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I am on Ubuntu 18.04. I tried to enable the wifi hotspot option "Turn on Wi-Fi Hotspot" from the wifi settings menu. But unfortunately, the option is disabled as shown in the picture below. How can I activate the option or is there any other way I can use my wired connection in my uUbuntu destop as wifi hotspot? Switching off/on the wifi doesn't activate the hotspot option.

Thanks

enter image description here

Sourav Chatterjee
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7 Answers7

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Apply the following steps:

  1. Press Alt+F2 and then type 

    nm-connection-editor

    and hit Enter.

  2. Network Connections window pops up. Click on the + button at the bottom and select WiFi from the dropdown menu. ENter the following parameters:

    • Type connection Name: xyz
    • SSID Name: xyz-pc
    • Select Mode: Hotspot
    • Finally, set the password in the Wi-Fi security tab.
Zanna
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Nikkey
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    Thanks for the answer! Followed the above steps. But no success. Still the Turn on Wifi Hotspot is disabled! – Sourav Chatterjee May 20 '20 at 10:18
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    I found that there already is a hotspot connection (named Hotspot) viisble in the Network Connections window. After deleting it and running sudo service network-manager restart the "Turn on Wi-FI hotspot disabled" option was available again in the menu. – Tgr May 04 '22 at 14:31
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Was facing the same issue in Pop!_OS, which is Ubuntu based. On some tinkering, I found a solution which could work for you.

Image describing problem

enter image description here In the above picture, the option to 'Turn on Wi-Fi Hotspot' is disabled. To solve this, select 'Connect to hidden network' option present just above the 'Turn on Wi-Fi Hotspot' option.

Then select the 'Hotspot' or a similar option in the 'connection' drop down menu. As shown in the below image. Your hotspot details will be auto populated in the below fields. Then click on 'Connect' button. And your Wi-Fi Hotspot will start.

solution image

enter image description here

Mumuzab
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  • thanks it worked.. – Sisir Jan 14 '21 at 16:05
  • Weird, the "normal" way just worked until recently and indeed, now you have to do this trick. – hbogert Jan 28 '21 at 12:25
  • This worked for me but there is a drastic difference in speeds! The following were obtained by google speedtest:
    1. Download and upload speeds of the connection are in excess of 75 mbps
    2. My phone's internet speed while it uses the hotspot, both are under 0.5 mbps.

    Any ideas? Should I turn this into a question?

     – Karthik C Feb 03 '21 at 05:27
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It's a long-standing bug.

If you selected Wi-Fi Settings from the NetworkManager applet, Turn on Wi-Fi Hotspot will be greyed out in the 3-dot menu. In the Settings window that opens, just click on Network in the left pane, then click on Wi-Fi in the left pane, and the Turn On Wi-Fi Hotspot will then be available.

Parthiv Reddy
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From the image above it shows that your wifi is turned off. For you to be able to turn on your hotspot you first need to enable the wifi option and voila you will see the hotspot option enabled

RKatana
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It might be unusual, but I had Multipass running and I couldn't enable hotspot the conventional way.

Solution:

  • Quit Multipass (or your hypervisor of choice)
  • Disable / Enable Wi-Fi
  • Set up hotspot the usual way.

I believe that Multipasses' virtual networking doesn't like the bridging that ubuntu does under the hood and so disables it. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Lan Vukušič
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I found this useful:

sudo service network-manager restart
Yan King Yin
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Change to any other tab in the setting menu and then come back to WiFi Settings. It will become available. :)

Akshay Binu
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