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TheGuyWithTheFace

Member

Registered: 2012-12-09

Posts: 113

[solved] How to re-enable wireless without rfkill?

After disabling networking with KDE's network manager's Airplane Mode and rebooting, the network manager no longer recognizes my wireless card. All the articles I can find suggest using rfkill, but I do not have rfkill installed, and I'd rather not go through the hassle of trying to install a package without internet access.

I've had this issue before, and I saw a suggestion in a forum somewhere to check a specific networking-related file that listed the networking devices (I think) and enable it there, which worked last time. The problem is, now I can't find that forum post, and I can't remember which file it is that I need to check.

Does anyone have any suggestions for how I can enable my wireless this way?

Last edited by TheGuyWithTheFace (2014-12-24 21:37:32)

ewaller

Administrator

From: Pasadena, CA

Registered: 2009-07-13

Posts: 20,353

Re: [solved] How to re-enable wireless without rfkill?

Any chance you have Windows installed?  If so, pop over there, enable it, and reboot to the superior OS

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Nothing is too wonderful to be true, if it be consistent with the laws of nature -- Michael Faraday
Sometimes it is the people no one can imagine anything of who do the things no one can imagine. -- Alan Turing
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How to Ask Questions the Smart Way

TheGuyWithTheFace

Member

Registered: 2012-12-09

Posts: 113

Re: [solved] How to re-enable wireless without rfkill?

I don't think it's a hardware issue - if I boot into Debian or Windows (triple booted) the wifi works without any intervention.

ewaller

Administrator

From: Pasadena, CA

Registered: 2009-07-13

Posts: 20,353

Re: [solved] How to re-enable wireless without rfkill?

Is the interface up  ( ip link ) ?  What if you force it up with ip link set <nameOfTheInterfaceGoesHere> up

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Nothing is too wonderful to be true, if it be consistent with the laws of nature -- Michael Faraday
Sometimes it is the people no one can imagine anything of who do the things no one can imagine. -- Alan Turing
---
How to Ask Questions the Smart Way

TheGuyWithTheFace

Member

Registered: 2012-12-09

Posts: 113

Re: [solved] How to re-enable wireless without rfkill?

Ah, I found it! The aforementioned file I was looking for was /var/lib/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.state - all I had to do was change WirelessEnabled=false to WirelessEnabled=true.

For anyone reading this in the future with possibly the same issue, running ip link set dev <device name> up resulted in an error stating: Operation not possible due to RF-kill.

I hope that helps anyone in the future having this issue, and thank you ewaller for trying to help.

TheSaint

Member

From: my computer

Registered: 2007-08-19

Posts: 1,532

Re: [solved] How to re-enable wireless without rfkill?

Can you re-create the situation and post me the output of

 rfkill list

A friend of mine is puzzling me that all devices are blocked.

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do it good first, it will be faster than do it twice the saint

TheGuyWithTheFace

Member

Registered: 2012-12-09

Posts: 113

Re: [solved] How to re-enable wireless without rfkill?

Part of the original issue is that when this happened, I did not have rfkill installed. That being said, once I installed it and recreated the issue, the output was:

rfkill list:
0: phy0: Wireless LAN
        Soft blocked: yes
        Hard blocked: no

Interestingly, after I ran

rfkill unblock 0

the issue persisted, though Wireless LAN was no longer listed as blocked. I tried rebooting afterward but to no avail. The only way to fix it that I could find, even with rfkill, was to modify /var/lib/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.status

TheSaint

Member

From: my computer

Registered: 2007-08-19

Posts: 1,532

Re: [solved] How to re-enable wireless without rfkill?

Thank a lot
This proves my suspects. So I'll tell my friend the solution.

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do it good first, it will be faster than do it twice the saint