Wi-fi mystery

[kilaueabart]

One of two (more) things I can't figure out for myself.

Up until about 11 days ago I apparently had, or could easily get, a wi-fi connection when I ran Ubuntu. I use a wi-fi dongle in the USB port on top of the X5000.

There was a light in the top of the dongle. It no longer comes on. Clicking the Ethernet Network (up and down arrows) icon in the top right panel no longer gives a list of wi-fi sources. How can I find out what went wrong and maybe fix it?

One possibility occurs to me. Sometimes I need that USB port to read a flash drive or something, like to move a printer scan to the computer. I would turn wi-fi off before removing the dongle, but if I forgot to do that, would this kind of problem result?

[xeno74]

Sometimes reinstalling the stick helps.

[kilaueabart]

Sometimes reinstalling the stick helps.

I'm not sure what a stick is, unless you mean the dongle that I keep plugging in when I'm not using the port for something else. (Not enough USB ports on my X5000!)
The dongle I use is a cheap one, Plugable USB 2.0 802.11n Wireless Adapter, the only one I can find that doesn't say it's for Windows or Windows and IOs. I don't remember if its light came on when the machine was powered or something in Ubuntu turned it on. It never comes on anymore, and I don't see anything about wi-fi in the messages that come up during booting.

[Skateman]

Hi kilaueabart,

I just connected my USB Wifi dongle to see if i can help.

First of all i know that my Wifi dongle is based on a Zydas chipset. Most Wifi Dongles are Atheros based.
I can find my dongle using dmesg | grep usb

2-1.1.4.4: Product: USB2.0 WLAN
2-1.1.4.4: Manufacturer: ZyDAS
usbcore: registered new interface driver zd1211rw (this zd1211rw is the linux driver using the usb dongle)

When i give the command dmesg | grep wlan
zd1211rw 2-1.1.4.4:1.0 wlx001349234d96: renamed from wlan0
(Here you see the linux driver zd1211rw is being used as the wireless interface and has been renamed from Wlan0 to wlxlx001349234d96)

Ifconfig should also show your wireless interface (in my case)

wlx001349234d96 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:13:49:23:4d:96
inet addr:192.168.22.122 Bcast:192.168.22.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::d5ed2074:3b37/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:4035 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:2460 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:1862273 (1.8 MB) TX bytes:787057 (787.0 KB)

the command iwconfig (if all is working and connected) shows you the connection info.

wlx001349234d96 IEEE 802.11 ESSID:"INFECTEDNETWORK"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.462 GHz Access Point: 08:5B:0E:39:5C:02
Bit Rate=54 Mb/s Tx-Power=20 dBm
Retry short limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Power Management:off
Link Quality=45/100 Signal level=45/100
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:5 Invalid misc:101 Missed beacon:0

So lets start with step one! Does your usb wifi dongle show up in the first steps.

[kilaueabart]

Thanks for the response, Skateman. Using dmesg | grep usb brings up six Products, five Manufacturers. I don't know what three of them are:
1.1.1: Product: USB Receiver
1-1.1: Manufacturer: Logitech.

2-1.4: Product: 802.11n WLAN Adapter
2-1.4: Manufacturer: Realtek

1-1.4: Product: CSR8510 A10

I've put the list in Documents for further study.

You get two more decimal places that I do. Why?


I get nothing from dmesg | grep wlan.

What ifconfig brings up is about the same as yours, headed "enP4096p4s4," and a near duplicate, headed "lo" (Link encap:Local Loopback).
With iwconfig I get "no wireless extensions" for ip6_vti0, sit0, tunl0, ip6tnl0, enP4096p4s4, ip_vti0, lo. I only recognize one of those.

I'm wondering if one of my old log files might have something about a wifi connection.

"Edit connections..." currently brings up this:

wi-fi connections.png

[kilaueabart]

Wondering if log files might have any hints about my wifi problem, I poked around and found lots of mention of the term in an older kern.log (kern.log.4.gz):

Code: Select all

Oct  5 16:02:26 X5000 NetworkManager[4325]: <warn>  [1570316546.4435] error requesting auth for org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.wifi.share.open: Authorization check failed: Message recipient disconnected from message bus without replyin

Or better, lines like these:

Code: Select all

Sep 29 21:06:17 X5000 NetworkManager[4378]: <info>  [1569816377.9562] rfkill1: found WiFi radio killswitch (at /sys/devices/platform/ffe000000.soc/ffe211000.usb/fsl-ehci.1/usb2/2-1/2-1.4/2-1.4:1.0/ieee80211/phy0/rfkill1) (driver rtl8192cu)

Oct  8 10:52:31 X5000 NetworkManager[4363]: <info>  [1570557151.2202] Read config: /etc/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.conf (etc: default-wifi-powersave-on.conf)

Oct  8 10:52:34 X5000 NetworkManager[4363]: <info>  [1570557154.3697] manager: WiFi enabled by radio killswitch; enabled by state file

Oct  8 10:52:34 X5000 NetworkManager[4363]: <info>  [1570557154.5542] Loaded device plugin: NMWifiFactory (/usr/lib/powerpc-linux-gnu/NetworkManager/libnm-device-plugin-wifi.so)

There is nothing like this in the newer kern.logs. This would seem to confirm that the computer at least knew about wifi before the last date ("17 days ago") that Edit Connections... reported for it, but no longer does, but it doesn't seem to say whether it is a hardware (dongle?) or a software problem.

[Skateman]

What if you try the command rfkill unblock all

I will be back at my machine in a few hours.

[kilaueabart]

What if you try the command rfkill unblock all

Code: Select all

fienix@Fienix:~$ su 
Password: 
root@Fienix:/home/fienix# rfkill unblock all
bash: rfkill: command not found
root@Fienix:/home/fienix# 

I ordered a slightly more expensive ($25) wi-fi dongle that claimed to work on desktops, and the detailed info on-line said nothing about Windows or IOS, in case maybe the old dongle had gone bad. But the quick-start guide that came with it does mention those other platforms, and sure enough it doesn't seem to work on a PPC Linux. I'm pretty sure dongles aren't the kind of thing one can get his money back for.

I guess I'll order another of the one I have, although it is not regarded highly.

[Skateman]

In your log ep 29 21:06:17 X5000 NetworkManager[4378]: <info> [1569816377.9562] rfkill1: found WiFi radio killswitch (at /sys/devices/platform/ffe000000.soc/ffe211000.usb/fsl-ehci.1/usb2/2-1/2-1.4/2-1.4:1.0/ieee80211/phy0/rfkill1) (driver rtl8192cu)

Does rfkill1 command do anything ??

[kilaueabart]

In your log ep 29 21:06:17 X5000 NetworkManager[4378]: <info> [1569816377.9562] rfkill1: found WiFi radio killswitch (at /sys/devices/platform/ffe000000.soc/ffe211000.usb/fsl-ehci.1/usb2/2-1/2-1.4/2-1.4:1.0/ieee80211/phy0/rfkill1) (driver rtl8192cu)

Does rfkill1 command do anything ??

My mind is really on its way out! I notice I tried rfkill unblock all in Fienix where I have not yet achieved wi-fi. In ubuntu it doesn't complain about not being found. However, rfkill1 is not found as a command. I tried rfkill list all with null result, and rfkill unblock all doesn't change anything in the dmesg | grep usb/wlan or ifconfig or iwconfig commands you suggested I try.

It is probably worth noting that the log line you quote with the "rfkill1" mentions is from a kern.log written while my wi-fi was still working. The only mention of "rfkill" lately is "urfkill disappeared from the bus."