Recently my networking has been acting up, and since yesterday I have lost all ability to use my wifi network adapter.
As to describe the way the networking was acting up, the network-manager would sometime lose connection of wifi and connect on the ethernet iface (without any viable connection). This has happened in the past, but I noticed it happened more frequently over the past few days (3-4 days or so) and was most noticeable when bringing the computer up from sleep.
I started investigating after I lost connection to the internet this morning, and I found out that the wlan interface (listed as wlp3s0) wasn't present in ifconfig. Trying to bring it up via sudo ifconfig wlp3s0 up
resulted in SIOCSIFFLAGS: Operation not possible due to RF-kill
.
sudo rfkill list all
results in the following:
0: phy0: Wireless LAN
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: yes
Thus showing that the lock is hardware based, not software based. Consequently I:
- ensured that my airplane mode switch wasn't turned on (tbh, I have no idea which side of it is airplane on, but I rebooted for both states of the switch, so that shouldn't be a problem)
- have attempted to use the network function key on the laptop (Fn + F5), to no avail
- have ensured the lock wasn't from the BIOS options (checked the I/O Security as well as Network options)
- have attempted to boot from an older image of my OS
- have attempted to boot from a live Ubuntu ISO (16.04) ; did not result in any change network-wise
- have attempted to do a soft unblock via
sudo rfkill unblock all
So time to bring the big guns.
Laptop model name:
LENOVO Thinkpad T430s 2352CT0/2352CT0, BIOS G7ET99WW (2.59 ) 03/18/2014
uname -a
resulted in the following output:
Linux 4.4.0-66-generic #87-Ubuntu SMP Fri Mar 3 15:29:05 UTC 2017 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
lspci
resulted in the following output:
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 3rd Gen Core processor DRAM Controller (rev 09) 00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v2/3rd Gen Core processor PCI Express Root Port (rev 09) 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller (rev 09) 00:14.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family USB xHCI Host Controller (rev 04) 00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family MEI Controller #1 (rev 04) 00:19.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82579LM Gigabit Network Connection (rev 04) 00:1a.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller #2 (rev 04) 00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family High Definition Audio Controller (rev 04) 00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 1 (rev c4) 00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 2 (rev c4) 00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 3 (rev c4) 00:1d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller #1 (rev 04) 00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation QM77 Express Chipset LPC Controller (rev 04) 00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 7 Series Chipset Family 6-port SATA Controller [AHCI mode] (rev 04) 00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family SMBus Controller (rev 04) 01:00.0 3D controller: NVIDIA Corporation GF117M [GeForce 610M/710M/810M/820M / GT 620M/625M/630M/720M] (rev a1) 03:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation Centrino Ultimate-N 6300 (rev 3e)
lshw -c network
resulted in the following output:
*-network description: Ethernet interface product: 82579LM Gigabit Network Connection vendor: Intel Corporation physical id: 19 bus info: pci@0000:00:19.0 logical name: enp0s25 version: 04 serial: 3c:97:0e:95:07:f6 capacity: 1Gbit/s width: 32 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: pm msi bus_master cap_list ethernet physical tp 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt-fd autonegotiation configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=e1000e driverversion=3.2.6-k firmware=0.13-3 latency=0 link=no multicast=yes port=twisted pair resources: irq:28 memory:f3500000-f351ffff memory:f353b000-f353bfff ioport:6080(size=32) *-network DISABLED description: Wireless interface product: Centrino Ultimate-N 6300 vendor: Intel Corporation physical id: 0 bus info: pci@0000:03:00.0 logical name: wlp3s0 version: 3e serial: 3c:a9:f4:38:36:ac width: 64 bits clock: 33MHz capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless configuration: broadcast=yes driver=iwlwifi driverversion=4.4.0-66-generic firmware=9.221.4.1 build 25532 latency=0 link=no multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11abgn resources: irq:33 memory:f2c00000-f2c01fff
ifconfig -a
resulted in the following output (eth0 => enp0s25, wlan0 => wlp3s0):
br-5683354b17cb Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 02:42:e8:3c:ec:f5 inet addr:172.18.0.1 Bcast:0.0.0.0 Mask:255.255.0.0 UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B) docker0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 02:42:c1:3b:54:07 inet addr:172.17.0.1 Bcast:0.0.0.0 Mask:255.255.0.0 UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B) enp0s25 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 3c:97:0e:95:07:f6 UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B) Interrupt:20 Memory:f3500000-f3520000 lo Link encap:Local Loopback inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0 inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:65536 Metric:1 RX packets:11358 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:11358 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:1 RX bytes:834988 (834.9 KB) TX bytes:834988 (834.9 KB) wlp3s0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 3c:a9:f4:38:36:ac BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)
iwconfig
resulted in the following output:
wlp3s0 IEEE 802.11abgn ESSID:off/any Mode:Managed Access Point: Not-Associated Tx-Power=off Retry short limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off Encryption key:off Power Management:off
iw dev
resulted in the following output:
phy#0 Interface wlp3s0 ifindex 3 wdev 0x1 addr 3c:a9:f4:38:36:ac type managed
dmesg
resulted in the following output. The most interesting part is at 3.695787s through 3.74s:
apt-cache policy linux-firmware
resulted in the following output:
linux-firmware: Installed: 1.157.8 Candidate: 1.157.8 Version table: *** 1.157.8 500 500 http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-updates/main amd64 Packages 500 http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-updates/main i386 Packages 500 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-security/main amd64 Packages 500 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-security/main i386 Packages 100 /var/lib/dpkg/status 1.157 500 500 http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial/main amd64 Packages 500 http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial/main i386 Packages
I also took other prints, most notably recent /var/log/apt/history.log
, as well as journalctl -b
, modinfo iwlwifi
, modinfo iwldev
, and modinfo mac80211
. Let me know if you would like any of those, I'll add them to this post.
At this point I am quite out of solutions. I have searched through archlinux, gentoo and ubuntu forums without any success. Any help would be greatly appreciated!!!! 🙂 🙂 🙂
Cheers
[UPDATE]: I have installed a D-Link AC1200 DWA-182 Wireless USB adapter using this tutorial, and unfortunately this one doesn't work either. However printing lshw -c network
returns the device as DISABLED, while rfkill list all
returns the device as neither hard or soft blocked. I'm sure that this information can provide a crucial piece to the puzzle.
Best Answer
The Lenovo Thinkpad T430 Wireless switch is on the right side of the case. It's the third item from the back to front, just after the USB connector.
Turn that switch to the opposite of the current position.
The off position turns off all wireless connections.
Update:
There's also a shortcut Function key to toggle the wireless. This is: FN+F5 on most Lenovo Computers. If you look at the F5 Function key you should see an icon to indicate it's a network adapter control. The Icon should have the appearance with computer with signals around it.