Wireless shows up as disabled, how can I get it working?

Question

$ sudo iwconfig
lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

wlan0     IEEE 802.11bg  ESSID:off/any  
          Mode:Managed  Access Point: Not-Associated   Tx-Power=0 dBm   
          Retry  long limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:off
          Power Management:off

pan0      no wireless extensions.

$ 

This is what pops up when I click the two computers icon

What should I do to get Wifi working on this machine?

---

$ sudo ifconfig wlan0 up
SIOCSIFFLAGS: No such file or directory
$

$ lspci | tail
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 03)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 03)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1 (rev 03)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev 93)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation ICH9M LPC Interface Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation ICH9M/M-E SATA AHCI Controller (rev 03)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 03)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc M92 LP [Mobility Radeon HD 4300 Series]
09:00.0 Ethernet controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88E8040 PCI-E Fast Ethernet Controller (rev 13)
0c:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.11b/g (rev 01)
$

Solution 1

It is likely that the network-manager state got corrupted. Open the file /var/lib/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.state. It should look something like this:

[main]
NetworkingEnabled=true
WirelessEnabled=true
WWANEnabled=true

Change any from 'false' to 'true' to re-enable networking. It may work better if you first stop NetworkManager:

sudo stop network-manager

And start it again once done.. Or reboot

This happened occasionally after wakeup in Lucid. In Maverick this should be fixed.

Solution 2

Try this:

• Install rfkill -> sudo apt-get install rfkill
• Give this command in terminal -> rfkill unblock all

Your wireless will work instantly, I hope. I guess you have a Intel wireless card and an Hp laptop, one of them at least.

Solution 3

I did rfkill list and it should no for soft and hard blocks. I still ran rfkill unblock wifi and I was able to see networks again. It has happened to me for the last 2 distros in this manner.

HP DV9000 Laptop

Solution 4

Check this one out. It's for BROADCOM CARDS ONLY This worked for me. The button wouldn't work at all, and it wouldn't detect any wireless networks... But I did this, and rebooted, and it works perfectly.

http://techie-buzz.com/foss/wifi-ubuntu-install-broadcom-drivers.html

You might have to mess with the terminal commands, depending on where you put the downloaded files. I kept them all in my "Downloads" folder.

My commands ended up looking like the ones below

sudo b43-fwcutter -w /lib/firmware '/home/tsarprodigy/Downloads/wl_apsta-3.130.20.0.o'

Then

tar xfvj /home/tsarprodigy/Downloads/broadcom-wl-4.80.53.0.tar.bz2'

And finally,

sudo b43-fwcutter --unsupported -w /lib/firmware broadcom-wl-4.80.53.0/kmod/wl_apsta_mimo.o

Now all you have to do is restart and it should work just fine!

You're welcome, and thanks for reading...

Solution 5

Try pressing any buttons on your keyboard that you're not sure what they do.
I was getting the Hard blocked and look for a wifi switch; didn't see one. Turns out when Ubuntu set-up the keyboard they assigned a button near the bottom of my screen as the wifi button.

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Comments

[Admin]

The Broadcom driver was missing, it works now, thanks everyone.

[Lazer]

that checkbox is already enabled.

[Lazer]

all the states were already set to true. disabling and restarting has no effect.

[Lazer]

rfkill unblock all does not change anything. I think it is already enabled, but not able to search for the network. I am able to connect to the network using Vista on the same machine though.

[skalka]

Can you tell me which card is?

[txwikinger]

In this case, try to remove and re-insert the wireless kernel module with rmmod and modprobe.

[Lazer]

What is the module name?

[txwikinger]

This depends on your wifi card. In my case it is iwl4935, I believe.

[user1477]

I have this problem on lucid, and this works for me, but the unblock all command only works when I disable wireless on my laptop first (I've got a hardware switch). So I switch it off, run sudo rfkill unblock all, then switch it on, and it works every time for me. (Dell Inspiron 1420n)

[Ronshere]

sudo rm /dev/rfkill This worked great for me, thanks!

[Underverse]

Network manager can also be restarted with sudo systemctl restart NetworkManager which in my case looks to be just another reason to thank systemd for fscking linux up and one more good reason to get rid of it