"Starting Wireless Hotspot..." but nothing happens

Question

I was trying to create an WiFi hotspot for my android device. I used ap-hotspot to do so.

I configured the ap-hotspot using

sudo ap-hotspot configure

Then I started ap-hotspot using

sudo ap-hotspot start

Then it shows this

Starting Wireless Hotspot...

And then nothing happens, no further message is displayed, hotspot is not created.

What is Wrong? How to fix it?

Solution 1

ap-hotspot uses hostapd to create wireless network

I had problems creating hotspot using hostapd in Ubuntu 14.04 mainly because new version of hostapd in 14.04 default repository is buggy.

You can solve this problem by downgrading hostapd in Ubuntu 14.04 LTS to a previous version

Uninstall buggy hostapd using apt-get:

sudo apt-get remove hostapd

Then install non-buggy version of hostapd:

• 64 - bit:

  cd /tmp
  wget http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/universe/w/wpa/hostapd_1.0-3ubuntu2.1_amd64.deb
  sudo dpkg -i hostapd*.deb
  sudo apt-mark hold hostapd
  

• 32 - bit:

  cd /tmp
  wget http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/universe/w/wpa/hostapd_1.0-3ubuntu2.1_i386.deb
  sudo dpkg -i hostapd*.deb
  sudo apt-mark hold hostapd
  

"sudo apt-mark hold hostapd" will prevent hostapd to upgrade to the buggy version.

Then try running ap-hotspot again, I think it should work. It worked for me like a charm.

Solution 2

Install the hostapd as mentioned above, followed by ap-hotspot, from http://www.ubuntuupdates.org/package/webupd8/trusty/main/base/ap-hotspot and run

sudo ap-hotspot configure

Give the correct inter-phase eth0 and wlan0 followed by ssid and pass-phrase.

Start the hotspot by

sudo ap-hotspot start

Comments

[Admin]

After following above steps, ap-hotspot was not working

[rajan]

use the instructions below as given in the answer,. then configure the ap-hotsot and start,. it should work.

[rajan]

what is this, it fills up the terminal. bash: notify-send: command not found

[Back.Slash]

install notify-send using sudo apt-get install libnotify-bin

[rajan]

if you use the "sudo apt-get upgrade" will the hostapd upgraded?

[Back.Slash]

not if you have done sudo apt-mark hold hostapd

[d3rdon]

Is there no other solution? And is the problem reported and a Bugreport filed?

[Durgesh Suthar]

This solution not working for me. I have done everything as above. Still getting same problem.

[IronBlossom]

The question, this answer, the sudo apt-get install libnotify-bin comment by @Back.Slash is just what I need. N.B on my side, lubuntu_14.04, sudo apt-get remove hostapd:i386 was the command for removing hostapd.