Wifi disabled after attempting to use Bluetooth

[Disintegrrr]

I recently installed linuxmint 17.1 cinnamon 64-bit. At first, the internet worked intermittently, disconnecting every few mins for about a minute or two at a time. Installing WICD and disabling the network manager solved a similar problem for someone else. So I installed WICD, but lost track of time and had to run to work without disabling the network manager permanently. When I came back, the internet would stay connected for longer periods of time (with both WICD and the original network manager running simultaneously), but would still disconnect after 10ish mins of use (though I could usually reconnect soon after, using WICD. Before installing WICD, trying to manually reconnect never worked).

I tried to use the pre-installed bluetooth software to send some pics to my pc from my phone the next day. I was able to pair the two devices, but my pc never showed any indication of trying to receive anything (I would get 'send failed' error messages on my phone every time I tried). After that, internet connection ceased altogether. I turned off bluetooth, even reset the settings so that it would no longer have any record of my phone. Nonetheless, my computer no longer even recognizes any wireless networks (whereas it used to pick up the whole neighborhood). Scanning, both on WICD and the network manager, yields nothing.

When I click on "Connect to Hidden Wi-Fi Network...", there is a drop down menu that allows me to select my network. I don't know if this is information that's been saved since it once worked, but when I select it and click "connect", it says that it is "Configuring Wi-Fi network connection 'networkx'..." for a good half a minute before stopping.

So really there might be 2 problems:
1. Bluetooth interference with original wifi connectivity
2. Original wifi connectivity not very good in the first place

I'm hoping that solving the first problem will allow me to try more forum/article solutions in order to solve the second problem. As a noob, I wasn't sure how to break the information down to be as helpful as possible, but I thought too much info is better than not enough (especially if these problems turn out to be interdependent). Any and all help is much appreciated!

A little bit about my setup:

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 ~ $ lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 4th Gen Core Processor DRAM Controller (rev 06)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v3/4th Gen Core Processor PCI Express x16 Controller (rev 06)
00:14.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 8 Series/C220 Series Chipset Family USB xHCI (rev 05)
00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation 8 Series/C220 Series Chipset Family MEI Controller #1 (rev 04)
00:1a.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 8 Series/C220 Series Chipset Family USB EHCI #2 (rev 05)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 8 Series/C220 Series Chipset High Definition Audio Controller (rev 05)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 8 Series/C220 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port #1 (rev d5)
00:1c.5 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 8 Series/C220 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port #6 (rev d5)
00:1c.7 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 8 Series/C220 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port #8 (rev d5)
00:1d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 8 Series/C220 Series Chipset Family USB EHCI #1 (rev 05)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation B85 Express LPC Controller (rev 05)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 8 Series/C220 Series Chipset Family 6-port SATA Controller 1 [AHCI mode] (rev 05)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 8 Series/C220 Series Chipset Family SMBus Controller (rev 05)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation Device 1286 (rev a1)
01:00.1 Audio device: NVIDIA Corporation Device 0e0f (rev a1)
03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 09)
04:00.0 Network controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8821AE 802.11ac PCIe Wireless Network Adapter


~$ sudo /usr/lib/linuxmint/mintWifi/mintWifi.py
-------------------------
* I. scanning WIFI PCI devices...
  -- Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8821AE 802.11ac PCIe Wireless Network Adapter
      ==> PCI ID = 10ec:8821
-------------------------
* II. querying ndiswrapper...
-------------------------
* III. querying iwconfig...
eth0      no wireless extensions.

lo        no wireless extensions.

wlan0     IEEE 802.11abgn  ESSID:"Network'x'"  
          Mode:Managed  Access Point: Not-Associated   Tx-Power=20 dBm   
          Retry  long limit:7   RTS thr=2347 B   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:off
          Power Management:off
          
-------------------------
* IV. querying ifconfig...
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 44:8a:5b:c6:fe:0d  
          UP BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback  
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:65536  Metric:1
          RX packets:1657 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:1657 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:138065 (138.0 KB)  TX bytes:138065 (138.0 KB)

wlan0     Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 9c:ad:97:bc:d9:bf  
          UP BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)

-------------------------
* V. querying DHCP...
-------------------------
* VI. querying nslookup google.com...
;; connection timed out; no servers could be reached 

[JeremyB]

What kernel are you using

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uname -a

and what driver is the wifi using

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lspci -nnk | grep -iA2 net

[Disintegrrr]

I'm currently on 3.13. I won't be able to get my hands on an ethernet cable for a few days, but I was hoping that getting partial connectivity back might give me a chance to upgrade to 3.16 or 3.18 earlier.

As for the driver,

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~ $ lspci -nnk | grep -iA2 net
03:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller [10ec:8168] (rev 09)
	Subsystem: Lenovo Device [17aa:366d]
	Kernel driver in use: r8169
04:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8821AE 802.11ac PCIe Wireless Network Adapter [10ec:8821]
	Subsystem: Lenovo Device [17aa:a803]
	Kernel driver in use: rtl8821ae

What's your thoughts on the driver?

[Disintegrrr]

Should I follow your directions here once I get the chance?
http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.p ... 9#p1001246

[JeremyB]

Should I follow your directions here once I get the chance?
http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.p ... 9#p1001246

No, that is something different intended to fix a wired connection

[JeremyB]

This might be caused by trying to run WICD and Network Manager at the same time, the easier fix would likely be to uninstall WICD and reboot

If that gets wifi back, there are a couple options

If you want to try something that might get the bluetooth to work

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sudo apt-get install build-essential linux-headers-generic git

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git clone https://github.com/lwfinger/rtlwifi_new.git

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cd rtlwifi_new

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make

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sudo make install

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cd ~

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wget https://github.com/lwfinger/rtl8723au_bt/archive/troy.zip

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unzip troy.zip

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cd rtl8723au_bt-troy

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make

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sudo make install

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echo "blacklist btusb" | sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/btusb.conf

Reboot

However, if you don't care about bluetooth

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sudo apt-get install build-essential linux-headers-generic

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wget -N -t 5 -T 10 https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/projects/backports/stable/v3.18.1/backports-3.18.1-1.tar.xz

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tar -xf backports-3.18.1-1.tar.xz

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cd ~/backports-3.18.1-1

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make defconfig-rtlwifi

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make

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sudo make install

Reboot

Either method will work only with the kernel version you install with

[Disintegrrr]

Still no change after I uninstalled WICD and rebooted. I'm hoping to get my hands on an ethernet cable tomorrow. I'll report back once I update the kernel and follow your instructions to get bluetooth working.

Thanks for your interest JeremyB!

[Disintegrrr]

Update:
I updated the kernel (though that crashed my pc, so had to update it to a different version. Now running 3.16.0-28). Uninstalled WICD, followed your first set of instructions for bluetooth and rebooted. Bluetooth applet disappeared and when I open it from the menu bar, all options are blacked out. Bluetooth isn't that important to me, I'd rarely use it if it worked and there's plenty of other ways to get data from my phone to pc without bluetooth. But I thought that was worth mentioning.

There has been 2 times now that the wifi has displayed the neighbourhood's (including mine) wifi addresses, but both times only lasted for a few seconds at most. In the "Wi-Fi" tab of the networking program, to the left of the "On/Off" switch, it now says "Unavailable - 802.1x supplicant failed". What next?

I tried to read up on this a bit, but so much of the foreign-to-me terminology is defined using more foreign-to-me terminology, which makes it a bit difficult to get a good grasp of the situation. I'll continue reading, but in the meantime, thanks for all your help.