I’m experiencing again a “network is unreachable” problem. I’ love OpenSuse but I’ve always had these problems with WiFi networks since the old versions.
I don’t know why it’s so easy to break the network in Suse, but I would like to hope it’s easy to fix it as well. Again, I totally say this as a constructive critic.
My current situation is the following: I bought a USB wireless card, I plugged it in my PC, I configured everything via Yast (wicked services) and everything worked.
Then I said to myself, why not using the NetworkManager app in the tray icon to choose the WiFi network in an easy way? well, I installed the network-manager gnome applet (dont’ recall the correct name), I moved from Wicked to NetworkManager in Yast and then I tried to connect via the NetworkManager widget. I selected the correct network, wrote the password and after a while it prompt me again the request for the WiFi password, like if the password was wrong. I tried the suggestions I’ve found in this forum about checking the “save for all users” and some other checkbox, but nothing changed this behavior… ti still asked me for the password again and again.
I said then: ok le’ts uninstall this widget (and I did) and let’s go back to wicked. I tried again the wicked services, but I experienced the dreaded “network is unreachable” error on ping. I tried the ifup wlan0 and / or ifconfig wlan0 up commands, but no change. I then tried to plug the WiFI adapter in another USB port and in Yast I saw two adapters (why??): wlan0 and wlan1, I then deleted the wlan0 and still same problem with this new wlan1.
I tried both DHCP and manual configuration, using the google DNS and without using it. I tried also to change the options to enable the adatper at boot, manually or on hotplug, but now I’m stuck with this “network is unreachable” error.
Any suggestion? I would love also a suggestion for a book / good tutorial about how networking works on OpenSuse and how to fix these kind of problems.
And apart from upgrading to a supported version of openSUSE (helping is easier when both sides use the same software), I assume you are aware of the fact that most openSUSE users do not have the problems you have. So blaming openSUSE might be inproductive, because when you concentrate on that you might mentaly skip searching for oher causes like failing Wifi hardware on you system, bad connectivity in your building, failing router, failing connection to your ISP, etc.
Whenever your connection fails, you should try to gather as much information as possible, like
is your Wifi hardware still up and having an IP address?
ip addr
when yes, can you ping another system on your LAN?
ping -c1 <IP-address of your router>
(I hope you know that address)
Do you still have a default route to the Internet?
ip route
and can you connect to a system on the internet?
ping -c1 130.57.66.6
Can you resolve host/domain names?
ping -c1 forums.opensuse.org
Take care. As soon a one step fails, that must be resolved first. It is useless to go to the next step before it is resolved. Post that output here to enable people to try to help you based on computer facts.
Thank you very much for your extensive reply. I totally agree with you about the mindset you’re speaking about, it’s the right one to have. Again, I’m not saying that this problem is due to OpenSuse, I did something wrong for sure, it’s my fault and I’m not here to blame. I just would like to give suggestions on what IMHO could be improved.
And yes, I will upgrade for sure, but at the moment I can’t do it for other reasons.
Regarding this specific issue:
is your Wifi hardware still up and having an IP address?
ip addr
I got
wlan2: BRPADCAST. ,MULTICAST> mtu 1500 qdisc noop state DOWN group default qlen 1000 link/ether myMACAddress brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
On yast everything seems set, I don’t understand why it is not taking the address…
PS now wlan2 instead of wlan1. I didn’t touch the network adapter.
when yes, can you ping another system on your LAN?
ping -c1 <IP-address of your router>
(I hope you know that address)
Not possible to ping, still Network is unreachable error
Do you still have a default route to the Internet?
ip route
No output from that command, no default route also from ip route show
On Yast everything is correctly set (apparently).
and can you connect to a system on the internet?
ping -c1 130.57.66.6
Can you resolve host/domain names?
ping -c1 forums.opensuse.org
Negative
Just tried:
[code ] $ sudo ifconfig wlan0 up$ sudo ip link set wlan up
Then you have a hardware issue. That’s what happens if you unplug the USB then plug it in again. Maybe you have a bad USB port or a faulty WiFi device.
Apart from the good advice given above, I would like to give a different hint.
When people here advice you to use a command and post that in an answer, then please do not select some parts of what you see, but post everything. That is including the prompt.command line, all output and the next prompt.
Like wise, you do not say “impossible to ping”, but you post what you get on the terminal. Probably people here come to the same conclusion as you, but they may differ and your conclusion may be wrong or hide other information that is now missed.
And the wlan2 is due to indeed wlan0 (and later wlan1) bailing out. Wenn the hardware is “seen” again later, the system assumes this is a new device.
After many attempts I’m now able to make it connect via wicked if I plug off and plug in again the adapter.
No idea why it is working this way because in the general tab there is writte: at boot time. From my point of view it should have worked in this way if I had chosen “hot plut”… it doesn’t make sense. Now looking for a way to improve this, looking at least for a way to perform this re-load at boot time with a shell command… but still looking for the real reason why it’s not correctly working…
Check whether networking is running, first by testing the service and if that returns errors or doesn’t work then individual network setting commands
systemctl status network
ip addr
ip route
nslookup
network is unreachable
Generally means that networking is running, but mis-configured
If you are on a network, and either just logged on or maybe returned from standby/hibernate and your network provides a DHCP server, then you can simply refresh your network settings by running the following command
The part I highlighted in RED indicates you don’t have an IP address.
If restarting the network didn’t work,
Then you’ll have to look at other reasons for why that didn’t work… For example, wireless authentication may be required again. If that is the case, then I might consider recommend re-logging into the wireless, perhaps scripting it so that you can connect with a single click. Or, maybe whatever you are doing (resuming from standby? from hibernation?) could use a command to re-initiate the wireless connection if you’re always connected to the same wireless.
Thank you again for your reply. All the commands have been executed without any resume from standby / hybernation. I’ve tried to re-initialize the wireless connection several times but no luck.
In the journalfctl output I’ve just noticed the following:
kernel: wlan1: authentication with 00:14:c1:0c:0f:5a timed out
wickedd-nanny[1185]: device wlan1: got signal linkDown
wickedd-nanny[1185]: wlan1: failed to bring up device, still continuing
That’s a fundamental problem.
Pls remind us that you are using either NM or Wicked to manage your networking,
But regardless which you may be using run the following command to attempt to address “link down”
ifup wlan1
Once the above command has been run, you should see successful “link up” status,
And you can resume testing the other commands and configurations mentioned earlier.
I am sorry for the late reply, I had login problems.
I managed to fix this problem by just updating the driver to the last version. Thank you again for everything