Wifi on LMDE on an Acer laptop with Qualcomm QCA9565

[rsnunez]

So, I was able to install and keep running LMDE with no issues for almost 3 months on an Acer Aspire V5 netbook or laptop with a Qualcomm QCA9565 wireless adapter. I had no issues at install and no issues for the first 3 months. I always accept all updates coming through the app on the system, and up until this week I never had any issue at all.
After some of the updates delivered this week, however, the system appeared as lacking access to the wireless connection I have at my place. I tried any and all things I found here and over at YouTube, but I was unable to bring back the wifi to life. In searching for a solution I was able to see I am not alone with this kind of issues.
I am trying to convert from Windows to LMDE but this issue really made me very pessimistic about my ability to keep using LMDE. Probably if you have a masters' or PhD in cybernetics this would no issue, but not for me. I am able to connect with a cable, no issue at all. And the only solution I was able to find was to use my cell phone (Samsung) with a cable through a USB port on the laptop/netbook. That worked fine, so I will be able to use it on the road that way, but being a recent arrival from Windows world and not being an engineer or something like that (I am a sociology PhD), this situation really killed me.
I spent two days trying to replicate procedures for other flavors of Linux that I found over at YouTube and some of the rather scarce information I found here.
I know it is my fault, but only really feels the weight of technology in cases like this. If this issue is so common for laptops, why we do not get some warning as to the potential risk of losing access to the wireless card of laptops/netbooks? Is there a similar risk on the regular Mint edition? Why I was able to use the wireless connection for three months and then, all of the sudden, it went away?
I am really confused and even afraid. I have found LMDE great when using it on an HP workstation that I am unable to upgrade to W11. That is why I started to play around with LMDE and that is why I installed LMDE on my laptop, but when things like this happen the information I was able to found here is not really detailed.
Often times I perceive people helping others assume one is somehow an expert on this and no, not really. At least not in my case.
It is really hard to try to find out specific information for LMDE, almost all the information is for Mint, and outside of this place, for other flavors of Linux, and then the issue that is an Acer laptop and then the issue of Qualcomm. If the people doing the development read this, please take this into consideration.
Fortunately, I was at home and not on the road with only that laptop at hand. Fortunately, I was only keeping the laptop updated when I made the mistake (I am sure that was!) of accepting some of the most recent updates. Fortunately, the solution, more like a workaround, of hooking the laptop to the cell phone was enough, but this situation makes me really think twice about the possibility of leaving Windowsland for good...

[Hoser Rob]

Have you posted this issue in the LMDE section of this forum? If you post in the main section you'll get a lot of Ubuntu specific info by users who don't read the title or don't know they are different.

[JeremyB]

Do you happen to have your wifi router set to auto channel? Try setting a channel between 1-11 on 2.4GHz
Qualcomm(Atheros) wifi devices have a code written in the EEPROM that the drivers use to determine what wifi channels you can use, you can see it in terminal with

Code: Select all

dmesg | grep ath

[rsnunez]

Honestly, I do not think it is the router... My phone access my local wifi through the very same router. My main system, a W10 HP Desktop also has access to the router, although I also use a cable there... Honestly, I saw lots of postings about issues with wifi access, and the solutions offered to people who are not tech experts, as in my case is either very hard to follow, or almost impossible to even follow...
That is the sad reality for people coming from Windowsland with no PhD in computers, as I am...

[JeremyB]

I didn't say it was a router issue, but changing the channel it uses is the quicker fix

[rsnunez]

This is what I get when running the instruction you provided...
Not sure what to do next...
Thanks

[karlchen]

Hello, rsnunez.

Would you mind running the command dmesg | grep ath and share its text output in the terminal window as text with us, please?
The drastically downsized screenshot is hardly readable.
Here is how to do so:

1. Execute the commandline dmesg | grep ath in the terminal window.
2. Mark the commandline and its text output with your mouse.
3. Press the keyboard shortcut <ctrl><shift>c in order to copy the marked text.
4. Switch to your next post here in the forum.
5. Paste the copied text into your post.
6. [Submit] the post.

Karl

[rsnunez]

Thank you Karl, for your help and instructions...

Here it is...
rsnunez@AcerRed:~$ dmesg | grep ath
[ 22.320780] systemd[1]: Started systemd-ask-password-wall.path - Forward Password Requests to Wall Directory Watch.
[ 22.457584] systemd[1]: systemd-fsck-root.service - File System Check on Root Device was skipped because of an unmet condition check (ConditionPathExists=!/run/initramfs/fsck-root).
[ 23.214159] systemd[1]: systemd-machine-id-commit.service - Commit a transient machine-id on disk was skipped because of an unmet condition check (ConditionPathIsMountPoint=/etc/machine-id).
[ 29.245643] usbcore: registered new interface driver ath3k
[ 29.331251] ath: phy0: WB335 2-ANT card detected
[ 29.331267] ath: phy0: Set BT/WLAN RX diversity capability
[ 29.344154] ath: phy0: Enable LNA combining
[ 29.366859] ath: phy0: ASPM enabled: 0x42
[ 29.366879] ath: EEPROM regdomain: 0x6c
[ 29.366883] ath: EEPROM indicates we should expect a direct regpair map
[ 29.366889] ath: Country alpha2 being used: 00
[ 29.366893] ath: Regpair used: 0x6c
[ 29.452458] ath9k 0000:01:00.0 wlp1s0: renamed from wlan0
rsnunez@AcerRed:~$ D

[JeremyB]

What country are you in and what results from terminal for

Code: Select all

iw reg get

[rsnunez]

I am in Mexico

rsnunez@AcerRed:~$ iw reg get
global
country 00: DFS-UNSET
(755 - 928 @ 2), (N/A, 20), (N/A), PASSIVE-SCAN
(2402 - 2472 @ 40), (N/A, 20), (N/A)
(2457 - 2482 @ 20), (N/A, 20), (N/A), AUTO-BW, PASSIVE-SCAN
(2474 - 2494 @ 20), (N/A, 20), (N/A), NO-OFDM, PASSIVE-SCAN
(5170 - 5250 @ 80), (N/A, 20), (N/A), AUTO-BW, PASSIVE-SCAN
(5250 - 5330 @ 80), (N/A, 20), (0 ms), DFS, AUTO-BW, PASSIVE-SCAN
(5490 - 5730 @ 160), (N/A, 20), (0 ms), DFS, PASSIVE-SCAN
(5735 - 5835 @ 80), (N/A, 20), (N/A), PASSIVE-SCAN
(57240 - 63720 @ 2160), (N/A, 0), (N/A)

phy#0
country 99: DFS-UNSET
(2402 - 2472 @ 40), (N/A, 20), (N/A)
(2457 - 2482 @ 40), (N/A, 20), (N/A), PASSIVE-SCAN
(5140 - 5360 @ 80), (N/A, 30), (N/A), PASSIVE-SCAN
(5460 - 5860 @ 80), (N/A, 30), (N/A), PASSIVE-SCAN

rsnunez@AcerRed:~$ A

The results for rfkill are these. There I noticed that my wlan phy0 hardware is blocked, but I have been unable to find any help as to how to unblock it for LMDE 6, this Acer model and that Qualcomm card...
For Mint I was able to find a video over YouTube with an easy process to update drivers, but it does not work for LMDE because there is no specific app to gather drivers, or--at least--I was dumb enough not to find it. If there is a way to find it, please help...

rsnunez@AcerRed:~$ rfkill
ID TYPE DEVICE SOFT HARD
0 wlan acer-wireless unblocked unblocked
1 bluetooth acer-bluetooth unblocked unblocked
2 wlan phy0 unblocked blocked
3 bluetooth hci0 unblocked unblocked
rsnunez@AcerRed:~$

[JeremyB]

Is there a keyboard combo to enable wifi? Maybe FN + F3?

[rsnunez]

yes, there is. I have been "playing" with it to see if that solves the issue, but no... There is no change when doing that...

[JeremyB]

Try this and reboot

Code: Select all

echo "blacklist acer-wmi"|sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/acer-wmi.conf

[rsnunez]

Is there a keyboard combo to enable wifi? Maybe FN + F3?

The oddest thing of it all is that the Bluetooth aspect of the card works, so that is why I am guessing, and it is only an un-educated guess from a dude from the social sciences, that is about drivers, because the card dealing with both wlan and BT is the very same piece of hardware... but, it is only my guess...
I have tried two separate and different USB sticks to connect to the wireless internet, one a Railing MT7601U, and one very old Linksys WUSB54GC, with no positive outcome

[JeremyB]

If you have steady hands and good eyes, you can try https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzAKcml ... imonHayter
That will block the signal that causes the hard block, or just remove the internal and then the USB devices should work

[rsnunez]

Try this and reboot

Code: Select all

echo "blacklist acer-wmi"|sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/acer-wmi.conf

I did it twice, but no change..

[rsnunez]

If you have steady hands and good eyes, you can try https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzAKcml ... imonHayter
That will block the signal that causes the hard block, or just remove the internal and then the USB devices should work

Well, not sure about that...

[rsnunez]

If you have steady hands and good eyes, you can try https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzAKcml ... imonHayter
That will block the signal that causes the hard block, or just remove the internal and then the USB devices should work

yes, I removed the card and I wass able to use one of the usb sticks, thanks...