[resolved] iwlist gives no scan results

Vipes · 2008-06-06 18:06:17

EDIT AFTER FIX: I hopped into the IRC and spoke with someone who has the same setup I do. Evidently, the function button(used with F2) on the laptop has to be used to turn the hardware ON. So the light was on, but it wasn't working. Soon as that happened, I got iwlist wlan0 scan to work.

Hello, folks! New to the forum and I've finally gotten to the point of posting because I've finally hit a brick wall. First off, I have to say I'm impressed with Arch. It's given me MUCH less of a headache than Debian.

Here's the deal. I'm military so I'm currently in a barracks building with networks everywhere. My Laptop is a Dell Inspiron E1705 with a Dell 1390 wirless card made by Broadcom. I'm running the B43 module with the firmcutter and the light on my laptop is on. I can toggle my wireless on and off with no problem. Here comes the snag, the card *seems* to be working but it refuses to see any networks. And there's a lot of them here.

Doing an iwconfig gives me:

lo               no wireless extensions.


wmaster0    no wireless extensions.


wlan0         IEEE 802.11g     ESSID:""
                  Mode:Managed   Frequency:2.412  Ghz    Access Point: Not-Associated
                  Tx-Power=27  dBm
                  Retry min limit:7           RTS thr:off    Fragment  thr=2352  B
                  Encryption key:off
                  Link Quality:0   Signal level:0   Noise level:0
                  Rx invalid nwid:0   Rx invalid crypt:0   Rx invalid frag:0
                  Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:0  Missed beacon:0

eth0           no wirless extensions.

BTW...I'm having to hand jam the code in since I'm using my desktop to post all this. As you can see, the wlan0 interface is obviously up.

However I get

bash-3.2# iwlist wlan0 scan
wlan0         No scan results

Now there are a ton of wireless APs around. So I have no idea why it's giving me nothing. I tried to set a profile using netcfg2 to one of the open networks and it gave me Network unavailable. Any ideas?

Last edited by Vipes (2008-06-06 21:39:14)

bender02 · 2008-06-06 18:56:24

iwconfig reports all the interfaces, even when they're down. Try 'ifconfig', and/or 'ifconfig wlan0 up' and then 'iwlist wlan0 scan'.

Vipes · 2008-06-06 19:10:19

wlan0 is up on ifconfig as well. That's how I know I can toggle it by doing ifconfig wlan0 down and ifconfig wlan0 up. Just tried using netcfg2 and I ran...

bash-3.2# /usr/bin/netcfg-auto-wireless wlan0
:: Scanning for networks - No networks available.                                                          [FAIL]

Oh, also I blacklisted the bcm43xx module in the rc.conf. So right now I'm using b43.

Last edited by Vipes (2008-06-06 19:12:14)

sacamano_m82 · 2008-06-06 19:12:50

Try running 'sudo iwlist wlan0 scan' if your user has sudo privileges setup properly.
Or switch to root and run 'iwlist wlan0 scan'.

bender02 · 2008-06-06 19:16:25

Sorry, I underestimated the problem (and you) I guess, I can't help (I have a different card).

Vipes · 2008-06-06 19:21:23

sacamano_m82 wrote:

Try running 'sudo iwlist wlan0 scan' if your user has sudo privileges setup properly.
Or switch to root and run 'iwlist wlan0 scan'.

The straight bash prompt was me running in root, sir. Still nada. I'm stumped. And no prob, bender. New guy on the forums usually does get the "newbie" tag.

Vipes · 2008-06-06 19:26:15

The network controller is a Broadcom Corporation BCM94311MCG wlan mini-PCI [14e4:4311] (rev 01) according to lspci -nn | grep 14e4. Now, from my understanding, I shouldn't have issues with the b43 module since it's the updated version to the bcm43xx as long as I have the firmware which I do from getting b43-fwcutter. I'd really like to figure this out so it might help out someone else who has this issue later. I know the biggest issues a lot of folks have is the wireless. heh

My normal ethernet works fine. I just don't know why I can't scan any networks.

kumkee · 2009-04-05 22:30:56

I had the same problem. It turned out that my laptop wifi function was off.
Once I turned it on with the wifi button, i can scan and get a full list of wlans available.
The reason I didn't know it was off is that my arch box dosn't have a proper driver for the wifi indicator LED.
So try turning your wifi on before u try anyother solutions, if u r using a laptop.

Arch Linux

#1 2008-06-06 18:06:17

[resolved] iwlist gives no scan results

#2 2008-06-06 18:56:24

Re: [resolved] iwlist gives no scan results

#3 2008-06-06 19:10:19

Re: [resolved] iwlist gives no scan results

#4 2008-06-06 19:12:50

Re: [resolved] iwlist gives no scan results

#5 2008-06-06 19:16:25

Re: [resolved] iwlist gives no scan results

#6 2008-06-06 19:21:23

Re: [resolved] iwlist gives no scan results

#7 2008-06-06 19:26:15

Re: [resolved] iwlist gives no scan results

#8 2009-04-05 22:30:56

Re: [resolved] iwlist gives no scan results

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