Realtek RTL8192CU Driver issues under 13.04

[balinares2]

This was with a 8188CUs device but I think the driver is the same for 8192CU & 8188CUs. This above driver does not work with 13.10.

I've tried to port that driver to kernel 3.11 for Ubuntu 13.10: https://github.com/pvaret/rtl8192cu-fixes

It works for me. Please let me know if it works for you.

(Sweetmuffins, the new Ubuntu login stuff is godawful.)

[van hanegen]

Nice job, balinares2!
It works fine with my 13.10 clean install. (The built-in driver lost connection after a few minutes).
Thank you very very much!!

[kurt18947]

Nice job, balinares2!
It works fine with my 13.10 clean install. (The built-in driver lost connection after a few minutes).
Thank you very very much!!

Edit: To make clear, this is using the 'baked-in' driver, not balinares2's work.

Here is a trick I've discovered for the stalled/lost connection state. I find the connection to the router intact, it appears to be some sort of problem with resolving internet - somethings. I click on the network icon in the upper right corner (I'm using gnome-shell) and click the wifi off button. Wait a second or two then click the wifi on and the internet connection is restored. I've look at dmesg output after these occurrences and it's usually similar to this:

wlan3: deauthenticating from 00:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx by local choice (reason=3)
[51263.577909] cfg80211: Calling CRDA to update world regulatory domain
[51263.582492] cfg80211: World regulatory domain updated:
[51263.582497] cfg80211:   (start_freq - end_freq @ bandwidth), (max_antenna_gain, max_eirp)
[51263.582499] cfg80211:   (2402000 KHz - 2472000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (300 mBi, 2000 mBm)
[51263.582501] cfg80211:   (2457000 KHz - 2482000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (300 mBi, 2000 mBm)
[51263.582503] cfg80211:   (2474000 KHz - 2494000 KHz @ 20000 KHz), (300 mBi, 2000 mBm)
[51263.582504] cfg80211:   (5170000 KHz - 5250000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (300 mBi, 2000 mBm)
[51263.582505] cfg80211:   (5735000 KHz - 5835000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (300 mBi, 2000 mBm)
[51268.637024] rtl8192cu: MAC auto ON okay!
[51268.673284] rtl8192cu: Tx queue select: 0x05
[51269.059751] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlan3: link is not ready
[51270.619284] wlan3: authenticate with 00:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
[51270.635712] wlan3: send auth to 00:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx (try 1/3)
[51270.678766] wlan3: authenticated
[51270.682499] wlan3: associate with 00:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx (try 1/3)
[51270.689801] wlan3: RX AssocResp from 00:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx (capab=0x431 status=0 aid=1)
[51270.689910] wlan3: associated
[51270.690003] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): wlan3: link becomes ready

This is with only 1 wifi access point so there could be something peculiar there, I'm not sure. Plus I'm sure the 'baked-in' driver is -- 'imperfect'. I haven't tried one of these adapters on a public wifi system to see if they behave differently.

[ankhmorporkian]

I've tried to port that driver to kernel 3.11 for Ubuntu 13.10: https://github.com/pvaret/rtl8192cu-fixes

It works for me. Please let me know if it works for you.

(Sweetmuffins, the new Ubuntu login stuff is godawful.)

Worked beautifully for me. Thanks a bunch!

[kurt18947]

I've tried to port that driver to kernel 3.11 for Ubuntu 13.10: https://github.com/pvaret/rtl8192cu-fixes

It works for me. Please let me know if it works for you.

(Sweetmuffins, the new Ubuntu login stuff is godawful.)

Perfect!! Thank you so much. 150 mb/sec. and full strength signal - the best the 'baked-in' driver would do was 72 mb./sec. We're lucky to have people like balinares2 & Tim Patterson with the skills and willingness to do this. I'm still curious why the 'baked-in' version worked reasonably well on a home built AMD desktop running Ubuntu13.10 w/ gnome-shell but poorly/not-at-all on an R61 Thinkpad running Ubuntu-Gnome.

Edit: When I tried the same procedure on the AMD desktop, I didn't have quite as good luck. When I did the install on the Thinkpad, I prematurely removed the 8192CUs adapter. I replaced it with an 8192SU adapter, copy/pasted the lines of code and all was well. When I tried the desktop, I didn't remove the 8192CU based adapter, but copy/pasted with the adapter in place. When I rebooted, I was still using the 'baked-in' driver even though the blacklist lines were in place and seemed correct. I manually removed the 'baked-in' modules then manually loaded the 8192CU module. It works MUCH better than the rtl8102cu module, signal strength is much greater, wavemon shows 300 mb./sec vs. 72 mb./sec with the 'baked-in' module. I have no idea why the rtl8192cu module loaded when it was blacklisted, but it did.

Edit II: Here's the fix to the above problem. I left the original in case someone has a similar problem. For some unknown reason, the 'baked-in' module rtl8192cu was listed in the "etc/modules" file. Being listed there over-rides being blacklisted so it was loading instead of the desired '8192cu'.

[NM5TF]

I've tried to port that driver to kernel 3.11 for Ubuntu 13.10: https://github.com/pvaret/rtl8192cu-fixes

It works for me. Please let me know if it works for you.

(Sweetmuffins, the new Ubuntu login stuff is godawful.)

thanks for the link....that fixed my install of Ubu 14.04 wifi problem for kernel 3.11....

but the upgrade to the 3.12 kernel is broken again....is there a similar fix for 3.12 ??

Tommy

UPDATE: 11/09/13.....reran the 8192cu fixes, followed the instructions & now wifi is working
correctly under krenel 3.12.0-1

[tjeremiah]

I've tried to port that driver to kernel 3.11 for Ubuntu 13.10: https://github.com/pvaret/rtl8192cu-fixes

It works for me. Please let me know if it works for you.

(Sweetmuffins, the new Ubuntu login stuff is godawful.)

is there anyway to make this into a deb. file? I cant get internet connection to get this to work. I tried an app for android (my phone) called easytether but it doesnt allow connection to github.

[tomasio2]

Excellent, thanks for this.

I do notice that on my fresh Ubuntu 13.10 / 3.11 kernel system, if I don't have any network activity for a little while (a minute or two) sometimes the network stops working. I need to disconnect/reconnect to the wifi and then it works again. Perhaps something to do with power-saving? Not sure.

Also, when I restart my system, the kernel module isn't loaded. Doing an "lsmod | grep 8192cu" doesn't show anything. I have to manually load the kernel module with "sudo modprobe rtl8192cu" then it appears, and the network is working. Automating this at startup, I placed the text "rtl8192cu" at the end of the /etc/modules file to load at boot time. Seems to be working well otherwise.

[van hanegen]

I do notice that on my fresh Ubuntu 13.10 / 3.11 kernel system, if I don't have any network activity for a little while (a minute or two) sometimes the network stops working. I need to disconnect/reconnect to the wifi and then it works again. Perhaps something to do with power-saving? Not sure.

I have absolutely the same case with my 14.04 (TP-LINK TL-WL725,ver.1). Also think, may be this is all about power supplying, as the probability of disconnection is somehow linked with the value of mains voltage - the higher the voltage, the more stable work.

P.S. And here it seems ok with the kernel module after restarting:

andrey@andrey-G31M-S2L:~$ lsmod | grep 8192cu
rtl8192cu              66675  0 
rtl_usb                18072  1 rtl8192cu
rtlwifi                52835  2 rtl_usb,rtl8192cu
rtl8192c_common        47340  1 rtl8192cu
mac80211              546069  3 rtl_usb,rtlwifi,rtl8192cu
andrey@andrey-G31M-S2L:~$

[ph752]

I have Xubuntu 13.10 saucy

$ sudo dkms add ./rtl8192cu-fixes
[sudo] password for philippe:
Error! Could not find module source directory.
Directory: /usr/src/.-rtl8192cu-fixes does not exist.