Arch Linux

HiperDoo

Member

Registered: 2022-10-08

Posts: 5

Internet related commands freeze my terminal

Good afternoon, I haven't been using Linux for a long time and it has always been a challenge to learn how to use it. But recently I've been involved in a very frustrating problem that I can't solve (since I can't find Posts of problems similar to mine either, but here's my problem:

A week ago I updated Arch, everything was done successfully and I was able to continue using the computer for that day (don't turn it off or restart it after the update). The next day, when I turned on the computer, I noticed that I no longer had internet access (I use a USB WiFi adapter), I tried several things to fix it but without success (among my tests I noticed that the "ip link" command no longer showed the "wlan0" adapter).

Then I remembered that I use a Paru package to be able to use the WiFi adapter (8188eu), so I tried to update all Paru packages by simply typing "paru".

But everything got worse, after updating it, it caused me more problems, now I can't connect the WiFi or Ethernet adapter if I don't want to have freezing problems. After trying several things to fix it again and without success, these are the error patterns that I managed to detect (in case you recognize what could be the source of the problem):

   - The computer works perfectly and as it should if I do NOT have connected the WiFi adapter (USB) or Ethernet (I can connect USB sticks and use them normally).

   - If I connect the adapter or ethernet, my polybar crashes (since the WiFi status is shown in the bar using Internet related commands).
      > Although I can use the computer normally, when I try to use some command related to the Internet (like "ip link") the terminal freezes, but I can close it and create a new one with the bspwm shortcuts.

Any idea how to fix this? I wasted all my free time of the week to solve this error, I don't dare to do the same thing the following week without getting anything...

Trilby

Inspector Parrot

Registered: 2011-11-29

Posts: 30,456

Website

Re: Internet related commands freeze my terminal

The first step is to collect more data.  I'd start with an strace.  Open a terminal with the adaptor connected (in the state you expect `ip link` will result in a freeze) then run the following command:

strace -o /tmp/ip_link.trace ip link

Wait a moment, then open a new terminal and check the file /tmp/ip_link.trace - and ideally post it to a file sharing site and put a link to it here so we can check it out.

Also check if there are coredumps:

coredumptctl list

This may show a list of coredumps / segfaults which will include the date/time at which they happened and the command that crashed.  If you see any for your `ip` or other networking commands we can let you know the next steps on how to investigate and / or share those coredump logs.

Last edited by Trilby (2022-10-08 23:20:42)

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"UNIX is simple and coherent" - Dennis Ritchie; "GNU's Not Unix" - Richard Stallman

HiperDoo

Member

Registered: 2022-10-08

Posts: 5

Re: Internet related commands freeze my terminal

Thanks for answer so soon.

I tried running the "strace" command, but I don't seem to have it installed.

"coredumptctl list" does work, but the last log of this is messages from 3 weeks ago, and from the VSCode app, so nothing useful...