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Whenever the Netgear A6210 usb wifi adapter is plugged in it appears to crash NetworkManager and pretty much anything that might rely upon it.

I have been using the same wifi adapter in versions 18.04 LTS and 20.04 LTS, largely without fault except that it sometimes wouldn't be recognised after boot, disconnecting and reconnecting always solved this.

Today I allowed Ubuntu to run 155mb of updates (upgrading to 20.04.1 too I think) and immediately after reboot I was unable to open most programs and restart / shutdown also failed. In settings Network showed the NetworkManager error contact vendor. Attempting to start it in terminal did nothing, terminal froze.

After hard restart, removing the A6210 immediately fixed the problem, network manager appeared to be working. Plugging in the A6210 again immediately caused the error again, which was unrecoverable.

I attempted to make install the driver which can be found on github, via AskUbuntu.

I don't understand how the A6210 works flawlessly in liveusb but not full install. It's recognised immediately, web access runs fine and programs which had frozen previously also run. Similarly with 18.04 it was always recognised immediately with liveusb.

So I tried to run the most recent installer 20.04.1, it installed fine, no errors. Same problem returns when I then restarted.

My work around is to tether my phone's wifi connection over usb, not really a long term solution though.

Please help! Thanks

Edit:

At Grub if I choose '5.4.0-42-generic' instead of the default (5.4.0-56-generic), the wifi card works as it should.

Adam Corkett
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  • Does plugging in the device cause a .crash file to be created in /var/crash? – user535733 Dec 04 '20 at 19:12
  • I had gnome-initial setup open after boot, Livepatch wanted setting up. Checked the folder /var/crash and no file, then plugged in A6210. The wifi connecting icon appeared, checked which networks are available, there's a tick next to my home wireless network. Still the icon suggests is still connecting. Checks the Network settings, same error NetworkManager needs to be running. No file found in crash still. gnome-initial-setup has frozen and won't force close. – Adam Corkett Dec 04 '20 at 21:10
  • I tried to restart network with 'sudo service network-manager restart', the cursor flashed for a bit, then goes white and just hangs. Tried turning wifi off through gui, nothing, tried to open wifi settings, it appears in activities for a few seconds whilst loading and then just disappears. – Adam Corkett Dec 04 '20 at 21:17

1 Answers1

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I have the same problem with 5.4.0-56. I've reverted back to 5.4.0-54 as described here:

Restart your computer, when your BIOS is through quickly press shift to open the GRUB menu, you might need a few tries to get the timing right.

There choose Advanced options and select to boot with the older kernel. Then you can safely uninstall everything that belongs to the newer kernel and be done with it:

sudo apt-get remove "linux-headers-4.4.8*"
sudo apt-get remove "linux-image-4.4.8*"

Now, selecting Ubuntu in GRUB boots with the 5.4.0-54 kernel directly.

BeastOfCaerbannog
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akshay
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  • Thanks. In my Grub Menu, advanced settings I only see 5.4.0-56 and 5.4.0-42. Is pressing shift first supposed to open a different GRUB menu? Mine is always there after the OEM Logo / Beep. – Adam Corkett Dec 12 '20 at 11:01