WiFi Hard Blocked on Toshiba Satellite a665-s6086

Question

Before I begin I will preface my request by acknowledging that this question has been asked before. However, I ensure you that I have thoroughly examined all available and related questions on this site and google to no avail. I'm asking as last resort. Let me begin.

A few days ago, after I let my battery run out, my WiFi mysteriously was disabled. The 'Enable WiFi' option was grayed out and unable to be clicked. For some reason, Airplane Mode was enabled. I turned it off, and tried enabling wifi through the control panel thing, but it would immediately toggle back to Off. Just for reference, I am running Ubuntu 16.04 LTS.

The output of rfkill list is as follows:

0: phy0: Wireless LAN
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: yes
1: i2400m-usb:1-1.6:1.0: WiMAX
Soft blocked: yes
Hard blocked: no

The command rfkill unblock all (or even rfkill unblock 0) had no effect.

The output of sudo lshw -c network is as follows:

*-network               
   description: Ethernet interface
   product: RTL8101/2/6E PCI Express Fast/Gigabit Ethernet controller
   vendor: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.
   physical id: 0
   bus info: pci@0000:01:00.0
   logical name: enp1s0
   version: 05
   serial: 1c:75:08:6f:8d:b3
   size: 100Mbit/s
   capacity: 100Mbit/s
   width: 64 bits
   clock: 33MHz
   capabilities: pm msi pciexpress msix vpd bus_master cap_list ethernet physical tp mii 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd autonegotiation
   configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=r8169 driverversion=2.3LK-NAPI duplex=full firmware=rtl_nic/rtl8168e-2.fw ip=10.0.0.6 latency=0 link=yes multicast=yes port=MII speed=100Mbit/s
   resources: irq:24 ioport:6000(size=256) memory:d0404000-d0404fff memory:d0400000-d0403fff
  *-network DISABLED
   description: Wireless interface
   product: Centrino Advanced-N + WiMAX 6250 [Kilmer Peak]
   vendor: Intel Corporation
   physical id: 0
   bus info: pci@0000:06:00.0
   logical name: wlp6s0
   version: 5f
   serial: 00:23:15:96:7c:20
   width: 64 bits
   clock: 33MHz
   capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless
   configuration: broadcast=yes driver=iwlwifi driverversion=4.4.0-38-generic firmware=41.28.5.1 build 33926 latency=0 link=no multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11abgn
   resources: irq:28 memory:d4600000-d4601fff
  *-network DISABLED
   description: Ethernet interface
   physical id: 2
   logical name: enx64d4da1963ef
   serial: 64:d4:da:19:63:ef
   capabilities: ethernet physical
   configuration: driver=i2400m_usb firmware=i6050-fw-usb-1.5.sbcf link=no

Output of modinfo iwlwifi: http://pastebin.com/8xuQMRSt

Output of lsmod | grep -e acpi -e wmi: http://pastebin.com/FZFcnx6w

I can assure that I have looked at other solutions, all to no avail, such as:

-Checking to see if I can enable wifi in BIOS (I cannot)

-Taking out the battery pack, and pressing the power button and restarting (doesn't work)

-Triggering sleep mode in an effort to reset my computer (doesn't work)

It should be said that I have tried my fn+f8 button. Interestingly, this turns Airplane mode back on. All my function buttons seem to work fine, but the Wifi fn key only serves to disable wifi. On Toshiba Satellite computers there is a touch key panel between the speakers that has controls such as volume, wifi. This panel, which worked in windows, does not work in Ubuntu.

The best solution for this problem that I know is to boot windows and enable wifi through windows using the touch pad. But, unfortunately, I no longer have a working copy of windows.

Alas, I am at wits end! From what I read this hard-blocked wifi problem seems to occur frequently and all solutions that have worked for others, are not working for me. So I ask for your help, oh wise, benevolent sages of Ubuntu. Or I fear that my laptop will forever be tethered to an Ethernet cable.

Answer 1

Did a little digging and this problem is similar where WiFi was working fine and just died one day: rfkill hard block my wireless when I switch it off/on

First check if hardware encryption is enabled by typing: modinfo iwlwifi. Please update your question with the output of that command if this answer doesn't work.

The solution proposed (in the link) is to do this:

sudo modprobe iwlwifi nohwcrypt

There are other parameters that can be the problem such as n11 which is described in this problem: Ubuntu 14.04.1 Intel Centrino Advanced-N + WiMax 6250. The solution there was to use:

sudo modprobe iwlwifi 11n_disable=1

However in this case the OP never had a working WiFi so it isn't as close a match as the first solution.

If the modprobe change work in the current boot session, both links describe how to make it permanent on future boots. Hopefully this solves your problem or at least gets you on the right problem solving path.

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Edit 1 New parameters based on comments

Based on comments in parameters try this (based on bug report: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1249008:

rmmod iwldvm iwlwifi
modprobe iwlwifi power_save=0 swcrypto=1 power_level=1