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#1 2013-06-29 20:18:14

jantar
Member
Registered: 2013-06-29
Posts: 7

[Solved] Arch can't see any wireless networks

Hi All! 

The problem is I can't make my wireless working in Archlinux. It works no problem in Mint 15, and even in Arch installation live system. I did a fresh install of Arch today, and after rebooting to newly installed system it still doesn't work:

 [root@archik madzia]# wifi-menu
Scanning for networks... failed
No networks found
[root@archik madzia]# iwlist wlp5s1 scan
wlp5s1    Interface doesn't support scanning : Network is down

[root@archik madzia]# ip link set wlp5s1 up
[root@archik madzia]# iwlist wlp5s1 scan
wlp5s1    No scan results 

lspci -k :

 05:01.0 Ethernet controller: Qualcomm Atheros AR5212/AR5213 Wireless Network Adapter (rev 01)
	Subsystem: D-Link System Inc AirPlus DWL-G520 Wireless PCI Adapter (rev. B)
	Kernel driver in use: ath5k
	Kernel modules: ath5k  

I read Wireless Setup , tried to make it work with NetworkManager, wpa_supplicant all to no avail.
Also I downgraded linux, linux-headers, and linux-firmware to 3.9.4 (version from installation cd) and it didnt make it work either.

Been using Arch for several months (didn't need wireless until now).  Berofe I was in Gentoo and that wireless card was working fine in access point mode in the same hardware configuration.

I'm completely stuck now.   Please help !  Thanks!

Last edited by jantar (2013-07-10 12:05:46)

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#2 2013-06-29 23:38:41

stevepa
Member
From: Texas USA
Registered: 2012-02-12
Posts: 113

Re: [Solved] Arch can't see any wireless networks

Hi,

I see you have no responses to this so I will try to help.


Questions:
0. Did you try #modprobe ath5k ? ( I think your card uses that module)* Probably it is already loaded but just to check...
1. Is the device name returned with #ip link what you are using to do a #ip link set <dev> up with? Also, I believe there is a mention somewhere that even after bringing the interface up (without error), ip link may still show state DOWN.
2. Is there a wireless light that goes on or off when you bring the interface up or down?
3. Try installing rfkill #pacman -S rfkill, then do a #rfkill list to rule out any blocking issues.
4. For me, once I got my wireless to work as above, I moved to the #iwlist <dev> scanning part.
5. Long shot but you did install dialog for wifi-menu, right?
6. Have you gotton ethernet to work on this box yet with Arch?
7. During my troubleshooting, I found I had to do a poweroff to ensure the card did power off. My memory tells me reboot did not have the same effect.

*I noticed after today's update, my wireless module does not get added on boot, so I want to rule out any similar issue for you.

Until recently, I depended on self written scripts to bring wifi up, but have been able abandon that to use wifi-menu. I do like explicitly like controlling which network I connect to each time and both way afford that.

For me at least, keeping wifi working on Arch has been a fairly frequent concern, but I will have to say I did benefit by some from it. 

I have dabbled with Gentoo also but found Arch a better fit for me.

Good luck and I hope some of this helps.
Steve.


Arch - LVM - ext4 - gnome (T60p 14.1 1400p  x86_64), (T60 15 flexview 1400p i686)

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#3 2013-06-30 11:05:55

jantar
Member
Registered: 2013-06-29
Posts: 7

Re: [Solved] Arch can't see any wireless networks

Hi Steve, thanks for the reply.

Ad 0:  Yes ath5k is loaded at boot, dev wlp5s1 is present and everything seems to be ok, except it doesn't work
Ad 1: 

 ip link set wlp5s1 up 

silently succeeds (returns 0) and yes, then "ip link" reports wlp5s1 as "state DOWN"
Ad 2:  wireless activity led  stays off during "ip link" but it starts to blink for a short while during wifi-menu and then is off again
Ad 3:  yes I checked that before, there are no blocking issues
Ad 4:

[root@archik ~]# iwlist wlp5s1 scan
wlp5s1    No scan results 

Ad 5: yes  (it was installed already, its a fresh Arch installation)
Ad 6: yes
Ad 7: I did poweoff it doesn help

So the issue is : during installation process wifi was working in the live system, but its not in the installed system,  and its probably not the kernel issue because i tried to downgrade the kernel to the version 3.9.4 from the installation disk.  To me it lools like a bug in Arch ?

Any ideas anyone ?

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#4 2013-06-30 11:59:26

Trilby
Inspector Parrot
Registered: 2011-11-29
Posts: 29,452
Website

Re: [Solved] Arch can't see any wireless networks

jantar wrote:

then "ip link" reports wlp5s1 as "state DOWN"

That's the wrong part of the ip link output to check.  Does it say UP or DOWN inside the angled brackets after you set the interface 'up'?  Posting the actual output would help.


"UNIX is simple and coherent..." - Dennis Ritchie, "GNU's Not UNIX" -  Richard Stallman

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#5 2013-06-30 13:37:33

jantar
Member
Registered: 2013-06-29
Posts: 7

Re: [Solved] Arch can't see any wireless networks

Trilby wrote:

That's the wrong part of the ip link output to check.  Does it say UP or DOWN inside the angled brackets after you set the interface 'up'?  Posting the actual output would help.

 [root@archik ~]# ip link set wlp5s1 up
[root@archik ~]# ip link
1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN mode DEFAULT 
    link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
2: enp4s0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST> mtu 1500 qdisc noop state DOWN mode DEFAULT qlen 1000
    link/ether 00:1d:7d:d0:14:b6 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
3: enp5s2: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast state UNKNOWN mode DEFAULT qlen 1000
    link/ether 00:0e:2e:b8:6e:64 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
4: wlp5s1: <NO-CARRIER,BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP> mtu 1500 qdisc mq state DOWN mode DEFAULT qlen 1000
    link/ether 00:1c:f0:c9:68:53 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff

and then: 

 [root@archik ~]# wifi-menu
Scanning for networks... failed
No networks found

And of course wifi network is present from my router which is next to my computer.

Last edited by jantar (2013-06-30 13:39:49)

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#6 2013-07-10 12:04:34

jantar
Member
Registered: 2013-06-29
Posts: 7

Re: [Solved] Arch can't see any wireless networks

Solved!!!

I finally resolved the problem, maybe it'll be usefull to someone so i'm gonna describe it here:

The problem was that package crda and its dependency wireless-regdb were not installed.

I sorted it out in Debian where after initial installation (with debootstrap) symptoms were the same as in Arch.  But after installing desktop environement wireless was working fine with NetworkManager.  I figured out that network-manager installes  as its dependency iw which had as its dependency crda

In Arch I had iw installed before but it hasn't got  crda as its dependency (dependancies are reversed: crda depends on iw ).

Last edited by jantar (2013-07-12 14:37:58)

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