Cannot enable Realtek wireless on Toshiba Satellite Pro L500 in Ubuntu 11.04

[ubut]

I have just installed Ubuntu 11.04 on my brother's Toshiba Satellite Pro L500 and have spent all day trying to get the wireless to work. I am fairly new to Ubuntu (have played about without getting my hands dirty for a while), but I have tried everything I could find in the threads and still cannot solve the problem, so here goes...

the laptop does not have a physical wifi-switch (it should switch on-off with Fn+F8, which doesn't work), the drivers seem to be installed, but I cannot 'enable wireless', and I found that it is 'Hard blocked':
sudo rfkill list all :
0: phy0: Wireless LAN
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: yes
…
but 'rfkill unblock all' does nothing.

Some people mention that certain wireless devices might need to be switched on in another OS, but this is not an option, as I hastily removed Windows and have no way to re-install it.


Below, I put all sorts of information (which I only partly understand, but saw was advised in a 'How to post about wifi' thread):

Toshiba Satellite L500
Ubuntu 11.04
2.6.38-8-generic-pae i686

Wireless Brand … (lspci):
...
14:00.0 Network controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8191SEvB Wireless LAN Controller (rev 10)

Interface (iwconfig wlan0):
wlan0 802.11bg Nickname:"rtl8191SEVA2"
Mode:Managed Frequency=2.457 GHz Access Point: Not-Associated
Bit Rate:1 Mb/s
Retry:on RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Power Management:off
Link Quality=10/100 Signal level=0 dBm Noise level=-100 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

Modules (lsmod | grep r8192): (NOT SURE if there are others?)
r8192se_pci 482548 0
cfg80211 156212 1 r8192se_pci

Kernel boot messages (dmesg | grep r8192 ):
[10264.285931] ============> r8192E suspend call.
[10264.285935] r8192E support WOL call??????????????????????
[10264.923747] ================>r8192E resume call.

Network configuration (sudo lshw -C network):
...
*-network DISABLED
description: Wireless interface
product: RTL8191SEvB Wireless LAN Controller
vendor: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.
physical id: 0
bus info: pci@0000:14:00.0
logical name: wlan0
version: 10
serial: b4:82:fe:8f:4a:d3
width: 32 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless
configuration: broadcast=yes driver=rtl819xSE driverversion=0017.0507.2010 firmware=0 latency=0 link=no multicast=yes wireless=802.11bg
resources: irq:19 ioport:4000(size=256) memory:f2200000-f2203fff

Scan for networks (iwlist scan wlan0):
wlan0 Failed to read scan data : Network is down

Restarting the network (sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart ):
* Running /etc/init.d/networking restart is deprecated because it may not enable again some interfaces
* Reconfiguring network interfaces... Ignoring unknown interface eth0=eth0.

[chili555]

Let's have a look at:

lsmod | grep wmi

Thanks.

[ubut]

super quick reply. cool!

lsmod | grep wmi:

snd_rawmidi 25269 1 snd_seq_midi
snd_seq_device 14110 3 snd_seq_midi,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq
snd 55295 14 snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_codec_realtek,snd_hda_i ntel,snd_hda_codec,snd_hwdep,snd_pcm,snd_rawmidi,s nd_seq,snd_timer,snd_seq_device

[chili555]

Hmmm. No acer-wmi or similar. Let's see all of:

lsmod

Something should be driving your hotkeys and isn't doing so correctly.

[ubut]

here goes (lsmod):

Module Size Used by
parport_pc 32111 0
ppdev 12849 0
rfcomm 38125 8
binfmt_misc 13213 1
sco 17779 2
bnep 17785 2
l2cap 48656 16 rfcomm,bnep
joydev 17322 0
snd_hda_codec_hdmi 27479 1
snd_hda_codec_realtek 255820 1
btusb 18160 2
bluetooth 65565 9 rfcomm,sco,bnep,l2cap,btusb
snd_hda_intel 24140 4
snd_hda_codec 90901 3 snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_codec_realtek,snd_hda_i ntel
snd_hwdep 13274 1 snd_hda_codec
snd_pcm 80244 4 snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec
snd_seq_midi 13132 0
i915 450979 3
r8192se_pci 482548 0
snd_rawmidi 25269 1 snd_seq_midi
snd_seq_midi_event 14475 1 snd_seq_midi
snd_seq 51291 2 snd_seq_midi,snd_seq_midi_event
drm_kms_helper 40745 1 i915
psmouse 59039 0
uvcvideo 66851 0
snd_timer 28659 2 snd_pcm,snd_seq
snd_seq_device 14110 3 snd_seq_midi,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq
cfg80211 156212 1 r8192se_pci
serio_raw 12990 0
snd 55295 17 snd_hda_codec_hdmi,snd_hda_codec_realtek,snd_hda_i ntel,snd_hda_codec,snd_hwdep,snd_pcm,snd_rawmidi,s nd_seq,snd_timer,snd_seq_device
videodev 75143 1 uvcvideo
drm 184133 4 i915,drm_kms_helper
soundcore 12600 1 snd
snd_page_alloc 14073 2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm
i2c_algo_bit 13184 1 i915
sparse_keymap 13666 0
toshiba_bluetooth 12711 0
video 18951 1 i915
lp 13349 0
parport 36746 3 parport_pc,ppdev,lp
ahci 21591 4
libahci 25548 1 ahci
r8169 46630 0


Regarding the hotkeys (you mean my Fn+F8 that should toggle the wifi?), all the other Fn+... (sound, etc.) work, so I thought it was a driver or some other similar problem (admittedly I am in deep waters, and don't really know).

[chili555]

Have you tried:

sudo rfkill unblock all

Please do:

sudo tail -f /var/log/syslog

Leave the terminal open as you manipulate the switch. Are there any interesting messages that appear in syslog?

Are you certain the Fn+F8 key is not a multi-function switch? That is, one press is bluetooth, second is bluetooth and wireless, third is wireless and fourth is none. I have one of those keys on my IBM T40.

[ubut]

I have tried

sudo rfkill unblock all

and variations, e.g. rfkill unblock wifi
then I would always check

sudo rfkill list all

and always get:

0: phy0: Wireless LAN
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: yes
2: hci0: Bluetooth
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: no

regarding syslog: I tried what you said, but it would not react to me pressing Fn+F8, or any other Fn combination. It did give the following (every time):

May 13 00:41:54 ArjanPro kernel: [17727.437705] atkbd serio0: Unknown key pressed (translated set 2, code 0xbd on isa0060/serio0).
May 13 00:41:54 ArjanPro kernel: [17727.437709] atkbd serio0: Use 'setkeycodes e03d <keycode>' to make it known.
May 13 00:41:54 ArjanPro kernel: [17727.445189] atkbd serio0: Unknown key released (translated set 2, code 0xbd on isa0060/serio0).
May 13 00:41:54 ArjanPro kernel: [17727.445193] atkbd serio0: Use 'setkeycodes e03d <keycode>' to make it known.
May 13 01:17:01 ArjanPro CRON[4955]: (root) CMD ( cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.hourly)
May 13 02:02:32 ArjanPro kernel: [22564.871197] atkbd serio0: Unknown key pressed (translated set 2, code 0xbd on isa0060/serio0).
May 13 02:02:32 ArjanPro kernel: [22564.871204] atkbd serio0: Use 'setkeycodes e03d <keycode>' to make it known.
May 13 02:02:32 ArjanPro kernel: [22564.878753] atkbd serio0: Unknown key released (translated set 2, code 0xbd on isa0060/serio0).
May 13 02:02:32 ArjanPro kernel: [22564.878777] atkbd serio0: Use 'setkeycodes e03d <keycode>' to make it known.
May 13 02:17:01 ArjanPro CRON[5406]: (root) CMD ( cd / && run-parts --report /etc/cron.hourly)

the last entry being almost an hour old.

Also,
I am pretty sure Fn+F8 is not a multi-function switch. I have checked this by seeing if anything changed in 'rfkill list all' and in the networks icon in the tray when I pressed it, but nothing. Should\can I check what the combination is mapped to? and how?

[ubut]

just to say that I'll be out of action for a while (bed time), but thanks for your help so far!

[chili555]

At least for now, I am stumped. Let me sleep on it.

I wonder if this helps us: /etc/acpi/events/tosh-wireless and /etc/acpi/tosh-wireless.sh

In this case, tosh refers to Toshiba.

See you tomorrow.

[chili555]

Please try:

sudo modprobe omnibook wifi=1

Now does Fn+F8 work?

Please see:

modinfo omnibook