[Solved] Wifi down after update.

re-mind · 2018-05-29 14:18:16

Hi I haven't been able to update my laptop in a week or two, but today I got a chance which unfortunately brought the wifi down, and I'm unable to troubleshoot. It should be noted, that I use a older version of wpa_supplicant since this version is the only one which will connect to EDUroam at my university.

core/wpa_supplicant 1:2.6-11 [installed: 2.3-1]

I started looking at the ip link, which states the wifi is down. I'm unable to bring it up, however it's not blocked with rfkill. Moreover lsmod shows that the drivers are loaded, so I guess the problem is somewhere else?

iwlwifi               323584  1 iwldvm
cfg80211              741376  3 iwlwifi,mac80211,iwldvm

I then looked at the status for NetworkManager, which hopefully will give a clue.

● NetworkManager.service - Network Manager
   Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/NetworkManager.service; enabled; vendor preset: disabled)
  Drop-In: /usr/lib/systemd/system/NetworkManager.service.d
           └─NetworkManager-ovs.conf
   Active: active (running) since Tue 2018-05-29 16:02:12 CEST; 2min 10s ago
     Docs: man:NetworkManager(8)
 Main PID: 382 (NetworkManager)
    Tasks: 3 (limit: 4415)
   Memory: 17.4M
   CGroup: /system.slice/NetworkManager.service
           └─382 /usr/bin/NetworkManager --no-daemon

May 29 16:02:12 wolfgang NetworkManager[382]: <info>  [1527602532.6426] keyfile: add connection in-memory (e5fa9edd-cdfd-3f6b-9730-56a239f62f04,"Wired connection 1")
May 29 16:02:12 wolfgang NetworkManager[382]: <info>  [1527602532.6430] settings: (enp0s25): created default wired connection 'Wired connection 1'
May 29 16:02:12 wolfgang NetworkManager[382]: <info>  [1527602532.6437] device (enp0s25): state change: unmanaged -> unavailable (reason 'managed', sys-iface-state: 'external')
May 29 16:02:12 wolfgang NetworkManager[382]: <info>  [1527602532.8794] wifi-nl80211: (wlp3s0): using nl80211 for WiFi device control
May 29 16:02:12 wolfgang NetworkManager[382]: <info>  [1527602532.8797] device (wlp3s0): driver supports Access Point (AP) mode
May 29 16:02:12 wolfgang NetworkManager[382]: <info>  [1527602532.8805] manager: (wlp3s0): new 802.11 WiFi device (/org/freedesktop/NetworkManager/Devices/3)
May 29 16:02:12 wolfgang NetworkManager[382]: <info>  [1527602532.8813] device (wlp3s0): state change: unmanaged -> unavailable (reason 'managed', sys-iface-state: 'external')
May 29 16:02:13 wolfgang NetworkManager[382]: <info>  [1527602533.2973] device (wlp3s0): set-hw-addr: set MAC address to BA:F3:22:38:69:AE (scanning)
May 29 16:02:13 wolfgang NetworkManager[382]: <info>  [1527602533.7038] ovsdb: Could not connect: No such file or directory
May 29 16:02:38 wolfgang NetworkManager[382]: <warn>  [1527602558.7197] supplicant: failed to acquire wpa_supplicant proxy: Wi-Fi and 802.1x will not be available (Error calling StartServiceByName for fi.w1.wpa_supplicant1: Timeout was reached)

I ran nmtui, which often works eventough ip link says the wifi is down, but it was not possible to scan any networks at all. Only ethernet "wired" is shown and works as expected. I've read somewhere that this might be related to dbus, but I'm not sure what that means. Lastly I looked at journalctl, and these were the only problems

May 29 16:02:38 wolfgang NetworkManager[382]: <warn>  [1527602558.7197] supplicant: failed to acquire wpa_supplicant proxy: Wi-Fi and 802.1x will not be available (Error calling StartServiceByN>
May 29 16:02:38 wolfgang dbus-daemon[378]: [system] Failed to activate service 'fi.w1.wpa_supplicant1': timed out (service_start_timeout=25000ms)

Any kind of help would be really appriciated Thanks.

Last edited by re-mind (2018-05-29 15:32:44)

Trilby · 2018-05-29 15:00:34

Whether or not you could fix this today, your current strategy is not viable for the long term. You are doing partial upgrades: if you hold back wpa_supplicant, you'll need to hold back everything it depends on (and everything else that shares those dependencies).

You *might* be able to get things working by rebuilding the older version of wpa_supplicant against current libraries. But that "might" will get less and less likely as the time goes on.

You'd be better off fixing the underlying problem. I doubt the current version of wpa_supplicant is really unable to connect to eduroam - I suspect rather there is just some configuration change that needs to be tweaked.

re-mind · 2018-05-29 15:28:40

Trilby wrote:

Whether or not you could fix this today, your current strategy is not viable for the long term. You are doing partial upgrades: if you hold back wpa_supplicant, you'll need to hold back everything it depends on (and everything else that shares those dependencies).
You *might* be able to get things working by rebuilding the older version of wpa_supplicant against current libraries. But that "might" will get less and less likely as the time goes on.
You'd be better off fixing the underlying problem. I doubt the current version of wpa_supplicant is really unable to connect to eduroam - I suspect rather there is just some configuration change that needs to be tweaked.

I found my current solution on a forum where several people had problems with eduroam, but granted, I have not tried newer version. However, I was also pretty sure this was not a permenant soulution. I'll update to the newest version and investigate further. Thanks for your comment

EDIT: updating wpa_supplicant solved the problem. I'll update if the newer version works with EDUROAM at my university.

Last edited by re-mind (2018-05-29 15:32:24)

Trilby · 2018-05-29 15:30:36

I've used eduroam at a few universities. Despite it's claims to unify and simplify connecting at universities, I've found it to be a total clusterf***, but I've never failed to get connected with wpa_supplicant; it just takes a bit of trial and error at each university the first time you need to connect.

re-mind · 2018-05-29 16:43:14

Trilby wrote:

I've used eduroam at a few universities. Despite it's claims to unify and simplify connecting at universities, I've found it to be a total clusterf***, but I've never failed to get connected with wpa_supplicant; it just takes a bit of trial and error at each university the first time you need to connect.

Clusterf***k indeed. I have had the same experience. However, my local university excels at "linux is not something we support" or the "have you tried ubuntu". So, I hope the newer version will work without any problems It really weirds me out that eduroam is different from university to university.

re-mind · 2018-05-30 07:20:56

Yup. EDUROAM also works with the newest version of wpa_supplicant - yay!

Arch Linux

#1 2018-05-29 14:18:16

[Solved] Wifi down after update.

#2 2018-05-29 15:00:34

Re: [Solved] Wifi down after update.

#3 2018-05-29 15:28:40

Re: [Solved] Wifi down after update.

#4 2018-05-29 15:30:36

Re: [Solved] Wifi down after update.

#5 2018-05-29 16:43:14

Re: [Solved] Wifi down after update.

#6 2018-05-30 07:20:56

Re: [Solved] Wifi down after update.

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