GNOME starts in airplane mode, have to turn off to use Wi-Fi. How to disable?

English Network/Internet
1

I am running a HP Spectre x360 16-f1013dx running Tumbleweed, and it uses the Intel AX211 Wi-Fi adapter.

When I turn on my system, GNOME starts in “airplane mode” and therefore I have no Wi-Fi until I disable it. When I do, I get Wi-Fi as normal and connect to a network automatically.

nmcli shows the sw-disabled state.

Googling has said it may be an issue with NetworkManager, but no solution was really given. Is there a way to start without the “airplane mode”/“sw-disabled” state (e.g. autoconnect to Wi-Fi on boot)?

I do not have this issue with other Linux distros including Debian and Fedora, even with NM.

EDIT: the “How to disable?” in the title may be a misnomer. I meant “how would I make sure Wi-Fi always starts when I boot?”

2

Hi and welcome to the Forum :slight_smile:
If you disable it via Settings -> Wi-Fi-> Airplane Mode switch after you boot the system, it should stay in that state at next boot?

3

I have to disable airplane mode manually each boot. The next boot goes back to airplane mode.

Something similar also happened with a preview version of Elementary OS, which doesn’t use GNOME (other than GTK+) but does use NetworkManager as well. This doesn’t happen with Debian or Fedora with GNOME/NetworkManager, however.

4

Hi
Very strange… is this dual boot? Do you have a Fn key for wireless?

Can you install rfkil and show the following output;


rfkill list
5

Sorry for a delayed response.

This happens if I dual-boot with Windows, and if I don’t. It also happens if Secure Boot is enabled, and when it is disabled. Right now, I’m using Tumbleweed without dual-boot/secure boot.

I do not have a Fn key for wireless. HP doesn’t even give me a right Ctrl or Insert key :(.

I get this:


ID TYPE      DEVICE    SOFT      HARD
 0 wlan      phy0   blocked unblocked
 1 bluetooth hci0   blocked unblocked

An Elementary OS snapshot also has this issue, but for some reason Debian does not.

6

Hi
So, there must be a Fn key (is hp_wmi installed?) as both wifi and bluetooth are soft blocked…


rfkill unblock 0
rfkill unblock 1

rfkill list

lsmod | grep wmi
7

There are a few services that have the ability to disable wifi, check their status:

sudo systemctl status systemd-rfkill tlp-rdw
8

On a freshly-booted system (before I enable Wi-Fi), I get:


localhost:/home/neel # systemctl status systemd-rfkill
○ systemd-rfkill.service - Load/Save RF Kill Switch Status
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/systemd-rfkill.service; static)
     Active: inactive (dead)
       Docs: man:systemd-rfkill.service(8)
localhost:/home/neel #
9

You might have missed the second service, what about tlp-rdw?