1

After upgrading to 19.10, I started experiencing a weird Wi-Fi behaviour. I have two networks with the same name in my appartment - one stronger and one weaker.

Ubuntu should obviously connect to the stronger one, and it used to. But since the upgrade it always picks the weaker one, and when I manually pick the stronger one, it reconnects to the weaker one again. The system finally "gives up" after about 10 minutes and stays on the stronger network.

Also what is weird is that while I see both Wi-Fis in my Wi-Fi popup window, once I open settings only one is shown:

WiFi popup WiFi settings

Does anyone know how to solve this and tell Ubuntu to only connect to the stronger Wi-Fi? Or is this a bug that I should report?

My adapter details:

   description: Wireless interface
   product: QCA9377 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter
   vendor: Qualcomm Atheros
   physical id: 0
   bus info: pci@0000:03:00.0
   logical name: wlp3s0
   version: 31
   serial: f0:03:8c:8b:73:37
   width: 64 bits
   clock: 33MHz
   capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless
   configuration: broadcast=yes driver=ath10k_pci driverversion=5.3.0-23-generic firmware=WLAN.TF.2.1-00021-QCARMSWP-1 ip=192.168.0.114 latency=0 link=yes multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11
   resources: irq:131 memory:ef200000-ef3fffff
Jakub Szymsza
  • 53

3 Answers3

3

I suggest you ask your wireless to bind to the stronger access point. Right-click the Network Manager icon, select Edit Connections. Fill in the MAC address for your access point; find it with:

sudo iwlist wlp3s0 scan

For example:

Cell 05 - Address: 00:13:19:F2:2E:D0
                Channel:6
                Frequency:2.437 GHz (Channel 6)
                Quality=66/70  Signal level=-88 dBm  
                Encryption key:on
                ESSID:"UCInet Mobile Access"

Use the address (MAC address) you found to place in BSSID in Network Manager:

enter image description here

Save and close.

chili555
  • 60,188
2

You have two option.

1. Disable Auto-connect option for the weaker ero access point

2. Raise Priority Value of the preferred ero access point

Method 1 Steps

  • open the weaker ero network settings,
  • on the General Tab uncheck "Automatically connect to this network when it is available"

Once this is done, weaker ero will not connect automatically, hence stronger ero will.

Method 2 Steps

  • Show know networks along with there priority values by running:

    nmcli -f NAME,UUID,AUTOCONNECT,AUTOCONNECT-PRIORITY c

Copy the UUID of the Stronger ero, then run:

    nmcli con modify xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx connection.autoconnect-priority 8

this sets the priority of the stronger ero to 8.
An access point with High Priority Value is always chosen over one with a lesser value (default is 0).
Since both access points have the same name, we cannon use name / essid "ero",
hence the use of UUID to identify the stronger ero access point

Replace xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx with actual UUID of 'stronger ero'

ByronTaaka
  • 171
  • 6
  • Unfortunatelly, none of your methods work for me because I see just one ero in network settings and ncmli. Therefore I cannot distinguish between the stronger and the weaker access point. – Jakub Szymsza Nov 28 '19 at 16:02
1

You can also install 

apt show wifi-radar 
Package: wifi-radar
Version: 2.0.s08+dfsg-2
Priority: optional
Section: universe/net
Origin: Ubuntu
Maintainer: Ubuntu Developers <ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com>
Original-Maintainer: Debian QA Group <packages@qa.debian.org>
Bugs: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+filebug
Installed-Size: 193 kB
Depends: debconf (>= 0.5) | debconf-2.0, python, python-gtk2 (>= 2.0), isc-dhcp-client | dhcp-client, wireless-tools, menu
Recommends: wpasupplicant
Homepage: http://wifi-radar.tuxfamily.org/
Download-Size: 45,8 kB
APT-Sources: http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu disco/universe amd64 Packages
Description: graphical utility for managing Wi-Fi profiles
 WiFi Radar enables you to scan for available wireless networks and create
 profiles containing the network configuration options for your preferred
 networks.  You can drag and drop your preferred networks to arrange the
 profile priority.
 .
 You need to have root access to use this program.

If you prefer an graphical solution.

nobody
  • 5,437