Wireless issue in Ubuntu - Can See Networks, Cannot Connect

Hi,

I have a USB wireless network card (Linksys WUSB 11 V2.6) which IS compatible with 2.6.x kernels and it can see networks, but cannot connect. When doing a tail and grep to the syslog for the NetworkManager, I usually get a string of "old device 'wlan0' activating, won't change." and then it re-asks me for a WEP key....

Any thoughts?

~ Brett

 

Post deleted

 

This happens when connecting to a secured or unsecured network - no difference. MAC filtering is not enabled.

I already have a post there and I'm in the Ubuntu IRC channel with no luck... argh.

~ Brett

 

Ndiswrapper always gets through, have you tried that?

 

Not yet, I was hoping to avoid it...

~ Brett

 

1.Open a Terminal (Applications | Accessories | Terminal), type lsusb and press the return/enter key.
2.Look through the output of the lsusb command for an entry for your wireless adapter.
3.Once you have identified your adapter, note down the contents of the chipset ID, this will be in the form 104c:8400.

Download Windows Drivers

1.Retrieve the Windows driver corresponding to your chipset: Use the ID information you have just found and the ndiswrapper [WWW] list to find and download the correct windows driver files for your wireless adapter, or one which is very similar (same chipset ID).
2.Unpack the Windows driver by using the unzip, cabextract and/or unshield tools (run from the Terminal), and find the INF file (.INF or .inf extension) and the SYS file (.SYS or .sys extension). You may first need to install cabextract and unshield.
3.If there are multiple INF/SYS files, look in the ndiswrapper [WWW] list to see if there are any hints about which of them should be used.
4.Make sure that the INF file, SYS file and any BIN files are all put into one directory.

or assuming you already have the inf file in your driver directory open up term and type in: sudo ndiswrapper -i ~/drivers/drivername.inf

Run the following command from a Terminal to check if it is properly installed:

ndiswrapper -l


If the driver is installed correctly, you should see the following output:

Installed ndis drivers:
{name of driver} driver present, hardware present

 

The thing is some usb adapters are not recongnized...sometimes ndiswrapper is the only way. That's all I can think about...ask if you need more instructions.

 

Or just visit this for a more detailed explaination...works great.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/Driver/Ndiswrapper

 

Damn - the driver is installed and the device is recognized but the network manager still won't let me do anything with a wireless connection.

I tried all this with a new wireless card, not the one that was previously giving me problems.

~ Brett

 

If you're using NetworkManager, and you're trying to connect to a WiFi protected WAP, you may want to try and manually connect to the WAP and see if it will work. Then you can rule out if there's a problem with your HW config, and instead it looks like a problem with NetworkManager.

I have NetworkManager on a laptop with the latest iwlwifi drivers for the Intel 4965 WiFi HW, and I can connect to my new WAP by issuing all of the commands manually. But if I try to connect to it using the NetworkManager GUI, it will say I'm connected and I'll even have an IP address, but I will have no network resources. (BTW, the setup works perfectly wired, just not wireless)

Anyway I'll have to tinker around with my setup and see if I can figure out what's causing my problems. The first thing I will test is turning off the WiFi protected mode on the WAP, and see if that fixes the problem. Then test it by turning off N mode, and just testing either B and G, or B or G. Just thought I would pass along that it might be NetworkManager and not your WiFi driver.

Good Luck..

 

Have you tried connecting with wicd instead of NetworkManager? I switched to that in trying to solve problems with my intel 4965 chipset based on advice in the Ubuntu forums that wicd was better. I don't really see why it should make a difference, but it might be worth a try.

Good luck.

-John

 

Can't find a package named "wicd"... hmm

Anyway... I bought another wireless USB card and tried that too... no dice, so I'm returning it.

The original one (Linksys WUSB 11 V2.6) was working before without anything special - just worked out of the box - but stopped working when I upgraded to 7.10.

A typical attempt to connect with this card - with or without any form of encryption - looks like:

Code:

rebecca@rebecca-linux-desktop:~$ tail -f /var/log/syslog | grep -i networkmanager
Jan  3 21:56:50 rebecca-linux-desktop NetworkManager: <info>  Old device 'wlan0' activating, won't change. 
Jan  3 21:56:59 rebecca-linux-desktop NetworkManager: <info>  Old device 'wlan0' activating, won't change. 
Jan  3 21:57:04 rebecca-linux-desktop NetworkManager: <info>  Old device 'wlan0' activating, won't change. 
Jan  3 21:57:09 rebecca-linux-desktop NetworkManager: <info>  Old device 'wlan0' activating, won't change. 
Jan  3 21:57:14 rebecca-linux-desktop NetworkManager: <info>  Old device 'wlan0' activating, won't change. 
Jan  3 21:57:24 rebecca-linux-desktop NetworkManager: <info>  Old device 'wlan0' activating, won't change. 
Jan  3 21:57:29 rebecca-linux-desktop NetworkManager: <info>  Old device 'wlan0' activating, won't change. 
Jan  3 21:57:35 rebecca-linux-desktop NetworkManager: <info>  Activation (wlan0/wireless): association took too long (>60s), asking for new key. 

Any thoughts are truly appreciated!
~ Brett

 

(I'm not sure if this will help the OP, but it's easy enough to try)

In case it may help anyone else, I solved my problem connecting to my WAP with my laptop's Intel 4965 WiFi adapter, using iwlwifi and Networkmanager. and using the latest kernel and driver sources.

It turns out I needed to rebuild my kernel and enable QoS;
Networking --> Networking Options --> QoS and/or fair queueing --> QoS and/or fair queueing
which configures /usr/src/linux/.config as follows;
#
# QoS and/or fair queueing
#
CONFIG_NET_SCHED=y
CONFIG_NET_SCH_FIFO=y

And I also removed the following;
Device Drivers --> Network device support --> Wireless LAN --> Wireless LAN (802.11)
which configures /usr/src/linux/.config as follows;
#
# Wireless LAN
#
# CONFIG_WLAN_PRE80211 is not set
# CONFIG_WLAN_80211 is not set
This is because I'm building the Intel drivers outside the kernel with the iwlwifi drivers.

Anyway I rebuilt the kernel, rebooted, and now I was able to use the Networkmanager Gnome applet to select my WAP. Turns out the WiFi protected setup of the WAP had nothing to do with my problems.

Good Luck..

 

Here you go...

http://wicd.sourceforge.net/download.php

-John

 

wicd did it!

Thanks!

~ Brett