I can't connect to WiFi from my notebook. It was working fine for a long time until recently. There have been updates to linux-firmware.
I didn't notice it right away because I usually have my notebook connected by Ethernet - which works fine.
It seems like something is wrong at the notebook end. How do I rule out a hardware failure?
Details:
I finally remembered to looked in dmesg and found that
It was trying to load iwlwifi-7265D-19.ucode or iwlwifi-7265D-18.ucode, but I only have 10,12,13,16,17,21,22,27,29
So I tried (as a stopgap measure)
sudo ln -sf iwlwifi-7265D-17.ucode iwlwifi-7265D-19.ucode
which got rid of the error:
bigbird@sananda:/lib/firmware$ dmesg -T | grep wifi
[Sun Feb 18 01:48:52 2018] iwlwifi 0000:07:00.0: loaded firmware version 17.352738.0 op_mode iwlmvm
[Sun Feb 18 01:48:53 2018] iwlwifi 0000:07:00.0: Detected Intel(R) Dual Band Wireless AC 7265, REV=0x210
[Sun Feb 18 01:48:53 2018] iwlwifi 0000:07:00.0: L1 Enabled - LTR Enabled
[Sun Feb 18 01:48:53 2018] iwlwifi 0000:07:00.0: L1 Enabled - LTR Enabled
[Sun Feb 18 01:48:53 2018] iwlwifi 0000:07:00.0 wlp7s0: renamed from wlan0
bigbird@sananda:/lib/firmware$
But didn't fix the problem.
bigbird@sananda:/lib/firmware$ rfkill unblock wifi
bigbird@sananda:/lib/firmware$ rfkill unblock wlan
bigbird@sananda:/lib/firmware$ rfkill list
0: Toshiba Bluetooth: Bluetooth
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: no
1: hci0: Bluetooth
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: no
2: phy0: Wireless LAN
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: yes
bigbird@sananda:/lib/firmware$
I found this, but don't really understand it:
https://wireless.wiki.kernel.org/en/users/drivers/iwlwifi/core_release
There are a whole lot of "end of life" notices there, but this notebook is only a few years old.
Hardware:
Toshiba Satellite S55 C5274
kubuntu 16.04
Technicolor Gateway TC8717 (BATC8717T V4)
My smartphone can access the WiFi fine, so it's up.
I can access my gateway via Ethernet cable and it looks fine.
Running
rfkill unblock wifi
or wlan, with or without sudo only affects the soft block.
The wifi toggle on my keyboard turns the soft block on and off, but leaves the hard block in place.
I do not have a firewall running on my notebook and I just have one totally external IP blocked using iptables.
sudo lshw
shows:
*-pci:1
description: PCI bridge
product: Wildcat Point-LP PCI Express Root Port #3
vendor: Intel Corporation
physical id: 1c.2
bus info: pci@0000:00:1c.2
version: e3
width: 32 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pci normal_decode bus_master cap_list
configuration: driver=pcieport
resources: irq:43 memory:b3300000-b33fffff
*-network DISABLED
description: Wireless interface
product: Wireless 7265
vendor: Intel Corporation
physical id: 0
bus info: pci@0000:07:00.0
logical name: wlp7s0
version: 61
serial: dc:53:60:cb:27:17
width: 64 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless
configuration: broadcast=yes driver=iwlwifi driverversion=4.4.0-112-generic firmware=17.352738.0 latency=0 link=no mu$
resources: irq:53 memory:b3300000-b3301fff
bigbird@sananda:~/bin$ sudo ip -a link
1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1
link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
2: enp8s0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast state UP mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000
link/ether 54:ab:3a:0d:4f:a4 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
3: wlp7s0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST> mtu 1500 qdisc noop state DOWN mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000
link/ether dc:53:60:cb:27:17 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
bigbird@sananda:~/bin$
sudo modprobe -r toshiba_acpi && sudo rfkill unblock all
?sudo modprobe -r toshiba_acpi
It may not be present if you removed it above and haven't rebooted. Just continue:sudo modprobe toshiba_acpi disable_hotkeys=Y
Now does the wifi toggle work as expected? If so, we'll make it permanent.