Cannot connect to home wireless

[FabSal]

Hi,

I'm using Mint for the first time. I'm used to Linux Desktops, but now I have a Linux laptop (Dell Latitude E4310)
that runs Mint. I'm able to connect with this laptop to the wireless at work, but I have not yet been able to connect
it to my home wireless.

I have a Netgear Router (model WNR2000), and I can connect to it using my Mac, iPhone and also my son's Windows laptop.
The router has the following setup:

Channel: Auto
Mode: up to 145 Mbps
Security Option: WPA2-PSK [AES]

I checked that the router does not block access to Mac addresses that are not specified in a given list.

When I click on the Network icon on the desktop I can see my wireless (as well as a lot of others around here),
and when I click on it it will ask for my passwd and then I can see that it is trying to access the network, but after
a short while it comes back with the message "Wireless network disconnected".

If anyone has any idea/hint/suggestion of what might be wrong, I would be really grateful.

Cheers,

Fab

[JasonLG]

Sounds like you're entering the password in wrong.

[Andrew33]

Hey Fab,

First, what flavor of Mint are you running:

Second, have you set up your network on your laptop....(Network name, IP, Security type; you'll want for security purposes to get and enter the mac address in the router configuration from the wireless card on your laptop):

Third, if the wireless access is turned on in router config, you'll want to turn it off so you can get access to the router from the laptop......this is something I ran into awhile back when I was running a netgear router. Also, when you set up the network through the network manager, make sure you check the box that say connect automatically, then, under the wireless tab enter the password in the box for the security key (password).

I think your biggest problem might be that the wireless MAC filter access list is still enabled.....that's about all I can think of right now...

Andew

[FabSal]

Hi Andrew

Hey Fab,
First, what flavor of Mint are you running:

LinuxMint release 10 (julia)
Kernel Linux 2.6.35-22-generic
GNOME 2.32.0

Second, have you set up your network on your laptop....(Network name, IP, Security type; you'll want for security purposes to get and enter the mac address in the router configuration from the wireless card on your laptop):

I think so: in the 'Auto <my_wireless_network>' tab in 'Network Connections' I have:

Connection name: Auto <my_wireless_network>
Connect automatically is ticked.

WIRELESS tab:
SSID: <my_wireless_network>
Mode: Infrastructure
BSSID: <empty>
Device MAC address: <empty>
Cloned MAC address: <empty>
MTU: automatic

WIRELESS Security tab:
Security: WPA&WPA2 Personal
Password: <my_passwd> (and I've checked that it corresponds to the passwd on the router

IPv4 Settings tab:
Method: Automatic (DHCP)
Require IPv4 addressing for this connection to complete is ticked.

IPv6 Settings tab:
Method: Ignore

Third, if the wireless access is turned on in router config, you'll want to turn it off so you can get access to the router from the laptop......this is something I ran into awhile back when I was running a netgear router. Also, when you set up the network through the network manager, make sure you check the box that say connect automatically, then, under the wireless tab enter the password in the box for the security key (password).

I'm not sure what you mean here.... In the router configuration I have:

Enable Wireless router radio
Enable SSID broadcast
Enable WMM

Do I have to disable one of these??

I think your biggest problem might be that the wireless MAC filter access list is still enabled.....that's about all I can think of right now...

I checked in the 'wireless card access list' on the router and 'Turn access control on' is not ticked....

Thanks a lot!

Cheers,

Fab

[AlbertP]

You do not need to disable that 3 things in the router.

Please delete the auto connection, and then look into the wireless network list if your network is available. If it's there, click the network and connect. Then tick the box 'auto connect' or something like that, when Network Manager says the connection is made. This is the recommended way to setup automatic connecting.

[FabSal]

You do not need to disable that 3 things in the router.

Please delete the auto connection, and then look into the wireless network list if your network is available. If it's there, click the network and connect. Then tick the box 'auto connect' or something like that, when Network Manager says the connection is made. This is the recommended way to setup automatic connecting.

Hi,

I've tried, but I still have the same the same result: I can see my network and when I click on it I have the pop-up window
asking me for the passwd; once I input the passwd it will try for a while and then it will say 'Wireless Network Disconnected - you are
now offline' .... As I said in the first post, the laptop connects fine to the wireless at work (for which I had to run some automatic
setup procedure called XConnectExpress... could that have messed up with the wireless card?)...

Cheers,

Fab

[FabSal]

You do not need to disable that 3 things in the router.

Please delete the auto connection, and then look into the wireless network list if your network is available. If it's there, click the network and connect. Then tick the box 'auto connect' or something like that, when Network Manager says the connection is made. This is the recommended way to setup automatic connecting.

Hi,

I've tried, but I still have the same the same result: I can see my network and when I click on it I have the pop-up window
asking me for the passwd; once I input the passwd it will try for a while and then it will say 'Wireless Network Disconnected - you are
now offline' .... As I said in the first post, the laptop connects fine to the wireless at work (for which I had to run some automatic
setup procedure called XConnectExpress... could that have messed up with the wireless card?)...

sorry, it is called XpressConnect...

[FabSal]

You do not need to disable that 3 things in the router.

Please delete the auto connection, and then look into the wireless network list if your network is available. If it's there, click the network and connect. Then tick the box 'auto connect' or something like that, when Network Manager says the connection is made. This is the recommended way to setup automatic connecting.

There must be something really weird.... I've now removed the security on my home wireless and add the mac address
of my laptop to the wireless card access list (and enabled it). I can connect to the wireless from my Mac, my wife's Mac
and our two iPhones, but I still cannot connect using the LinuxMint Laptop. It tried to connect and then after a while it
shows a window saying 'Wireless Disconnected - you are now offline'..... Should I enable somehow my connection?

Cheers,

Fab

[richyrich]

It might help to use mintwifi . . ? . . use the command below in your terminal , you can then copy the whole output, and paste it back here inside a Code box when you reply.

Code: Select all

mintwifi

[FabSal]

It might help to use mintwifi . . ? . . use the command below in your terminal , you can then copy the whole output, and paste it back here inside a Code box when you reply.

Code: Select all

mintwifi

Hi,

here is what I see if I run mintWifi.py:

Code: Select all

-------------------------
* I. scanning WIFI PCI devices...
  -- Broadcom Corporation BCM43224 802.11a/b/g/n (rev 01)
      ==> PCI ID = 14e4:4353 (rev 01)
-------------------------
* II. querying ndiswrapper...
-------------------------
* III. querying iwconfig...
lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

eth1      IEEE 802.11abgn  ESSID:""
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:2.412 GHz  Access Point: Not-Associated
          Bit Rate:53 Mb/s   Tx-Power:24 dBm
          Retry min limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:off
          Power Managementmode:All packets received
          Link Quality=5/5  Signal level=0 dBm  Noise level=-96 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0   Missed beacon:0

-------------------------
* IV. querying ifconfig...
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 5c:26:0a:46:a6:ee
          UP BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)
          Interrupt:20 Memory:f5400000-f5420000

eth1      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 88:9f:fa:6e:ac:42
          inet6 addr: fe80::8a9f:faff:fe6e:ac42/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:2 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:7
          TX packets:7 errors:14 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:330 (330.0 B)  TX bytes:2014 (2.0 KB)
          Interrupt:17

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:20 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:20 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:1200 (1.2 KB)  TX bytes:1200 (1.2 KB)

-------------------------
* V. querying DHCP...
Internet Systems Consortium DHCP Client V3.1.3
Copyright 2004-2009 Internet Systems Consortium.
All rights reserved.
For info, please visit https://www.isc.org/software/dhcp/

Listening on LPF/eth1/88:9f:fa:6e:ac:42
Sending on   LPF/eth1/88:9f:fa:6e:ac:42
Listening on LPF/eth0/5c:26:0a:46:a6:ee
Sending on   LPF/eth0/5c:26:0a:46:a6:ee
Sending on   Socket/fallback
DHCPDISCOVER on eth1 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 3
DHCPDISCOVER on eth0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 3
DHCPDISCOVER on eth1 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 8
DHCPDISCOVER on eth0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 3
DHCPDISCOVER on eth0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 5
DHCPDISCOVER on eth1 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 8
DHCPDISCOVER on eth0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 5
DHCPDISCOVER on eth0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 10
DHCPDISCOVER on eth1 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 7
DHCPDISCOVER on eth0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 10
DHCPDISCOVER on eth1 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 12
DHCPDISCOVER on eth0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 20
DHCPDISCOVER on eth1 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 7
DHCPDISCOVER on eth1 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 13
DHCPDISCOVER on eth0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 5
DHCPDISCOVER on eth1 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 3
No DHCPOFFERS received.
No working leases in persistent database - sleeping.
-------------------------
* VI. querying nslookup google.com...
;; connection timed out; no servers could be reached

I'm not really able to understand what the problem might be.....

Thanks!

Fab

[AlbertP]

You are using a Broadcom card, and Broadcom wireless + Linux doesn't always work well. It may work better with WPA (or possibly WEP but that isn't quite safe) encryption instead of WPA2.

[FabSal]

You are using a Broadcom card, and Broadcom wireless + Linux doesn't always work well. It may work better with WPA (or possibly WEP but that isn't quite safe) encryption instead of WPA2.

Hi Albert,

thanks a lot for your suggestion, I will try that. What strikes me, though, is that even when I opened the wireless (with No security option whatsoever)
and only added the MAC address of the laptop to the Wireless Card Access List, the laptop would not connect to the network, although I could see it.

Cheers,

Fab

[krustwell]

posting on this thread because i think i'm having the exact same issue. if i need to start a new thread, i will. i am running Mint 10 Julia on an HP Netbook.

did the OP first successfully connect wirelessly to his work network? i ask because i am only able to connect to my home network, and that's the 1st (and only) network i have been able to connected to wirelessly. connecting via ethernet poses no problems.

the last 2 nights, i've tried unsuccessfully to connect to networks that had WPA passwords. the behavior was exactly as he described: networks are visible to me, but when i attempt to connect, it churns for a while and eventually fails. the passwords were easy and i turned on "view password" and got verification they were correct. additionally, i am unable to connect to public, unsecure networks. like the OP, i also am using a Broadcom card:

Minix / # lspci | grep 4312
01:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.11b/g LP-PHY (rev 01)

i don't know what's up. "wireless" works b/c i'm connected to my home network right now.

below is a snippet from /var/log/messages from tonight. the only thing i see is the firmware version is a few years old. but i don't see how that would result in only 1 perfectly operating WiFi connection and failures for all others.

Apr 14 19:02:46 Minix kernel: [ 21.200669] b43-phy0: Broadcom 4312 WLAN found (core revision 15)
Apr 14 19:02:47 Minix kernel: [ 21.485053] Broadcom 43xx driver loaded [ Features: PL, Firmware-ID: FW13 ]
Apr 14 19:02:47 Minix kernel: [ 22.052122] b43-phy0: Loading firmware version 478.104 (2008-07-01 00:50:23)

also, here's the output of mintWifi:

Minix / # /usr/bin/mintWifi
-------------------------
* I. scanning WIFI PCI devices...
-- Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.11b/g LP-PHY (rev 01)
==> PCI ID = 14e4:4315 (rev 01)
-------------------------
* II. querying ndiswrapper...
-------------------------
* III. querying iwconfig...
lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

wlan0 IEEE 802.11bg ESSID:"WOO WOO!!"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.462 GHz Access Point: 00:18:39:EC:9A:8A
Bit Rate=1 Mb/s Tx-Power=20 dBm
Retry long limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:off
Power Management:off
Link Quality=70/70 Signal level=-2 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

-------------------------
* IV. querying ifconfig...
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:24:81:6d:05:6f
UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)
Interrupt:43

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:540 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:540 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:40080 (40.0 KB) TX bytes:40080 (40.0 KB)

wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:24:2c:8a:0a:49
inet addr:192.168.1.104 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::224:2cff:fe8a:a49/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:28980 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:19529 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:32879462 (32.8 MB) TX bytes:3300297 (3.3 MB)

-------------------------
* V. querying DHCP...
Internet Systems Consortium DHCP Client V3.1.3
Copyright 2004-2009 Internet Systems Consortium.
All rights reserved.
For info, please visit https://www.isc.org/software/dhcp/

Listening on LPF/eth0/00:24:81:6d:05:6f
Sending on LPF/eth0/00:24:81:6d:05:6f
Listening on LPF/wlan0/00:24:2c:8a:0a:49
Sending on LPF/wlan0/00:24:2c:8a:0a:49
Sending on Socket/fallback
DHCPDISCOVER on eth0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 3
DHCPDISCOVER on wlan0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 3
DHCPOFFER of 192.168.1.104 from 192.168.1.1
DHCPREQUEST of 192.168.1.104 on wlan0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67
DHCPACK of 192.168.1.104 from 192.168.1.1
bound to 192.168.1.104 -- renewal in 32652 seconds.
-------------------------
* VI. querying nslookup google.com...
Server: 209.18.47.61
Address: 209.18.47.61#53

Non-authoritative answer:
Name: google.com
Address: 74.125.113.104
Name: google.com
Address: 74.125.113.105
Name: google.com
Address: 74.125.113.106
Name: google.com
Address: 74.125.113.147
Name: google.com
Address: 74.125.113.99
Name: google.com
Address: 74.125.113.103

any other ideas?

[eddies92]

Hello All,
I'm posting here to say that this also has happened to me.
Linux Mint Debian Edition.
I have a gateway m6866 with an intel wireless 4965agn. I have checked the HCL list and it says that it's perfectly compatible. i was visiting my parents this weekend and they have Quest as their ISP. They have a router modem combo provided by Qwest MFD by actiontec. By default it comes with a "wpa2" (aes) connection. Windows connects just fine but I experience on my laptop the same thing the OP is experienceing. It tries to connect but then it says it's disconnected.
To the best of my knowledge mac filtering is off. My computer is fully updated on a stable channel. I've tried turning off the security and lowered it to WEP. It connected just fine. I put it to "wpa tkip" and it also connected just fine. I come home and set my netgear routers security to the same one my parents had and it connects just fine O.o. Could it be that my computer may have corrected itself? This is really unacceptable as most places where I have access to the internet have the same kind of combo. Anybody come across a fix? Thanks for your time
P.S. and yes I was sure the passphrase was right. I even copied and pasted.

[krustwell]

it would appear there is either a bug somewhere, or a configuration SNAFU, or something going on here. is this something special with the Broadcom card and Mint? the card worked fine when the machine was running Windows, now it can only connect to 1 wireless nework...whether security is on or off. any help is appreciated, as this kind of defeats the purpose of having a netbook, you know?

[krustwell]

Bump for an annoying issue.

[FabSal]

Hello All,
I'm posting here to say that this also has happened to me.
Linux Mint Debian Edition.
I have a gateway m6866 with an intel wireless 4965agn. I have checked the HCL list and it says that it's perfectly compatible. i was visiting my parents this weekend and they have Quest as their ISP. They have a router modem combo provided by Qwest MFD by actiontec. By default it comes with a "wpa2" (aes) connection. Windows connects just fine but I experience on my laptop the same thing the OP is experienceing. It tries to connect but then it says it's disconnected.
To the best of my knowledge mac filtering is off. My computer is fully updated on a stable channel. I've tried turning off the security and lowered it to WEP. It connected just fine. I put it to "wpa tkip" and it also connected just fine. I come home and set my netgear routers security to the same one my parents had and it connects just fine O.o. Could it be that my computer may have corrected itself? This is really unacceptable as most places where I have access to the internet have the same kind of combo. Anybody come across a fix? Thanks for your time
P.S. and yes I was sure the passphrase was right. I even copied and pasted.

Hi,

thanks to the help of our Linux guru here at Uni, I managed to solve the problem.
He removed the existing wireless driver and installed the latest driver directly from Broadcom (http://www.broadcom.com/support/802.11/linux_sta.php).
Now I can happily connect to the wireless anywhere.

Thanks a lot for all the comment!

Cheers,

Fab

[FabSal]

Hello All,
I'm posting here to say that this also has happened to me.
Linux Mint Debian Edition.
I have a gateway m6866 with an intel wireless 4965agn. I have checked the HCL list and it says that it's perfectly compatible. i was visiting my parents this weekend and they have Quest as their ISP. They have a router modem combo provided by Qwest MFD by actiontec. By default it comes with a "wpa2" (aes) connection. Windows connects just fine but I experience on my laptop the same thing the OP is experienceing. It tries to connect but then it says it's disconnected.
To the best of my knowledge mac filtering is off. My computer is fully updated on a stable channel. I've tried turning off the security and lowered it to WEP. It connected just fine. I put it to "wpa tkip" and it also connected just fine. I come home and set my netgear routers security to the same one my parents had and it connects just fine O.o. Could it be that my computer may have corrected itself? This is really unacceptable as most places where I have access to the internet have the same kind of combo. Anybody come across a fix? Thanks for your time
P.S. and yes I was sure the passphrase was right. I even copied and pasted.

Hi,

thanks to the help of our Linux guru here at Uni, I managed to solve the problem.
He removed the existing wireless driver and installed the latest driver directly from Broadcom (http://www.broadcom.com/support/802.11/linux_sta.php).
Now I can happily connect to the wireless anywhere.

Thanks a lot for all the comment!

Cheers,

Fab

Just for completeness, the card on my laptop is an EMEA Dell Wireless 1520 (802.11 a/b/g/n dual band) Mini Card (one of my colleagues has the same laptop, but with
an earlier card (1501) and it worked out of the box with Ubuntu).

Cheers,

Fab

[AlbertP]

The problem here is that AES encryption is not working OK for some cards, but it is the most used encryption for WPA2 (many routers don't even support TKIP).

[krustwell]

issue resolved...by blowing away Mint and installing Fuduntu.