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I am writing this with my laptop connected via my mobile phone. I can connect to it just fine and have no problems with the internet at home what so ever, however when I try to connect to the internet at work I can get onto the router, but I still have a 169.x.x.x address for external IP. Its only my work router, and my coworkers have no problem with it (none of them run linux). All the other mentions of this problem seem to imply that ubuntu just won't connect but windows will, however that's not my situation.

Its a CISCO router, it looks like one of those serious business routers, so I can't imagine that its a problem with the router AND I was able to get online here for a while, and then I imagine it was after some kind of upgrade, I wasn't able to get online any more.

Any ideas? I deleted /etc/resolv.conf which others had said worked for them, but it didn't work for me. I'm using a 2008 macbook (non-unibody) which has a Broadcom wifi card (proprietary).

Thanks!

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Deleting /etc/resolv.conf is guaranteed to make your connection stop working, actually, but fortunately a reboot (and perhaps a reconnection, I don't remember) recreates it. Run the command traceroute -n 8.8.8.8 in a terminal: what's the output? (Obscure IP addresses for privacy if you want, but if you do tell us which ones are internal and which ones are external.) What about host google.com? – Gilles Sep 4 '12 at 13:47
I suppose you have 169.254.x.x link-local address, so that explains why you can reach the router but not go outside. Check if there is the DHCP client running on your laptop. If it is then probably the router/DHCP-server refuses to give you an address. Consult your system administrator, then. – krokoziabla Sep 4 '12 at 14:06
I'll use traceroute -n 8.8.8.8 when I get to work tomorrow and post my results - also, I am getting 169.254.x.x, but there isn't really any kind of "system administrator" I can ask, I think I'm the most tech savvy person in the school, any ideas/direction you can give me to help me probe further? Thank you all for your time, I truly appreciate the help. I'm planning on getting a new usb wifi dongle, do you think that might resolve the problem? – user87473 Sep 4 '12 at 20:59

closed as too localized by Jorge Castro, Ringtail, Mitch, Stephen Myall, jokerdino♦ Sep 20 '12 at 13:21

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