[Solved] Mint 17 Keeps Dropping Network Connection

[White Phoenix]

I have to make this quick before the connection is dropped again. Mint 17 keeps dropping the Wi-Fi connection. Mint 13 never did that. When you click on the tray icon there is no option to repair the connection or reconnect.

The only option I have is to reboot. This is annoying since it happens frequently and I am trying to re-install all of my programs and settings. Either I get this done today, or I will have to go back to using 13 and wait for 18 and hope the problems in 17 are fixed then.

Linux Mint 17 Kernal Linux 3.13.0-24-generic MATE 1.8.0 (Had to reboot twice just to add this info.)

[PatH57]

Hi,

check this especially on how to provide more info on your card and post back the results here.

http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=175809

[White Phoenix]

eth0 no wireless extensions.

lo no wireless extensions.

wlan0 IEEE 802.11bgn ESSID: "Lockwood"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.417 GHz Access Point: 94:44:52:a0:33:9a
Bit Rate=1 Mb/s Tx-Power=20 dBm
Retry long limit:7 RTS thr=2347 B Fragment thr:off
Power Management:off
Link Quality=70/70 Signal level=-38 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:6 Missed beacon:0

[PatH57]

ok,

we will get everything in one go and once I checked the log I will come back to you.
s

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udo wget -N -t 5 -T 10 http://dl.dropbox.com/u/57264241/wireless_script && \chmod +x wireless_script && \./wireless_script

It will download a script and create a file named wireless-info.txt or wireless-info.tar.gz in your home folder with wireless information so we can see the condition of your wireless at the time. The MAC address, WPA key and WEP key are removed for your security. Paste contents of the wireless-info.txt or wireless-info.tar.gz file at http://pastebin.ubuntu.com or alternatively http://pastebin.com/ then post the link here in your question.

[White Phoenix]

Actually, it was simply called “wireless_script”.
http://pastebin.ubuntu.com/8073635/

>sigh< Just a minute. Gotta restart the connection again. At least now I don’t need to reboot. Trying to finish restoring my documents and media library. Now I just disable/enable the Wi-Fi. Went down right after I got the address for the link.

Nuts, should have done the test then.

[PatH57]

my bad copy paste missed the s

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sudo wget -N -t 5 -T 10 http://dl.dropbox.com/u/57264241/wireless_script && \chmod +x wireless_script && \./wireless_script

the result should look like this

Results archived in "/home/patrick/wireless-info.tar.gz", as they exceed the 19.5 kB size limit for ".txt" files on the Ubuntu Forums.

[White Phoenix]

I figured out the ‘s’. This is the beginning of the file wireless_script:

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#!/bin/bash
#
# Copyright (c) 2012
#
# Authors: Wild Man, Krytarik
# Helpers: chili555
#
# This script gathers the infos necessary for troubleshooting a wireless
# connection and saves them in a text file, wrapping it in an archive if it
# exceeds the size limit of 19.5 kB for ".txt" files on the Ubuntu Forums.

Is that the file you wanted?

[PatH57]

no the result, it runs a script and saves the result in the directory where you run it (for most people it will be in home as it is the default folder when opening terminal)

[White Phoenix]

Hm. Here are the last few lines in the terminal:

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100%==================/===========>] 7,661  --.-K/s       in 0s
Last-modified header missing -- time-stamps turned off.
2014-08-17 16:18:32 (802 MB/s) - ‘wireless_script’ saved [7661/7661]

chmod: changing permissions of ‘wireless_script’: Operation not permitted

[PatH57]

are you running it in your home directory? else you may not have write access?
try

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su

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sudo wget -N -t 5 -T 10 http://dl.dropbox.com/u/57264241/wireless_script && \chmod +x wireless_script && \./wireless_script

[White Phoenix]

Permissions say: ---
in the properties box of /home/whitephoenix/. Should they be read and write instead? Or the actual /home/ directory?

[PatH57]

in your home directory run

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ls -l

to check the file permission.
mine is

-rwxr-xr-x 1 patrick patrick 7661 Aug 17 22:44 wireless_script

[White Phoenix]

Did you mean the file’s permission? I did the command and the file came up -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 7661 Aug 17 17:27 wireless_script

I have been having to unlock folders all day long since Backup will restore them as belonging to root. I checked the file permissions on the file, but didn’t think it mattered. It’s owner and group is root. I changed it so the owner and group is whitephoenix and executable: -rwxr-xr-x 1 whitephoenix whitephoenix

I know this is off-topic, but is there a file manager that will allow me to change the permissions in batches? Clicking on “Apply Permissions to Enclosed Files” does nothing.

[White Phoenix]

I figured it out and here is what you wanted: http://pastebin.ubuntu.com/8075899/

I basically just entered “sudo” followed by everything after the last pair of ampersands and the backslash.

[PatH57]

you got me confused when you said you did add the missing s on sudo.
you don't have to manually type the commands I give you just highlight them, copy and right click in terminal to paste them so no mistakes.

[PatH57]

ok,

I took a look at your report.
Couple of things to sort out and explain.
It did work on Mint13 because older drivers were used that had a lot of security "holes" therefor you may think all was fine but in fact I could have hacked your wifi in about 2 or 3 hours real easy. (it's my job I am a consultant for networks and high performance computing)
So for reference read this
http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=175809.

1) you are using wpa tkip so your card uses a reduced power emission and can't get more then 54Mbps (your card is capable of a lot more)
2) your card is not set for the correct region you are in it says 00 and you should have your country specified.
3) you live in a area where I can see at least 19 access points and 6 of them use channel 1 (I suggest switching yours to channel 3 or 4 as it is not used so you will have a much better signal)
Channel occupancy:

6 WLAPs on Frequency:2.412 GHz (Channel 1)
2 WLAPs on Frequency:2.417 GHz (Channel 2)
7 WLAPs on Frequency:2.437 GHz (Channel 6)
4 WLAPs on Frequency:2.462 GHz (Channel 11)

So before going down the road of "tweaking" drivers please make sure you corrected all of the settings I suggested. (it's all in your router and use an ethernet connection when you do the changes)

[White Phoenix]

Yes, I remember reading somewhere that the channel should be checked for conflicts especially if you have a lot of neighbors all using the same channel(s). I didn’t really think there was a driver problem, just something wrong with the settings. I used to have no problem under Windows XP, but since Windows 7 came out everyone wants to do things in a more indirect manner.

I’m not worried about speed. When I first was on the Internet—well networking—I used a 300 baud modem. However, getting the most out of what I pay for is important. No matter how fast it is though, if the signal keeps getting dropped it doesn’t do any good.

Looks like I will need to step up to a higher security level, change the region and change the channel to begin with.

Oh yeah, I saw a hidden menu item for Network that says “manage your network connections”. I had it appear on the menu and clicked on it. Now I have two icons in the notifications area. Too bad it wasn’t what I hoped and had been something to change the settings. You know, manage the network connection.

[PatH57]

remember those days of modem connection (I was the first technical trainer for AOL in Europe, good old days)

Anyway do all the required changes on the router and you should be ok.

[White Phoenix]

I completely forgot to tell you that I actually have two routers. One is a Belkin and the other is a Hawking ADSL modem and router combined. I have no access to its router configuration. I cannot find any country setting for the Belkin. The closest it comes to is the setting for the language and time zone. There also wasn’t a setting to enable WMM.

Would there be a problem using the router as the access point?

I also selected to have the SSID not be broadcasted. It only said it hid the SSID to prevent surveys, not that it would disappear from the list of available networks. Well, I found how to set for that and it starts up okay now.

In order to gain access to my Belkin router settings I wound up having to uninstall 17 and re-install 13. There’s more to the problem than that, but ultimately that is what I needed to do. So now I’m starting over, but this time even though the signal hasn’t been dropped there are times when I still have no access to the Internet. I am not sure if it is really related to the Wi-Fi though, since it seems to happen after deleting programs I want to replace with others. Also another problem that may not be related is that some packages seem to have disappeared from Software Manager. I can’t find BleachBit now for example. Also after unistalling Thunderbird there are now no email clients listed. I know there were several. And there are only five educational programs showing up.

The only other problem is that now my 3DS cannot access the Wi-Fi because Nintendo didn’t make it so it can access networks that use higher security than WEP. Considering that the trend is to move to the more secure and faster WPA Nintendo should fix that. I have considered adding the 3DS to the client list.

[PatH57]

My nephew has a 3DS and never had a problem connecting to my WPA2 network.
http://www.reddit.com/r/3DS/comments/1h ... wpa2_wifi/

ok so now that you are set on Mint 13 we will run the script and see what coming from it.

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sudo wget -N -t 5 -T 10 https://www.dropbox.com/s/0h4ef93hjiz0dgy/wireless_script_mod && \chmod +x wireless_script_mod && \./wireless_script_mod

this is mine as an example (I'm at a friends upgrading his router to wpa2 and changing channel, with wpa I only have 54Mbps and it's normal)
http://pastebin.com/NREARdXU