Not happy with Petra, Wifi randomly disconnects

Questions about Wi-Fi and other network devices, file sharing, firewalls, connection sharing etc
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kclymer

Not happy with Petra, Wifi randomly disconnects

Post by kclymer »

Well I just want to say thanks to the developers who decided we all had to switch from Olivia to Petra right away. Of course the instructions for
an in place update stunk and were out of date, but I pulled it off. Naturally I would have been happy to stick with Olivia for a while as it was working
damn near perfect. However I saw that the developers were planning to stop supporting olivia in January 2014, yet older versions were still supported, longer, terrific. Really logical. Ok so I upgraded to Petra. Most things work the same except for one very very annoying thing. The wifi works like absolute garbage!!!! It switches off randomly all the time. By all the time I mean at least once every hour. When it switches off, then I can't get it to switch on unless i hit the wifi button and restart. This is making me really angry as this worked well enough before. I really resent it when something works well, and someone comes alone and "fixes" it, by breaking it. This is the type of BS I expect from microsoft. My advice for mint is once you have a new version, let us use the old version for at LEAST a year. That way all you go getters and early adapters can have the "fun" of getting all the bugs out and I can have the "fun" of having a computer that works without me getting mad enough to throw it against the wall. Thank you and please use your brains next time.

God I knew this would happen too. *facepalm* FAIL!
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Incentive I.C

Re: Not happy with Petra, Wifi randomly disconnects

Post by Incentive I.C »

Mint is based off of Ubuntu which has the 9 month support time for none LTS. If Mint keep support for a year it would serve no point as the Ubuntu none LTS repos are shut down and you would get no access to Ubuntu repos. You should have went with linux mint 13 (Its LTS so it continues to get updates till 2017 and I believe LM 14 Nadia is going to have longer support because i believe it was before Ubuntu changed to 9 month support for no LTS. 18 months i believe) So its not really Mints fault for this and i understand you frustration but chill out :roll: Maybe Mint should stick with just LTS? Or the main page could altleast recommend the LTS To new users. Use Linux Mint Debian Edition you will not have to reinstall because it is simi rolling release.
Now do you want help with your wifi problem or did you just want to rant and let out steam?
kclymer

Re: Not happy with Petra, Wifi randomly disconnects

Post by kclymer »

Incentive I.C wrote:Mint is based off of Ubuntu which has the 9 month support time for none LTS. If Mint keep support for a year it would serve no point as the Ubuntu none LTS repos are shut down and you would get no access to Ubuntu repos. You should have went with linux mint 13 (Its LTS so it continues to get updates till 2017 and I believe LM 14 Nadia is going to have longer support because i believe it was before Ubuntu changed to 9 month support for no LTS. 18 months i believe) So its not really Mints fault for this and i understand you frustration but chill out :roll: Maybe Mint should stick with just LTS? Or the main page could altleast recommend the LTS To new users. Use Linux Mint Debian Edition you will not have to reinstall because it is simi rolling release.
Now do you want help with your wifi problem or did you just want to rant and let out steam?
Hey actually to answer your last question. Yes I wanted to let out steam but I would prefer help with wifi. IMHO, since Mint isn't Ubuntu (yes I know it really based on Ubuntu), or so it's being marketed, then we should go with LTS, or yeah recommend the LTS to new users. That would be an excellent idea. When I have something working well, Like to screw it up. Honestly I was distro hopping, I installed mint a few months ago, and installed olivia because i assumed, the most up to date would probably be best. Olivia did work well. No complaints. I mean none. For me cutting the net off is the worst problem you can have when using linux since you're 100% reliant on the net.
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karlchen
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Re: Not happy with Petra, Wifi randomly disconnects

Post by karlchen »

Hello, kclymer.

Don't you think you are a bit too impatient?

No-one forced you to throw away a functioning Mint Olivia today and install Mint Petra instead. Olivia will only be supported till January 2014. True. But it will not stop working February 1st. There will be no more software updates for Olivia after January 2014 (no bugfixes, no new features). That's all. So there was hardly a good reason that forced you to throw away Olivia today.

You experience trouble with your wifi adapter on Mint Petra. Too bad. But not a total catastrophe, yet, bause there are ethernet cables which help connect a computer to a DSL router, too. You vent your frustration here, also stating that you would like to fix the problem. You do not provide a single technical detail which would have enabled anybody to understand what the cause of the problem is and how to fix it. Instead within less than 24 hours you start another very angry thread calling Mint Petra terrible and announcing you are going to downgrade. Yet another very rash and very impatient decision.

Whenever you experience a hardware related problem the minimal piece of information that you can provide without thinking about it twice is the output of the commandline

Code: Select all

inxi -Fx
This will give a really concise overview on your system's hardware and software configuration.

Whoever takes the time to answer will read the "inxi -Fx" report and request further details if necessary. But at least it is always a good starting point.

And about the time factor: Remember that this is a "users help users" forum. So there is no warranty that anybody will reply immediately, within 1 hour, within 2 hours or even within 24 hours. It is likely someone will. But no warranty given.

So next time you report a technical problem, don't restrict yourself to expressing your frustration, but take the time to feed us some details that we can work with. And give us some time to do so. Following this approach will greatly improve your chances of solving technical problems instead of just being frustrated by them.

Cheers,
Karl
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moemoe$

Re: Not happy with Petra, Wifi randomly disconnects

Post by moemoe$ »

Hey guys,
Im a newbie to Linux Distros and Linux Mint "Petra" is my first installed distro
So far I love it, runs super smooth and looks spectacular!

Unlike the original post however i cannot find wireless connections around me. I dont mind being plugged into a wire but i will need some mobile flexiblity considering i am using this on a laptop. ( A macbook pro to be exact ~2010?)

Any ways here is my system info, if you can guide me in a direction that wil help configure wireless connections i would be eternally greatful.

best,

Moises
moemoe$

Re: Not happy with Petra, Wifi randomly disconnects

Post by moemoe$ »

Found it!

Went it Driver Manager, and there was my broadcomm drive to be used! Just applied the changes and voila!
Easy peasy, thank you Petra!
bman7777

Re: Not happy with Petra, Wifi randomly disconnects

Post by bman7777 »

there was my broadcomm drive to be used!
I'm not sure what you mean by this... Did the driver need to be updated? Was it not setup?

I am also getting the random disconnect issue. Please note: I had this occur on Olivia and Petra.
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karlchen
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Re: Not happy with Petra, Wifi randomly disconnects

Post by karlchen »

Hello, bman7777.

When Mint has been freshly installed and your machine has got a Broadcom wifi adapter, Mint will load and use an open-source driver to support the Broadcom adapter.
Frequently the open-source driver will not support the specific Broadcom adapter perfectly. If you launch the Driver Manager it will find out whether a proprietary Broadcom driver (not open-source) is available which may support the wifi adapter more perfectly.
moemoe$ accepted this proprietary Broadcom driver that Driver Manager offered. Driver Manager installed it thus replacing the open-source driver.

Kind regards,
Karl
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420trvlr

Re: Not happy with Petra, Wifi randomly disconnects

Post by 420trvlr »

I am also having problems with Wifi. I had it when I installed Petra, and used it for my initial updates, but now after a re-boot I'm not showing it at all. I tried Driver Manager, and all I got was: "No proprietary drivers are in use."
Thanks in advance for any help that anyone can give me.

As mine is also a laptop, I also need mobility. The following is a list of my system spec's.:

System: Host: K52F Kernel: 3.11.0-12-generic x86_64 (64 bit, gcc: 4.8.1)
Desktop: KDE 4.11.2 (Qt 4.8.4) Distro: Linux Mint 16 Petra

Machine: Mobo: ASUSTeK model: K52F version: 1.0 Bios: American Megatrends version: K52F.215 date: 03/09/2011

CPU: Dual core Intel Pentium CPU P6200 (-MCP-) cache: 3072 KB flags: (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 ssse3) bmips: 8511.98
Clock Speeds: 1: 933.00 MHz 2: 933.00 MHz

Graphics: Card: Intel Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller bus-ID: 00:02.0
X.Org: 1.14.3 drivers: intel (unloaded: fbdev,vesa) Resolution: 1366x768@60.0hz, 1366x768@59.8hz
GLX Renderer: Mesa DRI Intel Ironlake Mobile GLX Version: 2.1 Mesa 9.2.1 Direct Rendering: Yes

Audio: Card: Intel 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset High Definition Audio driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 00:1b.0
Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture ver: k3.11.0-12-generic
Network: Card-1: JMicron JMC250 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller
driver: jme ver: 1.0.8 ports: a100 a000 bus-ID: 04:00.5
IF: eth0 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: f4:6d:04:b7:ca:dc
Card-2: Qualcomm Atheros AR9285 Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express) driver: ath9k bus-ID: 02:00.0
IF: wlan0 state: down mac: e0:b9:a5:1b:01:50

Drives: HDD Total Size: 500.1GB (1.0% used) 1: id: /dev/sda model: ST95005620AS size: 500.1GB

Partition: ID: / size: 359G used: 4.9G (2%) fs: ext4 ID: swap-1 size: 8.36GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap

RAID: No RAID devices detected - /proc/mdstat and md_mod kernel raid module present

Sensors: System Temperatures: cpu: 48.0C mobo: N/A
Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: N/A

Info: Processes: 172 Uptime: 40 min Memory: 886.8/7767.9MB Runlevel: 2 Gcc sys: 4.8.1 Client: Shell inxi: 1.8.4
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karlchen
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Re: Not happy with Petra, Wifi randomly disconnects

Post by karlchen »

Hi, 420trvlr.
Card-2: Qualcomm Atheros AR9285 Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express) driver: ath9k bus-ID: 02:00.0
IF: wlan0 state: down mac: (camouflaged)
This wifi adapter, Qualcomm Atheros AR9285, does not need any proprietary driver. It works fine in my Zotac machine with the ath9k driver that your machine has loaded as well.
So in fact the wifi adapter should be functional with respect to both hardware and software.
But maybe you have pressed the magic <FN> keyboard shortcut which disables / enables the wifi adapter?

Kind regards,
Karl
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bobafetthotmail

Re: Not happy with Petra, Wifi randomly disconnects

Post by bobafetthotmail »

kclymer wrote: It switches off randomly all the time. By all the time I mean at least once every hour. When it switches off, then I can't get it to switch on unless i hit the wifi button and restart.
I had similar issues with my ethernet on Mint 15, solved it with a manual kernel update once I found a bug report saying it was fixed by kernel 3.11.

Once you figure out what card you have, you can look up if there are bug reports.
420trvlr

Re: Not happy with Petra, Wifi randomly disconnects

Post by 420trvlr »

Thank you for the response, but I did try the <FN>wifi button, just in case, but I got nothing.

I had it installed (Petra) before, but had other issues which caused me to have to wipe the drive and start over. This time, I am having issues with it. Such a pain to wipe and re-install, I usually leave that as a last resort, but......
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Re: Not happy with Petra, Wifi randomly disconnects

Post by MtnDewManiac »

kclymer wrote:Well I just want to say thanks to the developers who decided we all had to switch from Olivia to Petra right away.
You must be hearing voices, because the Mint developers never started that we had to do any such thing. A friend of mine is also schizophrenic. When she takes her Geodon (ziprasidone) REGULARLY, she doesn't hear voices or think she is being given instructions that have no basis in reality. You should ask your doctor to switch you from your current med to it for a 21 day trial period. It helped her, it may will do the same for you. It has also helped with bipolar maintenance (read your other thread). Wishing you the best of luck, so many times, people with genuine mental issues, when not properly treated, are perceived to be whiny and immature jerks, and that's just not right.
kclymer wrote:Of course the instructions for
an in place update stunk and were out of date
They say it's NOT RECOMMENDED and that doing so can leave you with a system that has issues up to and including not being able to boot. So, yes, they're pretty much up to date.

Regards,
MDM

God I knew this would happen too. *facepalm* FAIL![/quote]
Mint 18 Xfce 4.12.

If guns kill people, then pencils misspell words, cars make people drive drunk, and spoons made Rosie O'Donnell fat.
hbozon

Re: Not happy with Petra, Wifi randomly disconnects

Post by hbozon »

Er... HELP!!!
I'm new to linux and this is my first distro, and im lovin it apart this anoying issue with the wifi. it takes forever to connect and then it randomly disconnect. i've been googling for a week now but no solution :mrgreen: .
This is my spec:

inxi -Fx

System: Host: Steel Kernel: 3.11.0-12-generic x86_64 (64 bit, gcc: 4.8.1) Desktop: Gnome Distro: Linux Mint 16 Petra
Machine: Mobo: ASUSTeK model: N61Jv version: 1.0 Bios: American Megatrends version: 224 date: 01/26/2011
CPU: Dual core Intel Core i3 CPU M 350 (-HT-MCP-) cache: 3072 KB
Clock Speeds: 1: 933.00 MHz 2: 933.00 MHz 3: 933.00 MHz 4: 933.00 MHz
Graphics: Card-1: Intel Core Processor Integrated Graphics Controller bus-ID: 00:02.0
Card-2: NVIDIA GT216M [GeForce GT 325M] bus-ID: 01:00.0
X.Org: 1.14.5 drivers: intel (unloaded: fbdev,vesa) Resolution: 1366x768@60.0hz
GLX Renderer: Mesa DRI Intel Ironlake Mobile GLX Version: 2.1 Mesa 10.2.0-devel Direct Rendering: Yes
Audio: Card: Intel 5 Series/3400 Series Chipset High Definition Audio driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 00:1b.0
Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture ver: k3.11.0-12-generic
Network: Card-1: Qualcomm Atheros AR8131 Gigabit Ethernet driver: atl1c ver: 1.0.1.1-NAPI port: 7000 bus-ID: 08:00.0
IF: eth0 state: up speed: 100 Mbps duplex: full mac:
Card-2: Qualcomm Atheros AR9285 Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express) driver: ath9k bus-ID: 03:00.0
IF: wlan0 state: up mac:
Drives: HDD Total Size: 500.1GB (2.7% used) 1: id: /dev/sda model: WDC_WD5000BPKT size: 500.1GB
Partition: ID: / size: 90G used: 13G (15%) fs: ext4 ID: swap-1 size: 4.07GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap
RAID: No RAID devices detected - /proc/mdstat and md_mod kernel raid module present
Sensors: System Temperatures: cpu: 62.0C mobo: N/A
Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: N/A
Info: Processes: 170 Uptime: 18 min Memory: 609.9/3745.1MB Runlevel: 2 Gcc sys: 4.8.1 Client: Shell inxi: 1.8.4

And

rfkill list

0: phy0: Wireless LAN
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: no
psuboy

Re: Not happy with Petra, Wifi randomly disconnects

Post by psuboy »

I had the same issue with my Qualcomm Atheros wifi card. Was slow, disconnected frequently, and often could not get it connected despite showing that it was connected. It would often ask me to log in repeatedly.
I believe that this is now solved. I found that most of the solutions posted were incomplete. Here is what solved my issues:

I added the following file /etc/modprobe.d/ath9k.conf with options ath9k nohwcrypt=1 listed in the file.
I set the owner and group as root. (originally I created the file in my home directory and then moved it. ) Not sure if the owner was an issue or not.
Here is a command that I found that will create the file for you. This is step one.

echo "options ath9k nohwcrypt=1" | sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/ath9k.conf

That did not solve my problem. Step two was to run these commands to change the kernel.

sudo modprobe -rfv ath9k

sudo modprobe -v ath9k

In addition at some point I disabled my IPV6. I have not tried turning this back on. Yet. But my hunch is it will be fine with it added.

I hope this helps others.

Good luck,
Pete
moomoo

Re: Not happy with Petra, Wifi randomly disconnects

Post by moomoo »

This is so easy it'll make you laugh!! USB your net connection with your mobile phone (cell phone for the yanks :roll: ) Go to Driver Manager and click 'bcmwl-kernel-source' then click go. Quiet down, wait and get connected wireless. :D
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