Ubuntu – Ubuntu 18.04.1 and TP-Link Archer T4U(EU) v2.0 nightmare (RTL8812AU chipset)

18.04tp-link

I've been struggling with this nightmare since a long time, and I am ready to give up.

I have tried a plethora of drivers, from TP-Link themselves, the rtl8812AU driver included in Ubuntu, and a number of community forks, and nothing seem to help.

UPDATE 2: Yes, I've been looking at this askubuntu solution but it is several years old, and didn't help me anyway.

Regardless the driver, the USB adapter would connect to a specific network, named "Gasten" in the logs. It will NOT, however, connect to the other network named "test" in the logs. The most weird behaviour I have ever seen is that once the adapted failed to connect to a network, it wouldn't connect to the "Gasten" network anymore either! The only remedy to fix this would be to unplug and replug the adapter, and it then would connect just normal.

My wireless-info.txt is here.

UPDATE: I am currently using the driver found at this repo.

And an excerpt of syslog follows to illustrate failure to re-connect to "Gasten" after it failed to connect to "test" is here. This log excerpt is the result of:

  1. Connecting the adapter to USB, and automatically connecting to "Gasten" (timestamp Aug 21 14:39:23) on a FritzBox router.
  2. Trying to connect to network "test", on a D-Link DAP-2553 AP (Timestamp Aug 21 14:39:46)
  3. After that failed, the system automatically trying to connect to "Gasten" again (timestamp Aug 21 14:40:16) but eventually failing.
  4. Unplugging the adapter (timestamp Aug 21 14:40:46)
  5. Replugging the adapter and automatically connecting to "Gasten" again. (timestamp Aug 21 14:41:29)

Please pay special attention to log lines similar to this:

Aug 21 14:39:47 Dianas-Laptop wpa_supplicant[16449]: wlx503eaa6208a7: Association request to the driver failed

Google this and you'll find Launchpad bugs and other entries from as old as 10 years!

What the hell is going on!?

Needless to say, this bloody laptop (HP 250 G4) gave me grief with Linux connectivity since the most hellish decision ever to get this thing…

And of course, all other devices in my household are just fine connecting to the "test" network… 🙁

Thanks,
Michel

Best Answer

We have a winner!

There is - for all I know - only ONE repository that did it for my configuration:

  1. HP 250 G4 (might be irrelevant)
  2. USB Wifi adapter TP-Link AC1300, Model No. "Archer T4U(EU)", Version 2.0
  3. Ubuntu 18.04.1 bionic beaver, kernel 4.15.0-32-generic

Repository to use: gnab's rtl8812au repository - it forks Realtek's open source driver 4.2.2

Installation:

All instructions are in essence available at gnab's repository, but for the impatient here they are. They require a working internet connection to clone his repository! Obviously, you need to have a dev env and DKMS installed (instructions for that omitted here)

cd /tmp
git clone https://github.com/gnab/rtl8812au.git gnab_rtl8812au
cd gnab_rtl8812au
make
sudo insmod 8812au.ko

At this point you should be able to use your adapter properly.

To add it to any new kernels installed by Ubuntu, configure it via DKMS as follows:

cd /tmp
sudo cp -R gnab_rtl8812au /usr/src/8812au-4.2.2
sudo dkms add -m 8812au -v 4.2.2
sudo dkms build -m 8812au -v 4.2.2
sudo dkms install -m 8812au -v 4.2.2

That's it!

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