Wifi networks are not showing in Ubuntu 16.04

Question

Very recently I have made up my mind to use Ubuntu. Firstly installed the 14.10 version and that didn't go well. On that particular version the wireless network option was not visible. I couldn't turn on the wireless connections. After that I re-installed the 16.04 version, in which the option is showing that wireless network is there but no network is showing up. Any suggestion how to solve this problem?

Possible duplicate of Wifi doesn't work after suspend after 16.04 upgrade It may work if Network Manager is messed up because of a bug and sometimes sees wifi devices as ethernet — Jeremy31, May 09 '16 at 10:01
Please [edit] your question and add output of lspci -knn | grep Net -A2; rfkill list terminal command. — Pilot6, May 10 '16 at 08:21
Please run the network diagnostics and [edit] your question to include a link to the result. — David Foerster, May 21 '16 at 20:17
Possible duplicate of wifi network list not showing in ubuntu 16.04 — Elder Geek, Jul 06 '17 at 14:50
I had the same problem: many wifi listed but not mine. Than I found out, my wifi adaptor does not support channel over 12. So, from modem I changed channel to 10 instead 13. Its working now. So, need to check your modem information at this link: my model was (BCM4313) https://help.ubuntu.com/community/HardwareSupportComponentsWirelessNetworkCardsBroadcom — HakanC, May 25 '20 at 05:13
For those who are still looking for some solution, I searched for several days, the solution is therefore to update the kernel to 5.10 or 5.12 example, I had 5.8 on 20.04.2 LTS with a dual boot, neither wireless or bluetooth worked, I upgraded the kernel to 5.12 via https://askubuntu.com/a/1291835/855698 and it works now.
I hope it will help those who will have this trouble. — PЯINCƎ, Jun 07 '21 at 10:11

score 72 · Answer 1 · edited Jul 21 '18 at 08:46

72

This helped solve the problem for me.

sudo systemctl restart network-manager

or

sudo service network-manager restart

I am still looking for a permanent solution, but this solves the issue till restart.

Update

Suffered from similar symptoms again. I had a stable 16.04 running smoothly for months and then suddenly yesterday the WiFi just stopped working. No networks would show on the nm applet. Tried quite a few suggestions (including my own) and none worked.

Finally realized that my last upgrade didn't go too well and had crashed in between. Removed the dkpg locks and ran sudo apt-get upgrade. A reboot later, all was back to normal.

sudo rm /var/lib/apt/lists/lock
sudo rm /var/cache/apt/archives/lock
sudo rm /var/lib/dpkg/lock

Ubuntu network manager seems quite fragile!

edited Jul 21 '18 at 08:46

Azeem

103
4

answered Jun 01 '16 at 17:53

Sandeep Deb

856

2

Any updates on the research for the permanent solution? – जलजनक Sep 07 '16 at 05:18
this worked for me too. Do you know any permanent solution? – mustafa Jun 02 '17 at 21:13
1

But I can't run an apt upgrade without Internet... – Aaron Franke Jul 17 '18 at 03:57
Add a line greeter-setup-script=service network-manager restart into the file /usr/share/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d/50-unity-greeter.conf to restart network-manager every time before you enter the greeter. – allenyllee May 01 '20 at 08:35

score 11 · Answer 2 · edited Apr 14 '17 at 08:17

11

Go to Terminal and type lspci
Find the name of your wireless adapter eg: Network controller: Intel Corporation wireless ....
Go to System settings > Software and Updates > Additional Drivers
If you see name of your Wireless Adapter. Check the adapter is enabled on not. If it is not enabled, click on Using XXYY your adapter name
Click on Apply Changes
This will install device drivers from manufacturer if available. Once installation is complete you will be asked to restart.

edited Apr 14 '17 at 08:17

Zanna

70,465

answered Apr 14 '17 at 07:55

Perumal N.K

111

this helped me lot saving time. – Tarun Nov 22 '17 at 18:35
this worked for me – Surendra Shrestha Jan 11 '18 at 17:22
7

What if you don't see the name of your Wireless Adapter on the list of Additional Drivers? – BourbonCreams Mar 15 '18 at 15:17
Thanks for this. In my case the Wi-Fi adapter just stopped working several days ago. I'm not sure if the user was prompted for an update, but I kind of doubt that since he doesn't even know the password. For whichever reason, the Wi-Fi device was not being used so I turned it on, like you suggested, and then had to setup a password for secure UEFI. After a reboot I was prompted by the MokManager to input the password. Boot up back into ubuntu aaaand Wi-Fi is back. – mkey Jul 28 '20 at 18:36

score 2 · Answer 3 · edited Apr 14 '17 at 08:20

Install rfkill

sudo apt-get install rfkill

then run this command

rfkill unblock all

check if the wifi is working. If not do this

sudo nano /var/lib/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.state

then you will see some settings. Set everything to "true" reboot your system

give this command in terminal

rfkill list

you'll see that some are softblocked and hardblocked. All of them should be "no".

If it's not "no" then you need to somehow turn them to "no". I did this and it worked for me

sudo modprobe -r acer-wmi
cd /etc/modprobe.d
sudo nano blacklist.conf

Then add blacklist acer-wmi as a new line at the end of the file.

then save the file by pressing Ctrl+O ,close it and reboot the system. It should work

score -1 · Answer 4 · answered May 21 '16 at 03:35

-1

Go to system setting->Network . where you find all the wireless or wifi avaiable there.

answered May 21 '16 at 03:35

user546820

1

1

system>software and settings>additional drivers check if any wireless drivers are listed for your laptop. – Arup Roy Chowdhury May 21 '16 at 03:40
2

i have same problem on my lenovo . use this command :-sudo systemctl restart network-manager.service fix my issue. – user546820 May 21 '16 at 03:50
When I go to All Settings->Network->Wireless it says airplane mode is on and wireless is off all my networks report being out of range. I can turn airplane mode off but it does not let me turn wireless on. – zorkerz Sep 25 '16 at 22:37

Wifi networks are not showing in Ubuntu 16.04

4 Answers4

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