Wifi Connection Reported as Deactivated and no longer works

English Network/Internet
1

Running 13.2 on laptop and my normal wifi connection suddenly no longer works. I am offered it in Network manager (NM) and click the connect button but them it immediateley disconnects and I get a pop up telling me the connection is deactivated.
How can I get this to work once more please?

2

Hi
Maybe a wireless hardware switch? Check the output from the command rfkill. A kernel update lately?

3

Hi Malcolm,
Hardware seems to be working as it sees all the SSIDs. No rfkill command found. Do not recall kernel update but…

The laptop is one I gave to family member who needed windoze and when I gave it to him a few months ago it had a working windoze 7 installation and the option to dual boot to openSUSE13.2.

It was brought back to me with windoze totally broken and resisting all my attempts to repair. Dual boot to openSUSE was working perfectly and I was able to save all windoze Users directory data to usb stick.

As disk checked out OK and I was running out of time I went for a re-format of /dev/sda1 where windoze was installed and new installation of windoze 7. All was not well with that. It wouldn’t update even though it was active and there was no wifi. Went to Dell site for drivers for this laptop and what I thought was a driver once started behaved like a firmware upgrade but, once started I had to let it complete. This may be the cause of problem.

I am doing a bit more research now but machine is very old. How can I find out exactly what wifi chip is installed and what firmware revision. Is there any way of doing this with13.2? Lan connection is working fine so only wifi borked.

4

Hi
Does sound like something in windows has switched it off (power settings or a software switch)…

You need to install rfkill, I would do that and check the output as it maybe soft blocked.

What is the wireless card?


/sbin/lspci -nnk |grep -A3 Network

Also check the output from either dmesg or journalctl -b to see if it’s firmware (missing firmware) related.

5

Open a terminal and run

sudo journalctl -fu NetworkManager

then try connecting and observe the output. Report back with that info.

6

Hi, the plot thickens. I now have a wifi connection to another AP I have not tried before. It seems if I once enter a password incorrectly the access is deactivated.

The wifi card is:-

alastair@linux-zuav:~> /sbin/lspci -nnk | grep -A3 Network
03:03.0 Network controller [0280]: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 2200BG [Calexico2] Network Connection [8086:4220] (rev 05)
        Subsystem: Intel Corporation Dell Latitude D600 [8086:2722]
        Kernel driver in use: ipw2200
        Kernel modules: ipw2200
alastair@linux-zuav:~>

The journalctl has :-

-- Logs begin at Wed 2016-09-14 23:04:20 BST. --
Sep 18 08:31:59 linux-zuav.site NetworkManager[850]: bound to 192.168.1.142 -- renewal in 40309 seconds.
Sep 18 08:31:59 linux-zuav.site NetworkManager[850]: <info> Activation (wlp3s3) Stage 5 of 5 (IPv4 Commit) started...
Sep 18 08:31:59 linux-zuav.site NetworkManager[850]: <info> (wlp3s3): device state change: ip-config -> ip-check (reason 'none') [70 80 0]
Sep 18 08:31:59 linux-zuav.site NetworkManager[850]: <info> Activation (wlp3s3) Stage 5 of 5 (IPv4 Commit) complete.
Sep 18 08:31:59 linux-zuav.site NetworkManager[850]: <info> (wlp3s3): device state change: ip-check -> secondaries (reason 'none') [80 90 0]
Sep 18 08:31:59 linux-zuav.site NetworkManager[850]: <info> (wlp3s3): device state change: secondaries -> activated (reason 'none') [90 100 0]
Sep 18 08:31:59 linux-zuav.site NetworkManager[850]: <info> NetworkManager state is now CONNECTED_LOCAL
Sep 18 08:31:59 linux-zuav.site NetworkManager[850]: <info> NetworkManager state is now CONNECTED_GLOBAL
Sep 18 08:31:59 linux-zuav.site NetworkManager[850]: <info> Policy set 'Errichel_Guests' (wlp3s3) as default for IPv4 routing and DNS.
Sep 18 08:31:59 linux-zuav.site NetworkManager[850]: <info> Activation (wlp3s3) successful, device activated.
/CODE]

I have set KWallet password to blank as at one point it was getting in the way.  The question is the term deactivated.  Where would this be done for a specific SSID?  I have checked the problem AP and rebooted it but all seems OK and other devices and machines can use it so it seems specific to this installation of 13.2.
7

Well, it’s easy enough to delete incorrect credentials from kwallet if desired. You’ll get prompted for a pass-phrase the first time you attempt to connect again of course.

Your NetworkManager log shows a successful connection… no evidence of any issues logged there.

I have set KWallet password to blank as at one point it was getting in the way. The question is the term deactivated. Where would this be done for a specific SSID?

I don’t quite understand your question. Are you wanting to delete the connection (which can of course be done via the NM connection editor)?

8

The successful connection is to a different AP.

My question is based on the “deactivation” message. I have never seen it before and do not know or understand where or what is deactivated. Now all I need is to to undo this “deactivation.”

9

That’s was my point. It would have been useful to try to connect to the AP that you report is being ‘deactivated’. A numeric ‘reason’ is usually reported in such instances.

Now all I need is to to undo this “deactivation.”

It’s not something that gets undone, it’s a the connection becoming deactivated at some point, and the reason is not yet apparent. That’s why it is useful to examine the NM log. (If necessary, NM can be put into debug mode for increased verbosity.)

10

Found it. It was the bl**** KWallet holding an incorrect password. BTW It is not easy (for me at least) to delete credentials as the wallet manager only tells me how many are stored, not what they are. I deleted the wallet so sytem started over and this time I managed to get the password right and all is well.
I see I am not the only person who has had this issue however. A slightly less cryptic warning of incorrect password would have been helpful rather than “deactivated.”
Many thanks for your time once more and sorry to be so dumb.
Regards,
Budgie2

11

There does seem to be a lot of online reports of similar behaviour for those using chipsets supported by the ipw2200 driver. I had a laptop with a similar wireless device, and one particular AP (in a work environment) gave me trouble with frequent disconnecitons, but IIRC it was down to the encryption protocol being used.

You might capture useful information with a given connection by running the following while the problematic connection is active (or at least attempting to connect)

dmesg --follow|grep ipw2200
12

Well done. Yes, it’s best just to delete and enter it again. KWallet is designed to be secure, so it’s not going to show you what they are as that would be a security risk :wink:

I see I am not the only person who has had this issue however. A slightly less cryptic warning of incorrect password would have been helpful rather than “deactivated.”
Many thanks for your time once more and sorry to be so dumb.
Regards,
Budgie2

All part of the Linux journey. Learning is constant. :slight_smile: