.2+git20140410-0ubuntu1.1_i386.deb ...
update-alternatives: using /usr/bin/openbox-session to provide /usr/bin/x-session-manager (x-session-manager) in auto mode
Unpacking lxsession (0.4.9.2+git20140410-0ubuntu1.1) over (0.4.9.2+git20140410-0ubuntu1) ...
Setting up lxsession (0.4.9.2+git20140410-0ubuntu1.1) ...
update-alternatives: renaming x-session-manager.1.gz slave link from /usr/share/man/man1/x-session-manager.1.gz to /usr/share/man/man1/lxsession-manager.1.gz
update-alternatives: using /usr/bin/lxsession to provide /usr/bin/x-session-manager (x-session-manager) in auto mode
update-alternatives: warning: skip creation of /usr/share/man/man1/lxsession-manager.1.gz because associated file /usr/share/man/man1/lxsession.1.gz (of link group x-session-manager) doesn't exist



apt-cache policy lxsession
lxsession:
Installed: 0.4.9.2+git20140410-0ubuntu1.1
Candidate: 0.4.9.2+git20140410-0ubuntu1.1
Version table:
*** 0.4.9.2+git20140410-0ubuntu1.1 0
400 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ trusty-proposed/universe i386 Packages
100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
0.4.9.2+git20140410-0ubuntu1 0
500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ trusty/universe i386 Packages