Ubuntu 18.04 LTS wifi problems

Question

Since I bought a new laptop, during already two years, I have endless problems with WiFi on my laptop (Lenovo Y50-70) on Ubuntu (16.04, 18.04).

Firstly, it always disconnects from connections, such as eduroam or any other enterprise connections. I tried maaany things to solve it, but none of them worked:

Change IPv6 to Ignore/Disable
Installing/reinstalling wifi drivers (I have broadcom wifi card)
Connecting to the specific access point (iwlist scan and choosing the best connection according to the signal strength)
Adding b43 to blacklist
Disabling Secure Boot
Using Wicd Network Manager
And many many other things found in stackoverflow or elsewhere...

My WiFI card details:

08:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Inc. and subsidiaries BCM4352 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter [14e4:43b1] (rev 03)
Subsystem: Lenovo BCM4352 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter [17aa:0623]
Control: I/O- Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx-
Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx-
Latency: 0, Cache Line Size: 64 bytes
Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 17
Region 0: Memory at d1600000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=32K]
Region 2: Memory at d1400000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=2M]
Capabilities: <access denied>
Kernel driver in use: wl
Kernel modules: bcma, wl

Now, I was trying to play with drivers etc... And endup with a biger problem. Now, when I connect to the eduroam I can use it for 5-10 minutes after it disconnects and never connects back, also all wifi connections disappears. In the syslog, on disconnect I caught this error: https://pastebin.com/FxP7PmPn To connect again I need to unbind and bind again wl driver:

sudo rmmod wl

sudo modprobe wl

Maybe someone can explain why it happens to me? Is it possible to fix? I really tired of that for 2 years...

Some details:

Laptop: Lenovo Y50-70
OS: Ubuntu 18.04 LTS
I have dual boot with Windows 10
I installed wifi drivers using command:
```
apt-get install bcmwl-kernel-source 
```

If you need more details - let me know.

Also this (output from command rfkill list all):

2: ideapad_wlan: Wireless LAN
    Soft blocked: no
    Hard blocked: no
3: ideapad_bluetooth: Bluetooth
    Soft blocked: no
    Hard blocked: no
4: hci0: Bluetooth
    Soft blocked: no
    Hard blocked: no
11: phy3: Wireless LAN
    Soft blocked: no
    Hard blocked: no
12: brcmwl-0: Wireless LAN
    Soft blocked: no
    Hard blocked: no

Thank you for any kind of help.

UPDATE: I bought TP-Link (TL-WN725N) wifi usb adapter and tried to use it with eduroam networks. I can confirm that the problem is still the same - it disconnects after some time and it's very difficult to connect again. I need to restart network-manager several times or unload and load r8188eu module. Of course, there are no errors in the syslog which I posted above, but still...

You should be using the broadcom-sta-dkms driver. Uninstall all other broadcom drivers first. Report back to @heynnema — heynnema, Oct 25 '18 at 18:16
Hello, @heynnema. Thank you for help. But I already tried to do so. I uninstalled bcmwl-kernel-source, and installed broadcom-sta-dkms drivers. I used these commands: apt-get purge bcmwl-kernel-source apt-get install broadcom-sta-dkms Although the crash is gone from syslog, but I still have the same problem and I always see this error: cfg80211_inform_bss_frame error — Tomas, Oct 27 '18 at 13:08
Edit your question with the output of sudo debsums -s. Report back to @heynnema — heynnema, Oct 28 '18 at 23:19
@heynnema I had the same errors, so I switched back to bcmwl-kernel-source. — Tomas, Oct 29 '18 at 14:23
Note that the dkms driver will rebuild itself after Software Updates that update the kernel. Did you do debsums yet? — heynnema, Oct 29 '18 at 14:30
@heynnema, I've got this output: https://pastebin.com/PFBQCqKy I want to note, that now problem is only using enterprise (WPA & WPA2 Enterpise) networks. At home wifi works fine. — Tomas, Oct 29 '18 at 15:14
I updated my post. I even tried using TP-Link wifi adapter. But the problem stays the same. — Tomas, Oct 29 '18 at 15:20
Go to the Security tab in your enterprise wireless profile, and make sure that it's set to WPA2 Enterprise, and that the various security settings are correct for that network. The debsums shows mods to the rtlwifi drivers, probably from following another answer, and you might wish to reinstall the packages called out to return your system so debsums runs cleaner... this has no effect on your problem... it's just cleanup work. — heynnema, Oct 29 '18 at 15:33
@heynnema There are some mods for Realtek because today I tried to use wifi with my new TP-Link usb wifi adapter. But it still didn't solve my problem... Regarding Security settings, they all seemed to be correct as I made them according to the univeristy instructions: https://puu.sh/BSRq8/65f6b2888c.png — Tomas, Oct 29 '18 at 15:41
I don't know if it effects your problem, but you might reinstall this package... "debsums: changed file /usr/share/dbus-1/system-services/fi.epitest.hostap.WPASupplicant.service (from wpasupplicant package)" — heynnema, Oct 29 '18 at 15:44
I'm out of ideas. Sorry. You might try to monitor iwevent in terminal, while you try to log in. Maybe it'll give a clue. — heynnema, Oct 29 '18 at 15:46
Does the last two lines in /etc/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.conf contain [device] wifi.scan-rand-mac-address=no (two separate lines) — heynnema, Oct 29 '18 at 16:05
No, they should be there. Does iwevent give you any clues? — heynnema, Oct 29 '18 at 16:23
@heynnema Thank you for your help so much! I found a solution! — Tomas, Oct 29 '18 at 19:58
Funny thing, I found this question because I had the exact same problem and I also have the exact same laptop (didn't include it in my search) — drkostas, Sep 10 '21 at 01:42

Tomas · Accepted Answer · 2018-10-29T20:34:57.487

15

FINALLY. I can confirm that since two years I finally fixed my wifi problem. The solution was actually super easy and near to me: I had to change REGDOMAIN in crda (I had there different country code):

sudo -H gedit /etc/default/crda
REGDOMAIN=<YOUR COUNTRY CODE>
reboot (mandatory!!)

You can take your country code from here.

To sum up, I'm using bcmwl-kernel-source wl driver for my Broadcom BCM4352 card. (good info/tutorial about it is here). I still receive sometimes those errors and have few small timeouts for ~1 second (no disconnects!), but I think it's natural and it doesn't bother me compared to what I had before...

edited Oct 29 '18 at 20:34

answered Oct 29 '18 at 20:00

Tomas

381

2

Glad you found a solution. Whenever you open a graphic application with sudo from the command line, you should use sudo -H or you may mess up things in your own home directory. I'll let you do the edit :-) – heynnema Oct 29 '18 at 20:33
Did not solve the issue for me, unfortunately. – Cleb Jul 03 '19 at 20:17
Thank you so much. Now my wifi actually scans for networks again! – hullunist Oct 08 '19 at 20:29
Worked like a charm for me! Thanks a lot! – Vladir Parrado Cruz Jan 30 '21 at 15:12

score 1 · Answer 2 · edited Jun 12 '20 at 14:37

sudo -H gedit /etc/default/crda

REGDOMAIN=[YOUR COUNTRY CODE]

reboot (mandatory!!)

Fun fact: works the other way around too. My PC had that issue and Tomas' solution did the trick. My laptop on the other hand worked just fine but I thought might as well take precautions. Put my country code and rebooted the system. Had the exact same issue with the country code on my laptop as I had without country code on my PC. I just undid what I had changed, rebooted again, and everything went back to working normally. I don't quite understand why that happened but I wanted to share this regardless. Could help one person at least. I would have simply commented but I can't do that yet because I'm new.

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Oct 25 '18 at 14:19

0

I had this problem, my wifi connection was extremely slow while it worked on Windows. After trying several suggestions on the internet, the wifi disappeared after a time running and it only came back after restarting the laptop. The following worked like a charm for me (no problems since knocks on wood):

sudo modprobe -r rtl8723de && sleep 5 && sudo modprobe rtl8723de ant_sel=1

or if that doesn't work:

sudo modprobe -r rtl8723de && sleep 5 && sudo modprobe rtl8723de ant_sel=2

it was fixed.

answered Oct 25 '18 at 14:19

Pepijn

31

Isn't it only for Realtek wifi cards? Because I'm using Broadcom. What card do you use? lspci -vvnn | grep -A 9 Network – Tomas Oct 25 '18 at 14:28
Might be, I have a Realtek wifi card. – Pepijn Oct 25 '18 at 15:10

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Oct 27 '18 at 14:10

0

this page may be of help to you. One thing that may help also is if it's a uefi machine you need to disable secure boot.

answered Oct 27 '18 at 14:10

kc1di

382

I just figured out, that I was running on Legacy boot mode (not UEFI) and I couldn't disabled secure boot. So, I changed boot mode to UEFI and disabled secure boot and reinstalled broadcom drivers. Currently, no errors in log and wifi works fine (but at home's wifi), I'll check later how it is going with eduroam and others enterprise wifi networks. – Tomas Oct 27 '18 at 14:16
I can confirm that problem still exists... – Tomas Oct 27 '18 at 18:26

score 0 · Answer 5 · edited Sep 06 '19 at 16:01

0

I was running Ubuntu in Legacy boot mode and was also using an old version of BIOS. After updating the BIOS and starting Ubuntu in UEFI boot mode, my WiFi adapter works like a charm.

Laptop: Dell Inspiron 3521
Wifi Adapter: QCA9565 / AR9565 Wireless Network Adapter

edited Sep 06 '19 at 16:01

Eliah Kagan

117,780

answered Sep 06 '19 at 15:41

arun rajput

1

score 0 · Answer 6 · edited Oct 12 '19 at 22:16

0

sudo modprobe -r rtl8723de && sleep 5 && sudo modprobe rtl8723de ant_sel=1

or if that doesn't work:

sudo modprobe -r rtl8723de && sleep 5 && sudo modprobe rtl8723de ant_sel=2

it was fixed. THIS ONE WORKED FOR ME BUT ANY IDEA HOW TO MAKE IT PERMANENT ? PLEASE

edited Oct 12 '19 at 22:16

andrew.46

38,003
27
156
232

answered Oct 12 '19 at 21:29

jose diaz

1

score 0 · Answer 7 · answered Oct 14 '19 at 03:23

0

sudo modprobe -r rtl8723de && sleep 5 && sudo modprobe rtl8723de ant_sel=2

This helped me increase the wifi signal but when I restart my computer I have to apply the command again . How to set it permanent. Please

answered Oct 14 '19 at 03:23

jose diaz

1

score 0 · Answer 8 · answered Nov 20 '19 at 19:31

0

This is an Old'ish thread but to make the change permanent:

echo "options rtl8723de ant_sel=X" | sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/rtl8723de.conf

Replace X with the correct number that works for you

answered Nov 20 '19 at 19:31

Kevin Gross

1

score -1 · Answer 9 · edited Jan 15 '20 at 00:32

I am not exactly a programmer. Meaning I do not write code. But I have had this wi-fi disconnect problem for over a year using Ubuntu 18.04 I tried every fix on the Internet. Nothing seemed to work for long. I was also trying to extend the timing for the sleep mode.

So I went to settings. Under POWER I set the Blank Screen to NEVER. Not knowing what I was doing, I set the Turn Off WIFI to Save Power to OFF. I also turned off the Bluetooth. Well as you guessed, I had no WIFI. SO I went back to Settings and set the Turn Off WIFI to Save Power to ON. I got no idea what that did, but the WIFI has been on for over a half hour with no disconnect.

Maybe the Bluetooth had something to do with it. Anyway, I was also tired of my phone trying to connect to the Laptop when the Laptop was shut down. And the phone taking 5 minutes to connect to my headphones. I'll give this a few days and check back later.