Wireless lost after todays update

[The Liquidator]

Hi

Big problem. Not had any issues with 13.10 until todays update, which I downloaded because of KDE 4.11.2.

However, following that update I cannot get my wireless to work under any of my installed kernels.

Lspci says (amongst other stuff)

02:00.0 Network controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8723AE PCIe Wireless Network Adapter
03:00.0 Unassigned class [ff00]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. Device 5289 (rev 01)
03:00.2 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 0a)

iwconfig returns

eth0 no wireless extensions.

lo no wireless extensions.

wlan0 IEEE 802.11bgn ESSIDff/any
Mode:Managed Access Point: Not-Associated Tx-Power=20 dBm
Retry long limit:7 RTS thr=2347 B Fragment thrff
Power Managementff
Other than a reinstall, is there anything I can do to restore it please?

Thanks

Ian

Ps - can't see why the smilies are showing there!

[vinnywright]

dose

ifconfig -a

show it as being up ?
like

wlan0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr >snip<
          inet addr:192.168.2.3  Bcast:192.168.2.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: >snip</64 Scope:Link
          [COLOR=#ff0000]UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1492  Metric:1[/COLOR]
          RX packets:232943 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:162237 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:144745507 (144.7 MB)  TX bytes:73543781 (73.5 MB)

PS the >snips< are me editing out this data

VINNY

[The Liquidator]

Hi Vinny, thanks for the input.

I find it very strange - I only bought this laptop in March. Before doing so I researched the wireless aspect of it and it was known that the chip was supported by the 3.8 kernel but not any earlier ones so I bit the bullet and from the off installed the 13.04 beta on it. Wireless worked out of the box, both on a live basis and following install.

When I upgraded to 13.10 beta I did so over the air and I can only surmise that when the kernel was updated (at that time and subsequently) that the module for my wireless chip was updated also, until the fateful install (which took me up to 3.8.0-11 I think in addition to KDE 4.11.2) following which it stopped working at all. I also had a live cd for the 13.10 beta and when I ran that I was extremely surprised - Again the wireless didn't work at all causing me to ask myself 2 questions:

1. whether support has now been dropped for it, either accidentally or otherwise

2. If so, is it possible for the module relating to the chip to survive a couple of kernel upgrades but then be suddenly lost?

I suppose the right thing for me to do here is to file a bug report on launchpad? In the meantime the short term fix for me was to re-install 13.04 following which it worked instantly. Unfortunately I did that before I saw your message as in my attempts to fix it following another thread I removed Network Manager leaving me with no internet at all! (Fool! I hear you shout). As a result, sadly I wasn't able to run your test, but thanks for trying to help.

[vinnywright]

well I dont know if id go as far as ,,,"Fool"

sometimes deciding whether to battle out a dilemma like that or take the reinstall easy fix can be made by ,,,,NOT having our Fing Internet

when I first got this laptop I think I put 11.04 on it ,,,,,,the wireless was not suported in the kernel yet ,,,,,so I had to find the source for the driver and compile the module for it (luckily the source was findable) but 1-2 kernel updates later it was supported ,,,,,,,,,,,IF the support was not dropped for the chip you could try an even newer kernel to see if it works in it.....(for instance I'm running a 3.8.3-xxx kernel in 12.10) if it was dropped then compiling it could be an option.

mane line kernels Index of /~kernel-ppa/mainline


VINNY

[The Liquidator]

Gave it another go....

Got the beta 2 last night, and ran it live. Wireless works.

Did a clean installation (with separate home partition) and following install all was still well.

Did the updates, reboot and BANG! wireless gone again. Haven't messed with it though as I've got a wired connection and a USB wireless stick at home which I expect will work.

All necessary network management packages appear to be in place and the problem appears to happen after a kernel upgrade to 3.11.0-11.

Output of lspci

02:00.0 Network controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8723AE PCIe Wireless Network Adapter
03:00.0 Unassigned class [ff00]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. Device 5289 (rev 01)
03:00.2 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 0a)

The reference to Device 5289 is the card reader which (so far as SD cards are concerned) works anyway despite being unassigned.

Output of lsusb
Bus 003 Device 003: ID 04f2:b34c Chicony Electronics Co., Ltd
Bus 003 Device 002: ID 0bda:8723 Realtek Semiconductor Corp.
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

The reason I post this is because the same device is shown as a usb device -

I have run sudo modprobe rtl8723ae. The module seems to be in there somewhere as no error message was returned, whereas running sudo modprobe RTL8723AE returned a "not found" error.

Any thoughts?

[The Liquidator]

Solved! At least it seems to be.

I found the answer here:

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...enable-858357/

I first ran iwconfig and saw what appeared to be a reference to the router I was meant to be connected to.

Then running sudo iwlist wlan0 scanning showed me a list of all the access points in my area so it suggested to me that the wireless adapter was in fact wotking.

I then ran sudo rfkill list all then pulled the CAT5 cable out of the laptop and the wireless icon popped up again. It's survived a couple of reboots so I can only conclude that it's fixed.