Wireless connection intermittently flashes Wired Network Disconnected

Are you losing your wireless connection?

It may be trying to fall-back to wired if wireless is not working for some reason.

Step 1: Open a terminal

If you are using the Gnome interface, open the Terminal console via "Applications->Accessories->Terminal"

If you are using the Unity interface, the easiest way to open the Terminal is to use the 'search' function on the dash. Or you can click on the 'More Apps' button, click on the 'See more results' by the installed section, and find it in that list of applications. A third way, available after you click on the 'More Apps' button, is to go to the search bar, and see that the far right end of it says 'All Applications'. You then click on that, and you'll see the full list. Then you can go to Accessories > Terminal after that.

So the methods in Unity are:
Dash > Search for Terminal
Dash > More Apps > 'See More Results' > Terminal
Dash > More Apps > Accessories > Terminal

Step 2: enter the following command

sudo iwlist scan

This will list all the wireless base stations it can find together with technical information
it looks something like this

wlan0 Scan completed :
          Cell 01 - Address: 1C:AF:F7:63:A5:26
                    Channel:1
                    Frequency:2.412 GHz (Channel 1)
                    Quality=41/70 Signal level=-69 dBm
                    Encryption key:on
                    ESSID:"TALKTALK-63A526"
                    Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 11 Mb/s; 6 Mb/s
                              9 Mb/s; 12 Mb/s; 18 Mb/s
                    Bit Rates:24 Mb/s; 36 Mb/s; 48 Mb/s; 54 Mb/s
                    Mode:Master
                    Extra:tsf=000001dfd05621bc
                    Extra: Last beacon: 1036ms ago
                    IE: Unknown: 000F54414C4B54414C4B2D363341353236
                    IE: Unknown: 010882848B960C121824
                    IE: Unknown: 030101
                    IE: Unknown: 2A0104
                    IE: Unknown: 32043048606C
                    IE: WPA Version 1
                        Group Cipher : TKIP
                        Pairwise Ciphers (2) : TKIP CCMP
                        Authentication Suites (1) : PSK
                    IE: IEEE 802.11i/WPA2 Version 1
                        Group Cipher : TKIP
                        Pairwise Ciphers (2) : TKIP CCMP
                        Authentication Suites (1) : PSK
                    IE: Unknown: DD180050F2020101000003A4000027A4000042435E0062322F00
          Cell 02 - Address: 00:0F:B5:50:A8:36
                    Channel:11
                    Frequency:2.462 GHz (Channel 11)
                    Quality=46/70 Signal level=-64 dBm
                    Encryption key:on
                    ESSID:"1gid46vaylveagu59b3ks232h"
                    Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 11 Mb/s; 22 Mb/s
                    Bit Rates:6 Mb/s; 9 Mb/s; 12 Mb/s; 18 Mb/s; 24 Mb/s
                              36 Mb/s; 48 Mb/s; 54 Mb/s
                    Mode:Master
                    Extra:tsf=00000013bd58314c
                    Extra: Last beacon: 72ms ago
                    IE: Unknown: 00193167696434367661796C7665616775353962336B7332333268
                    IE: Unknown: 010582848B962C
                    IE: Unknown: 03010B
                    IE: Unknown: 2A0100
                    IE: Unknown: 32080C1218243048606C
                    IE: WPA Version 1
                        Group Cipher : TKIP
                        Pairwise Ciphers (1) : TKIP
                        Authentication Suites (1) : PSK

warren@wmh-lt:~$

Pay attention to the channel numbers. At one point me and my neighbor were trying to use the same channel number and our two networks conflicted. Change your router to use a channel as that wont interfere with the others you can see

for information on channel numbers see here

http://documentation.netgear.com/reference/fra/wireless/WirelessNetworkingBasics-3-05.html

Hello:

Mine is the first cell cell 01 2wire049. Below is what I received for a read out:

lo Interface doesn't support scanning.

usb0 Interface doesn't support scanning.

eth1 Scan completed :
          Cell 01 - Address: B0:E7:54:36:3E:B9
                    ESSID:"2WIRE049"
                    Mode:Managed
                    Frequency:2.412 GHz (Channel 1)
                    Quality:4/5 Signal level:-60 dBm Noise level:-92 dBm
                    Encryption key:on
                    Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 6 Mb/s; 9 Mb/s
                              11 Mb/s; 12 Mb/s; 18 Mb/s; 24 Mb/s; 36 Mb/s
                              48 Mb/s; 54 Mb/s
          Cell 02 - Address: 00:22:3F:64:89:3A
                    ESSID:"NETGEAR"
                    Mode:Managed
                    Frequency:2.412 GHz (Channel 1)
                    Quality:1/5 Signal level:-87 dBm Noise level:-92 dBm
                    Encryption key:off
                    Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 11 Mb/s; 18 Mb/s
                              24 Mb/s; 36 Mb/s; 54 Mb/s; 6 Mb/s; 9 Mb/s
                              12 Mb/s; 48 Mb/s
          Cell 03 - Address: 00:22:75:CD:75:56
                    ESSID:"Haines"
                    Mode:Managed
                    Frequency:2.437 GHz (Channel 6)
                    Quality:1/5 Signal level:-84 dBm Noise level:-92 dBm
                    IE: IEEE 802.11i/WPA2 Version 1
                        Group Cipher : TKIP
                        Pairwise Ciphers (2) : TKIP CCMP
                        Authentication Suites (1) : PSK
                    IE: Unknown: DDA90050F204104A0001101044000101103B00010310470010775B6680BFDE11D38D2F002275CD75561021001442656C6B696E20496E7465726E6174696F6E616C102300114E20576972656C65737320526F757465721024000C463544383233362D342076331042000E32303933353832333631383034391054000800060050F20400011011001842656C6B696E204E20576972656C65737320526F75746572100800020084103C000101
                    IE: WPA Version 1
                        Group Cipher : TKIP
                        Pairwise Ciphers (2) : TKIP CCMP
                        Authentication Suites (1) : PSK
                    Encryption key:on
                    Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 11 Mb/s; 9 Mb/s
                              18 Mb/s; 36 Mb/s; 54 Mb/s; 6 Mb/s; 12 Mb/s
                              24 Mb/s; 48 Mb/s

eth0 Interface doesn't support scanning.

Apparently I am using channel 1 with another person in my neighborhood. How do I change my channel? Thank you.

Mark

Can you please give the output of:

sudo lshw -C network; lsb_release -a; uname -a

Also do you dual boot?

Thanks

Hello:

I am not using a dual boot. Here is the printout below:

 sudo lshw -C netork; lsb_release -a; uname -a
LSB Version: core-2.0-ia32:core-2.0-noarch:core-3.0-ia32:core-3.0-noarch:core-3.1-ia32:core-3.1-noarch:core-3.2-ia32:core-3.2-noarch:core-4.0-ia32:core-4.0-noarch
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 12.04.1 LTS
Release: 12.04
Codename: precise
Linux mark 3.2.0-29-generic-pae #46-Ubuntu SMP Fri Jul 27 17:25:43 UTC 2012 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux

And the output of:

sudo lshw -C network

Thanks

Here is the output below. Thank you for all your help!

mark@mark:~$ sudo lshw -C network
[sudo] password for mark:
  *-network
       description: Ethernet interface
       product: 88E8040 PCI-E Fast Ethernet Controller
       vendor: Marvell Technology Group Ltd.
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:09:00.0
       logical name: eth0
       version: 12
       serial: 00:1d:09:42:4e:ae
       capacity: 100Mbit/s
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet physical tp 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd autonegotiation
       configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=sky2 driverversion=1.30 firmware=N/A latency=0 link=no multicast=yes port=twisted pair
       resources: irq:44 memory:fe8fc000-fe8fffff ioport:de00(size=256)
  *-network
       description: Wireless interface
       product: BCM4312 802.11b/g LP-PHY
       vendor: Broadcom Corporation
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:0b:00.0
       logical name: eth1
       version: 01
       serial: 00:1f:3a:34:cb:d2
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless
       configuration: broadcast=yes driver=wl0 driverversion=5.100.82.38 ip=192.168.1.65 latency=0 multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11bg
       resources: irq:17 memory:fe7fc000-fe7fffff

You could try:

sudo apt-get install wicd
sudo apt-get --purge remove network-manager network-manager-gnome network-managerpptp network-manager-pptp-gnome

Then reboot and use wicd to configure the wifi. Tell it that eth1 is the interface if it is not detected.

mark@mark:~$ sudo apt-get --purge remove network-manager network-manager-gnome network-managerpptp network-manager-pptp-gnome
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
E: Unable to locate package network-managerpptp

sudo apt-get --purge remove network-manager network-manager-gnome network-manager-pptp

Sorry

No problem. That appears to have worked with the WICD Network Manager. I do have a question though. Is there a way to change the channel usage or do I need to? I do have a neighbor with the same channel usage. I also have checked next to the other connections "never connect to this network". Thank you for all your help!

Mark

Great! Thank you very much for all your help!

Thanks actionparsnip, that solved my question.