Fedora14, wireless is disabled. How to turn on?

[JoeF]

I disabled the wireless connection on my dv5 laptop with F14 to test some bandwidth issues across my system and now I can't figure out how to re-enable the wireless. There isn't a Network Manager listed under System that deals with wireless any more and I've tried restarting the Network Manager in terminal. If I check the nimcli and confirmed that it is 'disabled'. How do I re-enable the wireless?

[didier83]

How did you disable the wireless connection ?

As first try you may want to restart NetworkManager using as root the command:

service NetworkManager restart.

If not successfull, check the content of /var/lib/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.state
You should get something like:

[main]
NetworkingEnabled=true
WirelessEnabled=true
WWANEnabled=true

If WirelessEnabled=false,
1)set it to true then restart NetworkManager as above
or
2) remove /var/lib/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.state then restart NetworkManager as above

[JoeF]

I disabled it from the tool bar icon when you right click on it. There is a check mark beside the 'Enable Wireless' function there and by clicking on it, you can turn it off. I did, but then the 'Enable Wireless' function is grayed out so that you can't click on it again.

I tried the 'service NetworkManager restart' trick alread and that didn't do anything. I did just type in

NetworkingEnabled=true
WirelessEnabled=true
WWANEnabled=true

as root and then restarted the Network Manager and that worked. The Enable Wireless came back in bold without the check mark and all I had to do is select it again. It took about 30seconds and it reset itself and picked up my connection.

I'm going to try 'unchecking' it again to see if I get the same results. I should now be able to fix my problem again if I do and I will also report my findings back here again.

Thanks for the help.

---------- Post added at 05:50 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:36 PM ----------

Well, it still works. I don't know what I did the first time to get it to 'gray out' like that, but I can't do it again so I'll consider it a fluke and be happy it's fixed.

Thanks for the help.

[JoeF]

Ok, I'm back with somewhat the same issue here. I reinstalled FC14 due to another issue and now I can't get the wireless ethernet to work again. the manager says that the hardware switch is off but it doesn't allow me to turn it back on. It's one of those "touch" buttons on the computer. It's always orange. I know the system works(ed), but I can't get around this switch thing.

[root@Joes-dv5 ~]# service NetworkManager restart
Stopping NetworkManager daemon: [ OK ]
Setting network parameters... [ OK ]
Starting NetworkManager daemon: [ OK ]
[root@Joes-dv5 ~]# ^C
[root@Joes-dv5 ~]#

[root@Joes-dv5 ~]# /var/lib/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.state
-bash: /var/lib/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.state: Permission denied
[root@Joes-dv5 ~]#

[root@Joes-dv5 ~]# NetworkingEnabled=true
[root@Joes-dv5 ~]# WirelessEnabled=true
[root@Joes-dv5 ~]# WWANEnabled=true
[root@Joes-dv5 ~]# service NetworkManager restart
Stopping NetworkManager daemon: [ OK ]
Setting network parameters... [ OK ]
Starting NetworkManager daemon: [ OK ]
[root@Joes-dv5 ~]#


still off. any ideas?

[didier83]

Not sure it will fix your problem, but why not make a try to use rfkill(8) command

didier~> rfkill list
0: hp-wifi: Wireless LAN
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: no
1: phy0: Wireless LAN
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: n

If you notice something 'locked', try to unlock it with unblock rfkill option.

from manpages:

unblock index|type
Enable the device corresponding to the given index. If the
device is hard-blocked, e.g. via a hardware switch, it will
remain unavailable though it is now soft-unblocked.

Hope this helps.

[JoeF]

Well I found something new (see results):

[root@Joes-dv5 Joe]# rfkill list
0: hp-wifi: Wireless LAN
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: no

[root@Joes-dv5 Joe]# rfkill list
0: hp-wifi: Wireless LAN
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: yes

[root@Joes-dv5 Joe]# rfkill list
0: hp-wifi: Wireless LAN
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: no

[root@Joes-dv5 Joe]#

For all 3 of the examples above, my wireless indicator stayed off.
The first one was just that, the status of the first try.

The second one was the status after I had pressed the wifi on/off switch. Notice that the 'Hard blocked' changed to yes.

The third try was after I pressed the wifi switch again. So the system is seeing the hard switch but it's not enabling the wifi still.

[JoeF]

It's been a few days now and no one has chimed in yet as to a possible solution. anyone got any ideas???

I really need to get this running again.

[ryptyde]

Are you dual booting with Windows and if so does the wifi work there. When clicking on the NM panel applet does it show any wireless available. Do any updating lately that may have caused the loss. Try booting to a previous kernel to see if that changes anything. I'm just taking some shots here trying to pinpoint the problem.

You can open a terminal and enter:

nmcli -p con

and

nmcli -p nm

and see what the printout says.

phil

[marko]

Originally Posted by JoeF

Ok, I'm back with somewhat the same issue here. I reinstalled FC14 due to another issue and now I can't get the wireless ethernet to work again. the manager says that the hardware switch is off but it doesn't allow me to turn it back on. It's one of those "touch" buttons on the computer. It's always orange. I know the system works(ed), but I can't get around this switch thing.

[root@Joes-dv5 ~]# service NetworkManager restart
Stopping NetworkManager daemon: [ OK ]
Setting network parameters... [ OK ]
Starting NetworkManager daemon: [ OK ]
[root@Joes-dv5 ~]# ^C
[root@Joes-dv5 ~]#

[root@Joes-dv5 ~]# /var/lib/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.state
-bash: /var/lib/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.state: Permission denied
[root@Joes-dv5 ~]#

[root@Joes-dv5 ~]# NetworkingEnabled=true
[root@Joes-dv5 ~]# WirelessEnabled=true
[root@Joes-dv5 ~]# WWANEnabled=true
[root@Joes-dv5 ~]# service NetworkManager restart
Stopping NetworkManager daemon: [ OK ]
Setting network parameters... [ OK ]
Starting NetworkManager daemon: [ OK ]
[root@Joes-dv5 ~]#


still off. any ideas?

Some things to remember:

service NetworkManager restart (or any 'service' command usage)
will not stick beyond the current boot up, make sure you run system-config-services to enable the NM service and disable network service (or you can use chkconfig NetworkManager on and chkconfig network off ). Note that "network" and "NetworkManager" services are mutually exclusive and should be (on / off) or (off / on) depending on which you want in control.

It would be a good idea too for you to load system-config-network (s-c-n) as root, and use the Edit button while the wireless interface is selected and make sure you have the checkbox checked for all these:

"Controlled by NetworkManager"
"Allow all users to enable and disable the device"
"Activate device when computer starts"

save and exit the s-c-n tool, now see if the GUI taskbar widget for NM is working better

[lslarry86]

This happened to me this week. The Gnome toolbar crashed right after a boot, when I clicked on the Thunderbird icon. After I rebooted, I could not use WiFi. This is on a Gateway T-series laptop with a slide switch for wifi and a blue light on the mousepad that's supposed to show the state of the slide switch.

For me, the problem turned out to be the WLAN Restore setting in BIOS. When I changed that setting to ON from Restore and rebooted, Linux correctly read the slide switch and gave me back Wifi.

Larry

[lmaranhao]

using fedora 16 here but having the same issue.

this link might help

http://karim-ouda.blogspot.com/2011/...illswitch.html

worked for me

thx

[platof82]

Same problem; ehernet works fine!
But can not enable wireless! it is gray!