Wifi stopped working Ubuntu 14.04, wireless card and networks still detected

Question

My WiFi spontaneously quit working - I think I had just closed and reopened the lid of my chromebook, but I don't think I had installed any updates or done anything else that should have had an effect on its operation. Everything appears normal except that it fails to connect to networks that I've always connected to with no problem - WiFi is enabled, the networks all show up, it prompts for the password, etc.

I've looked through a lot of other posts from people with a WiFi problem, and tried the commands / fixes, but none of it has helped and I seem to have a different problem because the system does seem to detect the card:

ifconfig has one entry lo and another wlan0;

lspci ... lists what I think is my wireless card and also says kernel driver in use: iwlwifi

I tried ifconfig wlan0 up and sudo /usr/sbin/rfkill unblock wifi and sudo service network-manager restart to no avail.

I don't have another OS on the machine to check the WiFi on that, and since it's a chromebook there's no Ethernet port to use as a backup (and so I haven't tried anything involving downloads).

Is it likely to be a hardware issue at this point? Would a busted WiFi card still be detected like this?

Any help appreciated!

Have you checked that the Wireless switch (typically near the front where your laptop lid closes) isn't simply 'off?' Look for a switch that's got a typical WiFi symbol, or a red 'background' now that it's probably been pushed to the off position. I do believe it should still show up in your devices, when disabled via a switch. What type of laptop is it? — gravity, Jun 06 '16 at 20:59
Please run the script that is in the accepted answer in the link below so we may see the information needed to help diagnose the issue. http://askubuntu.com/questions/425155/my-wireless-wifi-connection-does-not-work- what-can-i-do — Wild Man, Jun 07 '16 at 03:00

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 08 '16 at 12:39

Thanks for the comments - my machine doesn't have any wifi switch but I've resolved the issue the fat-handed way:

I learned that my wifi card doesn't always play nicely with the driver, got fed up and wiped everything clean, installing Ubuntu 16.04. Initially the wifi still did not work, but this time sudo /usr/sbin/rfkill unblock wifi did the trick. The reinstall was really quick and fixed some other problems too - my touchpad finally works.

Wifi stopped working Ubuntu 14.04, wireless card and networks still detected

1 Answers1