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I have installed Ubuntu 16.04 on my Alienware 13 laptop and everything worked like charm for couple of weeks. Then, suddenly, the wifi completely stopped working. I am not aware of installing any updates, it really happened from day to day.

I reinstalled the system and the same happened again - after a week or so it suddenly stopped working.

Here are some outputs people usually asked for:

rfkill list
0: dell-rbtn: Wireless LAN
    Soft blocked: yes
    Hard blocked: yes
1: hci0: Bluetooth
    Soft blocked: no
    Hard blocked: no
2: phy0: Wireless LAN
    Soft blocked: no
    Hard blocked: no

lspci -knn | grep Net -A2
01:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Qualcomm Atheros QCA6174 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter [168c:003e] (rev 20)
    Subsystem: Bigfoot Networks, Inc. Killer N1525 Wireless-AC [1a56:1525]
    Kernel driver in use: ath10k_pci
    Kernel modules: ath10k_pci



dmesg | grep ath

[3.412880] ath10k_pci 0000:01:00.0: enabling device (0000 -> 0002)
[3.413610] ath10k_pci 0000:01:00.0: pci irq msi-x interrupts 8 irq_mode 0 reset_mode 0
[3.665367] ath10k_pci 0000:01:00.0: Direct firmware load for ath10k/cal-pci-0000:01:00.0.bin failed with error -2
[4.981098] ath10k_pci 0000:01:00.0: qca6174 hw2.1 (0x05010000, 0x003405ff sub 1a56:1525) fw SW_RM.1.1.1-00157-QCARMSWPZ-1 fwapi 5 bdapi 2 htt-ver 3.1 wmi-op 4 htt-op 3 cal otp max-sta 32 raw 0 hwcrypto 1 features ignore-otp,no-4addr-pad
[4.981102] ath10k_pci 0000:01:00.0: debug 0 debugfs 1 tracing 1 dfs 0 testmode 0
[5.057702] ath: EEPROM regdomain: 0x6c
[5.057705] ath: EEPROM indicates we should expect a direct regpair map
[5.057707] ath: Country alpha2 being used: 00
[5.057707] ath: Regpair used: 0x6c
[5.064516] ath10k_pci 0000:01:00.0 wlp1s0: renamed from wlan0

Any help would be very appreciated. Especially explaining, why it stopped working so suddenly.

Kevin Bowen
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CedeErwe
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  • What exactly do you mean by "it stopped working"? – You'reAGitForNotUsingGit Sep 12 '16 at 10:47
  • I cannot enable it. If I open the network manager, the wifi is turned off and it does not allow me to turn it on. Neither through command line. Just a day before everything worked smoothly as it should. – CedeErwe Sep 12 '16 at 14:06
  • Hard blocked: yes – something changed the setting of a hardware switch to disable WiFi somewhere on your laptop. It's usually more or less visible on the outside. If you can't find it, look at the laptop manual. – David Foerster Sep 12 '16 at 20:51
  • Please edit to include results for lsmod – Jeremy31 Sep 12 '16 at 20:57

1 Answers1

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Use the keyboard shortcut(FN + ?) to see if it will enable. The dell-rbtn module might allow it to work

Jeremy31
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  • not sure about FN + ?, usually I use FN+F2 for enabling wifi, but it does not work. What do you mean by dell-rbtn module? – CedeErwe Sep 12 '16 at 15:54
  • Since the output shows dell-rbtn as both soft and hard blocked, why do you think it might work? – Elder Geek Sep 12 '16 at 16:51
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    This does not provide an answer to the question. To critique or request clarification from an author, leave a comment below their post. - From Review – Elder Geek Sep 12 '16 at 16:51
  • @Elder Geek That module allows the FN combo on some Dell computers to toggle both hard and soft blocks – Jeremy31 Sep 12 '16 at 20:52
  • Pardon my ignorance. I would expect the switch to disable the hard block. I'm at a loss to describe how a hardware switch can change a software setting. – Elder Geek Sep 12 '16 at 20:57
  • @ElderGeek usually it is a switch that causes a hard block but I have a Toshiba that hard blocks with the FN combo in 16.04 and that didn't happen in 14.04. Normally the FN combo only soft block wifi – Jeremy31 Sep 12 '16 at 21:01
  • I think not: http://askubuntu.com/questions/98702/how-to-unblock-something-listed-in-rfkill – Elder Geek Sep 12 '16 at 21:08
  • That may have been caused by acer-wmi module that was loaded on an HP laptop as a soft block can usually be removed with rfkill unblock all or rfkill unblock wifi see this for one recent example – Jeremy31 Sep 12 '16 at 22:59
  • I am embarassed to say, that this is actually the solution. The switch did not work for me before (I suspect it lost some sensitivity), pressing harder suddenly turned it on and everything works as before. – CedeErwe Sep 13 '16 at 07:51