TP-LINK TL-WN610G wireless not working after direct upgrade from Ubuntu 8.04 to Ubuntu 9.10

Hi Tony,

Please first connect your network card to the wireless router using an ethernet cable (also known as a LAN cable).

In order to gather essential troubleshooting information about your wireless card, please follow this procedure:

Step 1: Open Terminal from "Applications->Accessories->Terminal"

Step 2: Please copy-paste the following command from the https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu website in Firefox into the Linux Terminal. Do NOT copy-paste from the Email message into the Terminal, as that will only copy PART of the command. The command STARTS with the word sudo and ENDS with the word restart. So please copy-paste the ENTIRE command below from Firefox into a Terminal, press <enter>, then enter password when sudo asks for password, then press enter again.

sudo lshw -C network; sudo iwlist scanning; cat /etc/network/interfaces; cat /etc/lsb-release; lspci -nn; lsusb; sudo lshw -C usb; uname -a; dmesg | grep ound; dmesg | grep b43; dmesg | grep iwl; iwconfig; sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart

Step 3: Please post results (copy/paste terminal output) on this thread

Regards,

Mark

Hi Mark

Please find the results below as requested.

OUTPUT:

lo Interface doesn't support scanning.

eth0 Interface doesn't support scanning.

# This file describes the network interfaces available on your system
# and how to activate them. For more information, see interfaces(5).

# The loopback network interface
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

# The primary network interface
auto eth0
#iface eth0 inet dhcp
DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
DISTRIB_RELEASE=9.10
DISTRIB_CODENAME=karmic
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 9.10"
00:00.0 Host bridge [0600]: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8601 [Apollo ProMedia] [1106:0601] (rev 05)
00:01.0 PCI bridge [0604]: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8601 [Apollo ProMedia AGP] [1106:8601]
00:07.0 ISA bridge [0601]: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C686 [Apollo Super South] [1106:0686] (rev 22)
00:07.1 IDE interface [0101]: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C586A/B/VT82C686/A/B/VT823x/A/C PIPC Bus Master IDE [1106:0571] (rev 10)
00:07.2 USB Controller [0c03]: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller [1106:3038] (rev 10)
00:07.4 ISA bridge [0601]: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C686 [Apollo Super ACPI] [1106:3057] (rev 30)
00:07.5 Multimedia audio controller [0401]: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C686 AC97 Audio Controller [1106:3058] (rev 20)
00:09.0 Communication controller [0780]: Conexant Systems, Inc. HSF 56k Data/Fax Modem [14f1:2013] (rev 01)
00:0a.0 CardBus bridge [0607]: Texas Instruments PCI1410 PC card Cardbus Controller [104c:ac50] (rev 01)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Trident Microsystems CyberBlade i1 [1023:8520] (rev 6a)
02:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ [10ec:8139] (rev 10)
Bus 001 Device 005: ID 0d7d:1923 Phison Electronics Corp.
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 046d:c019 Logitech, Inc. Optical Tilt Wheel Mouse
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Linux presario 2.6.31-14-generic #48-Ubuntu SMP Fri Oct 16 14:04:26 UTC 2009 i686 GNU/Linux
[ 0.000000] Phoenix BIOS detected: BIOS may corrupt low RAM, working around it.
[ 0.080142] ACPI: No dock devices found.
[ 0.107328] pnp: PnP ACPI: found 11 devices
[ 1.299007] isapnp: No Plug & Play device found
[ 1.317686] hub 1-0:1.0: USB hub found
[ 1.323190] device-mapper: multipath round-robin: version 1.0.0 loaded
[ 1.331349] BIOS EDD facility v0.16 2004-Jun-25, 0 devices found
[ 16.707036] lp: driver loaded but no devices found
[ 16.881091] yenta_cardbus 0000:00:0a.0: CardBus bridge found [0e11:b103]
[ 466.522256] usb-storage: device found at 3
[18946.253247] gnome-sound-rec[3350]: segfault at 58 ip 0804e62d sp bfe77690 error 4 in gnome-sound-recorder[8048000+f000]
[19607.496756] usb-storage: device found at 5
lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

 * Reconfiguring network interfaces... Ignoring unknown interface eth0=eth0.
Ignoring unknown interface eth0=eth0.

Looks like another serious bug/regression in Ubuntu 9.10

Normally (in Ubuntu 8.04 and Ubuntu 8.10), the following command

lspci -nn

should show the following output for your wireless card:

Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR5212/AR5213 Multiprotocol MAC/baseband processor (rev 01)

But now, in Ubuntu 9.10, it is not showing any wireless card in the device list.

According to the following link, the device does work correctly in Ubuntu 8.04 and Ubuntu 8.10, using the madwifi driver:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/HardwareSupportComponentsWirelessNetworkCardsTP-Link

I assume this is a new bug in kernel 2.6.31-14-generic

It is a far-fetched idea, but you could try removing the wireless card before booting and wait for Ubuntu 9.10 to fully boot to the desktop. Then reconnect the PCMCIA wireless card after the desktop is fully loaded. Then run the command

lspci -nn

to see if the hardware is finally detected by the kernel.

Hi Mark

Thanks for the further feedback.

I will try your suggestion and let you know how I go. Have also sent a
message to TP-Link tech support to see if they have tested with Ubuntu 9.10
or if they have heard of others with similar issues.

It's strange as it worked so well and reliably with 8.04 and coincidently
the upgrade was entirely downloaded via the wireless connection achieving
download rates of between 950 KBS and 1290 KBS with is very impressive.

I may need to down grade back to version 8.04 however I will try a little
harder to achieve full functionality with 9.10 before I give up.

Many Thanks

Anthony
-----Original Message-----
From: <email address hidden> [mailto:<email address hidden>] On Behalf Of Mark
Rijckenberg
Sent: Sunday, 8 November 2009 10:37 PM
To: <email address hidden>
Subject: Re: [Question #89001]: WiFi lost following U/G to 9.10

Your question #89001 on Ubuntu changed:
https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/89001

    Status: Open => Answered

Mark Rijckenberg proposed the following answer:
Looks like another serious bug/regression in Ubuntu 9.10

Normally (in Ubuntu 8.04 and Ubuntu 8.10), the following command

lspci -nn

should show the following output for your wireless card:

Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications Inc. AR5212/AR5213
Multiprotocol MAC/baseband processor (rev 01)

But now, in Ubuntu 9.10, it is not showing any wireless card in the
device list.

According to the following link, the device does work correctly in
Ubuntu 8.04 and Ubuntu 8.10, using the madwifi driver:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community
/HardwareSupportComponentsWirelessNetworkCardsTP-Link

I assume this is a new bug in kernel 2.6.31-14-generic

It is a far-fetched idea, but you could try removing the wireless card
before booting and wait for Ubuntu 9.10 to fully boot to the desktop. Then
reconnect the PCMCIA wireless card after the desktop is fully loaded. Then
run the command

lspci -nn

to see if the hardware is finally detected by the kernel.

--
If this answers your question, please go to the following page to let us
know that it is solved:
https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/89001/+confirm?answer_id=2

If you still need help, you can reply to this email or go to the
following page to enter your feedback:
https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/89001

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19:39:00

Gateway W350A using Airlink 101 USB wirelss worked fine with latest upgrades to 8.04. Did not need any special fussing around with embedded windows drivers, nada.

After upgrade, it obviously tries to connect as there is immediate activity between USB wireless dongle and the network router. The network applet also shows all the networks nearby. But it won't connect with the correct password (checked on exact same hardware setup using windows vista).

The USB wireless was not happy after being used by linux, i had to reboot vista (from previously being hibernated using bootloader) before it would use the wireless dongle, (probably something in an EEPROM gets written by the OS)

I hope this gets fixed soon, I like to travel with my laptop, and will have to use Windows for network, and then switch through GRUB back to Linux for development.

Hi Mark

I started the laptop and inserted the card when Ubuntu had fully loaded and did the lspci command and it seemed to see the wireless card.

Please see the output below:

anthony@presario:~$ lspci -nn

00:00.0 Host bridge [0600]: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8601 [Apollo ProMedia] [1106:0601] (rev 05)

00:01.0 PCI bridge [0604]: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8601 [Apollo ProMedia AGP] [1106:8601]

00:07.0 ISA bridge [0601]: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C686 [Apollo Super South] [1106:0686] (rev 22)

00:07.1 IDE interface [0101]: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C586A/B/VT82C686/A/B/VT823x/A/C PIPC Bus Master IDE [1106:0571] (rev 10)

00:07.2 USB Controller [0c03]: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller [1106:3038] (rev 10)

00:07.4 ISA bridge [0601]: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C686 [Apollo Super ACPI] [1106:3057] (rev 30)

00:07.5 Multimedia audio controller [0401]: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C686 AC97 Audio Controller [1106:3058] (rev 20)

00:09.0 Communication controller [0780]: Conexant Systems, Inc. HSF 56k Data/Fax Modem [14f1:2013] (rev 01)

00:0a.0 CardBus bridge [0607]: Texas Instruments PCI1410 PC card Cardbus Controller [104c:ac50] (rev 01)

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Trident Microsystems CyberBlade i1 [1023:8520] (rev 6a)

02:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Atheros Communications Inc. Atheros AR5001X+ Wireless Network Adapter [168c:0013] (rev 01)

anthony@presario:~$

Does wireless work this way? Have you tried connecting to the wireless access point using this workaround procedure?

If Ubuntu now detects the card, it should normally also find and automatically load the wireless kernel module for your Atheros wifi card.

Please also read this document:

http://www.ubuntulinux.org/getubuntu/upgrading

"Before You Start

    * You can only directly upgrade to Ubuntu 9.10 from Ubuntu 9.04 (see UpgradeNotes).
    * Be sure that you have all updates applied to Ubuntu 9.04 before you upgrade.
    * Before upgrading it is recommended that you read the release notes for Ubuntu 9.10, which document caveats and workarounds for known issues in this version. "

Issues are expected if you attempt an upgrade from Ubuntu 8.04 directly to Ubuntu 9.10. This upgrade shortcut will not work.

Hi Mark

No wireless does not work this way and I have tried this several times. The hot swapout option was one of the 1st i tried however I only just realised that i get a different result from the ispci command if I hot swap rather than boot with the card in place.

I see the status light flash like normal but no activity and I have done all the usual disabling security etc.

Concerning your comment that you need to 1st upgrade 9.04 that raises some questions.

1. If this is the case when Live upage detecting my system at version 8.03 and offering 9.10 would it know to take me there via version 9.04?

2. I was under the impression that it had done that anyway as it took 4 hours to complete and the download part was quite as i achieve some impressive download rates.

It is very mysterios that when i hot swap the system detects the card but I still get no connectivity.

Do you know what the lowest version of Ubuntu I can reverse back to that will give me wireless functionality as my laptop is old and seems slower with 9.10 that it was with 8.03. Should I consider using 7x or another distribution as I'm now sure that 9.10 will not work?

Will do Mark - Thanks.

I have a PIII 800 MHZ with max (320 MB) RAM in the Compaq Presario.

I run quite well with Ubuntu 8.03 as long as you were a litle patient and did not attempt and garphic editing.