Wifi Connection Issues on Ubuntu 16.04

Question

Everything was working fine until I upgraded my Ubuntu version to 16.04 recently.My wifi gets disconnected after every 10-20 mins. Sometimes it gets even worse and it gets disconnected in just 5 mins. I have read this another question in AskUbuntu and tried to implement what the OP accepted as the answer.

16.04 LTS wifi connection issues

Now what I have done till now is I got my wifi details using

sudo lshw -C network

And here is what I got

 *-network               
   description: Wireless interface
   product: AR9285 Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express)
   vendor: Qualcomm Atheros
   physical id: 0
   bus info: pci@0000:02:00.0
   logical name: wlo1
   version: 01
   serial: 78:e4:00:6f:e0:e6
   width: 64 bits
   clock: 33MHz
   capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless
   configuration: broadcast=yes driver=ath9k driverversion=4.13.0-45-generic firmware=N/A ip=192.168.0.3 latency=0 link=yes multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11
   resources: irq:16 memory:c3400000-c340ffff
 *-network
   description: Ethernet interface
   product: RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller
   vendor: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.
   physical id: 0
   bus info: pci@0000:03:00.0
   logical name: enp3s0
   version: 03
   serial: c8:0a:a9:d2:bf:d3
   size: 10Mbit/s
   capacity: 1Gbit/s
   width: 64 bits
   clock: 33MHz
   capabilities: pm msi pciexpress msix vpd bus_master cap_list rom ethernet physical tp mii 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt 1000bt-fd autonegotiation
   configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=r8169 driverversion=2.3LK-NAPI duplex=half firmware=rtl_nic/rtl8168d-2.fw latency=0 link=no multicast=yes port=MII speed=10Mbit/s
   resources: irq:24 ioport:2000(size=256) memory:c1404000-c1404fff memory:c1400000-c1403fff memory:c2400000-c240ffff

The output for iwconfig is:

enp3s0 no wireless extensions.

lo no wireless extensions.

wlo1 IEEE 802.11 ESSID:"One Piece"
Frequency:2.472 GHz Access Point: 70:62:B8:8B:A9:6F
Bit Rate=6.5 Mb/s Tx-Power=15 dBm
Retry short limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off Power Management:off Link Quality=42/70 Signal level=-68 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0 Tx excessive retries:1 Invalid misc:2293 Missed beacon:0

I also tried installing WICD and using it after removing all the configuration files of Network-Manager but it also loses connection after 20-30 mins and then gets worse by disconnecting randomly. Any solutions?

Answer 1

Sometimes, wireless gets disconnected because of settings in the router. First, most routers are set by default to the lowest common denominators including WPA and WPA2 auto-select, AES and TKIP auto-select and, worse of all, auto channel select. Here is a very interesting thread about auto channel select and why it doesn’t work at all well: https://superuser.com/questions/1311149/why-do-wifi-routers-do-such-a-bad-job-of-channel-selection

First, check the settings in the router. WPA2-AES is preferred; not any WPA and WPA2 mixed mode and certainly not TKIP. Second, if your router is capable of N speeds, you may have better connectivity with a channel width of 20 MHz in the 2.4 GHz band instead of automatic 20/40 MHz, although it is likely to affect N speeds. I also have better luck with a fixed channel, either 1, 6 or 11, rather than automatic channel selection. Also, be certain the router is not set to use N speeds only; auto B, G and N is preferred. After making these changes, reboot the router.

Next, I recommend that your regulatory domain be set explicitly. Check yours:

sudo iw reg get

If you get 00, that is a one-size-maybe-fits-all setting. Find yours here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3166-1_alpha-2 Then set it temporarily:

sudo iw reg set IS

Of course, substitute your country code if not Iceland. Set it permanently:

sudo nano /etc/default/crda

Change the last line to read:

REGDOMAIN=IS

Proofread carefully, save and close the text editor.

After rebooting the router and the computer, please tell us if there is any improvement.