WPA not available following upgrade to 12.04

[The Liquidator]

Oh dear, I have just done the upgrade from 11.10 to 12.04 (by changing the repository list) and I got one small problem and one big one.

The small one is that my recently installed spotify immediately crashes upon loading, every time. However, the biggie is that, as I feared, all my WPA network-connections are displayed as WEP and so no longer work.

This did not happen right after the upgrade but after a secondary update this morning. That is a massive problem as at home I connect only by wireless as I don't have convenient access to a cable.

The manner in which I did the upgrade means that I still have 2 earlier kernels installed. Using these kernels doesn't change things.

I installed wpagui to see if that would help. No networks were detected, which led me to question whether there was a problem with wpasupplicant. I ran the command wpa_supplicant and saw a load of options that didn't make too much sense. I am now well and truly stuck.

Does anyone have any magic they can weave to help me fix this please? According to lspci my hardware is

Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 2200BG [Calexico2] Network Connection (rev 05). Network manager still shows all connections, but shows all WPA ones as WEP and only permits configuration as such

Thanks

[sithlord48]

be sure you have the wpasupplement package installed. i have been on 12.04 since alpha1 and i only use wpa for my wireless i have had no issues. not to say its not broken in the more recent upgrades or something similar.

[The Liquidator]

Yes I have. The problem is there is it doesn't seem to be talking to my wireless adapter.

The networks are all visible, but as WEP. Running the wpagui application shows the message "could not get status from wpa_supplicant". It seems like wpa_supplicant is not playing nicely with my wireless card. This is the first time I've had anything like this in the 6 years I have run kubuntu. Wonder whether support has been dropped?

Update - if it helps the folder /run/wpa_supplicant is empty and I am unable to find a wpa-supplicant.conf file.

[sithlord48]

in that case you might wish to reinstall the package. . i have had problems w/ wpa connection but only because of the KNM didn't detect i was using a passphrase and not a key. I assuming you have checked those settings before the post.

chris@null:~$ wpa_supplicant -v
wpa_supplicant v0.7.3
Copyright (c) 2003-2010, Jouni Malinen <j@w1.fi> and contributors

about compatibility , i have read that the broadcom chip has some issues loading the correct driver sometimes. since i don't have that chipset i don't really remember the specifics of the issue but iirc it would cause the wifi to not work at all.please note im using an atheros card.(ath9k)

[The Liquidator]

I've already done that as well, to no effect. I purged wpa_supplicant which removed the network-manager and the plasma widget. I've just reinstalled it again - same.

I must confess that this is precisely the same effect as I got running the 12.04 live CD (12.04 beta 1 and yesterdays daily) so I must admit I feared the worst before I did it. That's why I went through an upgrade as opposed to a live install. It looks almost as if wpa support has been completely removed for this card. If that is the case then that's a big problem.

I would get ubuntu 12.04 this evening at home but sadly needed the wireless to download it so it looks like I'll have to either reinstall 11.10 or take a look at my Linux Format DVD to see what else works.

Thanks for the help

[sithlord48]

if it helps at all i did a full format (including my /home) before installing alpha 1 of 12.04. maybe the is a config file left in your ~/ ? purge does'nt remove file in ~/ (as far as i know)

[The Liquidator]

I got rid of the network management config file and rebooted. No change I'm afraid.

That does not surprise me to be honest, as my WPA connections were viewed as WEP by the live CD. If it doesn't work like that I can only conclude that either there is a big bug or there is no longer support for my card. After a (further) google trawl it seems like it might be the former

https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu...uestion/189589

So back to 11.10 for now I think.

[Teunis]

I would first try logging in by means of the command line and second see if installing WICD works better.

[The Liquidator]

Thanks

I have installed WICD and at least seem to be getting somewhere. I can see there are connections and at least they are identified as WPA2 and I am invited to type in the PSK.

However, connection fails due to a "bad password" error. The password isn't bad.

I believe I have seen this before - it suggests that some of the packages on which network manager depends ( but that are not removed when it is removed) are still in the system causing a conflict. I'll try to hunt them down.

Edit: I looked at Network manager and glanced in muon at it's dependencies. There were a couple of packages containing the term "libnm" in the title that were still installed. I removed them and Wicd connects. Some progress at last - it must have been the network-manager after all.

Thanks for the help folks

[Teunis]

Yes the bad password message is typically due to not having ALL traces of (k)networkmanager removed.

Good job!

For many if not most users WICD is fine but it does lack some things like Mobile Broadband and VPN options.

[vw72]

I'm glad this is was resolved. I had a similar problem on one machine when upgrading it from 11.10 to 12.04 beta. Since it was at home, I reset the router to WEP and connected. Then I did an upgrade to download the new packages, which included an upgrade to network manager. After that, I was able to set the router back to WPA2, and kubuntu also connected correctly.

I think there must have been a bug in the network manager in the beta live cd that was later resolved.

[SteveRiley]

If Network Manager (and its Plasma widget) are working perfectly fine, is there a reason to switch to WiCd anyway? (Just asking for my own edification.)

[The Liquidator]

Hi Steve

Network Manager worked fine for me in 11.10 (and all previous versions) but following an upgrade to 12.04 it interpreted all my available WPA/WPA2 connections as WEP (i.e the yellow shield). Attempting to configure any one of them resulted in only WEP configuration options being made available. As all routers to which I connect are WPA/WPA2 it effectively meant I had no wireless.

I did the upgrade by changing the names of repos and using apt-get. Unorthodox I know but I could not get any other method to work. The wireless worked after the first upgrade (1600+ packages) but then an upgrade this morning had the above undesirable effect on Network Manager. To be honest I had feared this, as live CDs of Beta 1 and yesterdays daily build did exactly the same for me - the first time I have ever seen it. I'm therefore grateful for wicd, as it has dug me out of a hole, but would like to be able to get back to Network Manager asap, for the greater functionality. My earlier reference to Launchpad, and the fact that I can get wicd to work, suggests that it is limited to Network Manager. Hopefully the fact that it's on launchpad will mean that following an update things will work again.

[Teunis]

It used to be that WICD would start the network early in the boot process, like before X is started.
This can be an advantage when trying to repair a problem with X.
For sure it's not depending on Plasma etc.

I'm not sure it still is the case, since about a year I have not needed to use WICD.
When you don't have fancy demands like VPN or mobile broadband WICD is solid.

[sithlord48]

It used to be that WICD would start the network early in the boot process, like before X is started.
This can be an advantage when trying to repair a problem with X.
For sure it's not depending on Plasma etc.

I'm not sure it still is the case, since about a year I have not needed to use WICD.
When you don't have fancy demands like VPN or mobile broadband WICD is solid.

my mobile broadband is working very nice in KNM. i have not needed to use WICD since around kde 4.2