Ubuntu 16.04 WiFi issues - How to perhaps fix it for you as well...

SneWs's picture
Submitted by SneWs on Fri, 2016-07-08 21:17

There have been plenty of reports regarding WiFi issues on Ubuntu 16.04. The majority of issues seems to stem from suspend/resume issues where the network would not re-connect, show the wrong icon in the top bar or similar.

The temporary workaround for this is to restart the network manager if you have no network at all, or, if you have network but the nm applet is showing the wrong status, just restart the nm applet.

Restart network manager.

sudo service network-manager restart

Restart the nm applet.

killall nm-applet && nm-applet &

How to fix it

So, this might or it might not work for you dep. on what issue you've been experiencing. But this did solve it for me on two different laptops.

Lets start with figuring out what WiFi chip we have.

sudo lshw -class network

The result should look something like this:

snews@TuxBook:~$ sudo lshw -class network
  *-network               
       description: Wireless interface
       product: Wireless 7265
       vendor: Intel Corporation
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:02:00.0
       logical name: wlp2s0
       version: 59
       serial: 60:57:18:78:f9:92
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless
       configuration: broadcast=yes driver=iwlwifi driverversion=4.4.0-28-generic firmware=16.242414.0 ip=192.168.1.20 latency=0 link=yes multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11abgn
       resources: irq:49 memory:f7000000-f7001fff

With the above information available to us we can go to work and try to solve the resume from suspend issue.

sudo vi /etc/pm/config.d/config

In this file, paste the following

SUSPEND_MODULES="iwlwifi wlp2s0"

The values for the suspend_modules dep. on the output from the lshw command. In my case I see that my driver is named iwlwifi and that the logical name for my chip is wlp2s0. Hence I add those to the suspend_modules line.

Now, issue a restart of the network manager

sudo service network-manager restart

Now you should be able to suspend your laptop and when you resume it, WiFi should get reconnected automatically, and you should see the correct network type indicator in the nm applet.

The above might also work for you, so give it a try and see what happens.

UPDATE: It seems that as of 16.04.1 this is not an issue for me any more.

Resources:
http://askubuntu.com/questions/762198/16-04-lts-wifi-connection-issues - This details the /etc/pm/config.d/config config, but I had to modify it a little bit to make it work on my two laptops.

Tags:

Comments

Mike V. (not verified)

Fri, 2016-08-05 03:43

I wanted to thank you for doing the research and posting this information. I was having the wifi problem with my laptop after resuming from a suspesion after I upgraded from 14.04 to 16.04 and when I googled the problem I found references to SUSPEND_MODULES but I would not have known to use the lshw command to find the correct parameters to use. I followed your instructions and it solved my problem. This was very helpful.

michael (not verified)

Tue, 2016-11-01 11:51

works like a charm

David Morris (not verified)

Wed, 2016-11-02 16:58

Well, These tip are working to resolve the issues to connect the internet via Wifi.

Viktor (not verified)

Fri, 2016-11-11 03:28

Works great, thank you!
Note that /etc/pm/config.d/config might be a new file, it did not already exist on my system (Kubuntu 16.04)
But creating it with the appropriate value worked

Jeannie Burt (not verified)

Fri, 2016-11-11 23:44

I finally removed Network Manager and installed WICD, which I had used years ago, then went to nm when it seemed more friendly (before nm recently went South). WICD may not be sexy, but it's simple, starts when it's supposed to, and reliably displays other wireless networks available, which nm was not doing. I plan to use WICD until Ubuntu gets its act together with nm.

Rudi (not verified)

Mon, 2016-11-28 17:52

I upgraded to 16.04 and now my HP compaq 8710p does not boot. With the first attempt, the HP stops somewhere in the boot sequence. After a forced shutdown and switch on, the HP loads the Grub menu and only boots via the recovery menu of the older Kernell versions. This happens everytime I want to boot.
However, when I disable WiFi in the system configuration, Ubuntu loads ditrectly, but very slowly. (I have iwl4965 WiFi driver running after a boot via the recovery menu.)
Is there anything I can do to correct this?

SneWs's picture

SneWs

Mon, 2016-11-28 21:42

But, based on the fact that you can use the older kernel it sounds like you might be missing some kernel module(s) post upgrade.

I would recommend doing a 

lsmod

See if you can identify any modules from that list when booted in safe mode and try to append them to your regular kernel from the grub boot menu to get into the system with the newer kernel.

Other than that I'm afraid I can't really be much of help for this issue. Perhaps try to post on http://askubuntu.com for a wider audience.

Good luck.

Amit kumar (not verified)

Fri, 2016-12-02 09:51

Thanks and smile

ajay (not verified)

Sun, 2016-12-18 02:48

I have 16.04.1
Most of the time wifi wont connect after resuming from suspended mode. Had to restart network-manager.
Now I have applied the workaround mentioned here and it works well. Thanks!

16.04 xubuntu (not verified)

Tue, 2017-01-03 11:25

Hi everybody,
I have xubuntu 16.04 and an internet problem.
when I turn on my computer I have wifi and can see wifi networks. After disabling and then enabling networking I can't see avaliable wifi networks. I am conected to one but I cant see others (there are many other networks around me). When I restart my computer, the probleme is fixed... while I dont disable networking and enable it. I had add (SUSPEND_MODULES="iwlwifi wlp2s0") in (sudo nano /etc/pm/config.d/config) but that haven't helped. There are 5 screenshots after every step I have done: filedropper.com/problemwi-fitar

Thanks!

SneWs's picture

SneWs

Tue, 2017-01-03 17:51

When you executed 

sudo lshw -class network

did you actually have the logical name say it was wlp2s0? You can't just blindly copy/paste the config I provided in the post, but you need to replace it with the actual logical name from your output.

Flávio (not verified)

Thu, 2017-01-12 20:32

It worked!

Nori (not verified)

Tue, 2017-01-17 17:36

i have no wireless interface in result as showing in description !!! as description i have ethernet interface and network controller

Amit Kumar (not verified)

Fri, 2017-04-07 16:27

Same here..
it shows like....

*-network UNCLAIMED
description: Network controller

plz help anyone..

SneWs's picture

SneWs

Fri, 2017-04-07 22:18

When it's listed as UNCLAIMED it usually means that there is no driver available for the chip. You might try searching for linux-backports-modules for whatever version of Ubuntu you are using. That could potentially solve your issue.

rte (not verified)

Mon, 2017-01-30 22:59

how can i create directories and files anand edit the file contents? the computer says that i'm not the owner?

SneWs's picture

SneWs

Tue, 2017-01-31 10:46

Sounds like you are new to Linux, in that case, welcome.

You need to make sure that you become the super user, also know as root for editing system configurations and system files. You can do that either by using sudo vi /some-file.txt or use su.

I suggest that you read https://www.linux.com/learn/linux-101-introduction-sudo as a start.

dik pater (not verified)

Fri, 2017-02-03 20:03

My wife is using the lnux ubuntu firefox on a celsius H series.
I followed your instructions and it all works again.
She is very happy again ;-)

Regards

Dik Pater
The Netherlands ( 2nd country in the world)

Emma Kane (not verified)

Tue, 2017-02-07 13:12

Great, robust solution which fixed my issue.

jonyruny (not verified)

Sat, 2017-02-11 20:26

it does works like a charm. But , its annoying to every time service restart, go to suspend and comeback again and from this state it does not even restart properly again. Need to force shutdown by powerbutton. Please give us a solution of this issue

SneWs's picture

SneWs

Sat, 2017-02-11 21:19

Sounds like you might not have saved your changes to /etc/pm/config.d/config or you might have entered the wrong module(s) and/or something else wrong in the file.
If you have multiple NICs they will all be listed in the output from 

sudo lshw -class network

Make sure you use the module name from the output described as 

description: Wireless interface

jonyruny (not verified)

Sat, 2017-02-11 22:22

I think it is saved as, the command, sudo cat /etc/pm/config.d/config shows....

SUSPEND_MODULES="iwlwifi wlp3s0" ,, the device logical name here is ,,, wlp3s0 of my device

SneWs's picture

SneWs

Sun, 2017-02-12 00:00

Well, not sure what could be wrong in your specific case in that case. :/
Ubuntu WiFi has been quite broken since the release of 16.04, same issues has been visible on one of my machines running 16.10...

I guess you will either have to put together a simple script to automate it and make the pain a bit less or try to find some other solution to the problem. Sry.

vedant (not verified)

Fri, 2017-02-17 18:17

the solution works well for me only if I suspend my system. If I reboot it, the Wifi again stops establishing connection and no Wifi networks can be seen. A suspend at this stage works as a quick fix though but the issue still persists somewhere. :/

Ubuntu User (not verified)

Wed, 2017-03-29 21:05

Just wanted to say thank you - I've been restarting network manager far too often. This appears to have resolved the issue.

SneWs's picture

SneWs

Wed, 2017-03-29 21:18

Happy to hear it!

ME AND MY OS (not verified)

Wed, 2017-05-03 18:24

Followed everything and doesnt work for me . am new to linux and i tried following up bcus i need internet on my pc but i am so disconnected from d internet. Gosh i hate my pc cus i cant code laravel and download some libs. pls can u find a way to help me out

Menuka (not verified)

Wed, 2017-06-07 08:56

Thanks a lot. This works. saved my time.

Manu Konchady (not verified)

Fri, 2017-07-07 06:17

I had to add the logical name following the driver name in the SUSPEND_MODULES line to get WiFi working. The driver name alone did not work. Some of the other solutions that I read before yours suggested the driver name alone. Thanks for the help!

Cesar (not verified)

Fri, 2017-08-11 17:25

I have tried a lot of solutions and this is the best one by far. So simple and elegant!! Thank you!!!

Ayushi (not verified)

Fri, 2017-08-25 09:06

Try disabling secure boot,it worked for me.

Goran (not verified)

Tue, 2017-12-05 06:42

Thanks so much. it was working for me, too.

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