Ubuntu 18.04, cannot connect to wifi with Qualcomm Atheros AR93xx drivers

Question

I've put a clean install of Ubuntu on my PC, but I can't get it to connect to the wifi. I don't have access to ethernet, and trying to connect using the Network Manager GUI results in it timing out, saying "Activation of network connection failed." It runs perfectly fine on the same machine with Windows 10.

Ubuntu version is 18.04, the card is a Qualcomm Atheros and the driver for my card is ath9k.

I don't believe it's a driver issue, as all driver checks come up fine. I think it may have something to do with the persistence of the connection. When attempting to connect, dmesg gives the following result:

wlp4s0: authenticate with [MAC address]
wlp4s0: send auth to [MAC address] (try 1/3)
wlp4s0: send auth to [MAC address] (try 2/3)
wlp4s0: send auth to [MAC address] (try 3/3)
wlp4s0: authentication with [MAC address] timed out

Result of iwconfig:

wlp4s0    IEEE 802.11  ESSID: [Network Name]
           Mode:Managed  Access Point: Not-Associated  Tx-Power=19 dBm

Should "Access Point" be something other than "Not-Associated?" If so how do I change it?

Also, running iwlist scan half the time results in No scan results, but then after a few tries it returns the relevant information.

I have absolutely 0 idea what to do about this.

Answer 1

Okay, so I believe I've found the source of the problem. That being said, I actually did end up purchasing a different wifi card that better suited my needs, one that uses the iwlwifi driver instead.

However, I discovered my issue with the other card, as it was driving me insane. For whatever reason, the particular card I had was not being configured with the correct wifi frequency/channel. So the device drivers existed, the wifi card itself could physically see the networks, but upon trying to connect those networks would never be found because the interface was configured to the wrong frequency. This could be observed with iwconfig wlp4s0 which gave me the following output:

wlp4s0    IEEE 802.11    ESSID:[network name]
          Mode:Managed   Frequency:5.816GHz

That frequency is on a channel that my wireless network adapter doesn't have (it only supports 2.4GHz) and that my router network doesn't occupy. Checked the frequency channel of my router, which was Channel 7 (~2.4GHz) and I ran the following commands:

sudo ip link set wlp4s0 down
sudo iwconfig wlp4s0 channel 7
sudo ip link set wlp4s0 up
nmcli connection up [network name]

And it worked. Really bizarre. But hey, it works now, and just in time for me to throw it in the garbage and put in a different card that doesn't give me a headache to use!