Wifi is disabled by hardware switch

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Wifi disabled by hardware switch after suspend

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Wifi disabled by hardware switch after suspend

Post by crownmint » Thu Jul 07, 2016 12:33 am

I know this seems to be a common problem but I’ve tried a bunch of solutions and none of them seem to work. Here’s a rundown of the situation so far:
Whenever I suspend or close the lid of my laptop I get disconnected from wifi. If click on the little connections thingy in the bottom right it has a greyed out thing saying ‘wifi is disabled by hardware switch’.
I was originally dual booting windows 10 and ubuntu and had this problem, after a while trying to solve it I thought I would try switching to mint but I am still having the same problem.
So at the moment I am dual booting windows 10 and linux mint.

(This got a lot longer than it was originally going to be but I figured I might as well include everything).

Here’s what I have tried to fix it so far (none of these have really worked):
First I’ve tried f1-f12, fn+f1-f12 etc and they have no effect except that f12 puts a soft block on the wifi. It does not change the hard block on the wifi.

Next I tried rfkill list which gives the following:

1: phy0: Wireless LAN Soft blocked: no Hard blocked: yes 

Something interesting: before I close the lid or suspend it lists my bluetooth connection as well. I don’t really need bluetooth but I thought it was strange that it wouldn’t list it anymore.
Doing rfkill unblock wlan only affects a soft block on the wifi, it does not affect the hardware block.

Next I added a file to /etc/pm/ called config with the following content:

Got this idea from here.
iwlwifi is my wifi driver name.
This didn’t help. I tried changing the permissions of it to executable and that didn’t help (I didn’t really think it needed it but I thought I would give it a shot).

My next possible solution was to make a file in /etc/pm/sleep.d/ called wakenet.sh with the following content:

#!/bin/bash case "$1" in thaw|resume) nmcli nm sleep false ;; *) ;; esac exit $? 

and changed permissions to executable.
Got this idea from here and here.
This didn’t work so I tried running some of the commands in the terminal. When I ran nmcli nm sleep false I get the following error:

 Error: Object 'nm' is unknown, try 'nmcli help'. 

I had a look at the documentation for nmcli and tried a few of the commands, the only interesting thing I could find was that when I ran nmcli general permissions I got the following:

PERMISSION VALUE org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.sleep-wake no 

I don’t know if that is particularly important but I thought some of the words seemed sorta similar to what I was looking for.
I think nmcli must have been updated or something since the solutions in the links were posted because it seems that those commands are no longer supported.

Next I tried service network-manager restart . After having done this, when I click on the connections thingy instead of saying ‘wifi is disabled by hardware switch’ it just says ‘wifi is disabled’. I can then click on ‘Enable wifi’ but when I do so and run rfkill list I still get the same message (wifi is hard blocked).

The last thing I tried was suggested here. When I look at /sys/class/rfkill/rfkill1/hard, the result is 1. Then I tried

sudo echo 0 > /sys/class/rfkill/rfkill0/hard 

but it says ‘permission denied’. I tried adding write permissions but I still get permission denied.

If you have managed to read through all this thanks heaps, I’ve been trying to solve this for almost a year and haven’t made a dent so if you have any suggestions please let me know.

Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.

Источник

How do I fix a «Wireless is disabled by hardware switch» error?

You can assume it is a hardware notice: some notebooks have a slider at the left of right of the casing. And some have a keyboard combo (Fn + F3 on my machine). and do not forget BIOS: wifi might be disabled there.

On an HP Envy laptop if you shutdown with wifi disabled by the hardware switch (Fn F12), then it will be disabled when you boot and network manager will give up trying after 60 seconds, and on each subsequent reboot, whether or not you re-enabled wireless while you were up or did a sudo service network-manager restart .

6 Answers 6

Same happened to me, simply resolved with:

rfkill list all showed some devices on soft block.

This is why Linux fails to hit a bigger audience. stupidity like this. I run dual boot. In Ubuntu I was able to accidentally disable my wireless hardware completely. it wouldn’t even reenable in windows — so I changed something below the OS abstraction. Seriously? I event spent $30 on a USB wireless trying to fix this. Linux, I loath you but love you too. Thank you @Luca for this solution to my problem. Give me your address and I’ll send you this Micro USB Wireless device.

I had the same problem just after clicking «disable wireless» because a network kept trying to reconnect that required authentication (kept popping up and I was trying to work). Then wireless also stopped working in windows and not until I did rfkill unblock all AND restarted was the Enable Wireless option available again

No. Issue is not Ubuntu or driver, but we are the reason, see a simple solution here: unix.stackexchange.com/a/507631/189124

There are two types of radio kill switches: ‘hard’ (or physical) and ‘soft’ (software). The rfkill list command will tell you whether either (or both) of these are set for any connected radio devices.

If your wireless card shows «Hard blocked: yes», then a physical switch on your laptop case is turned off. Turn it on.

If your card shows «Soft blocked: yes», then you can turn it back on by running rfkill unblock where is replaced by the number from the rfkill list command.

There is a bug in network-manager, where if you disabled wifi by right-clicking on the applet and un-checking «Enable Wireless», then the menu option becomes grayed out and can no longer be re-enabled. This persists after rebooting. It looks like NM is soft-blocking the wireless card when you disable it (which is a reasonable thing to do), but then graying out the menu item because it is soft-blocked (which is not a reasonable thing to do).

Источник

Wifi disabled due to hardware switch. Not re enabling. What should i do ?

I’m using Ubuntu 11.10 on Dell Inspiron mini 1018. I disabled the wireless network and it does not enable again. It reports that wireless is disabled by hardware switch . Pressing the hardware switch and any combinations on the keyboard has no response. Neither does sudo rfkill unblock all have any effect. Rfkill list gives the following results:

0: hci0 bluetooth . 1: dell-wifi:wireless lan soft blocked yes hard blocked yes 2: dell bluetooth . 3: phy0; wireless lan soft blockes no hard blocked ye 

ieee 802.11bgn essid off/any mode:managed access point:not associated tx-power=off retry long limit:7 rts thr=2347 b fragment thr:off power management:on 

10 Answers 10

ugh. that sounds like a BIOS bug. You can try updating your firmware in hopes that they might have fixed it for Linux, or, if you still have Windows installed, boot into it, and from there toggle the switches until the Wifi comes back. Happened to me once with an Acer laptop where I was playing with rfkill and the only way I could «unflip» that bit was by booting into Windows.

It’s really ACPI, but trying to explain that to most people falls flat so I just combine the two and say «BIOS». ACPI owns all the hotkey controls, what rfkill uses (usually, or it’s SMI) and managing the state of all these devices. As soon as the OP disabled the device, it called through ACPI. There are no assurances, that a the «turn off» function for a device is just as effective as the «turn on» function. The fwts suite is good at profiling your firmware and showing you exactly how broken it is which can assist vendors in finding the root cause.

@ppetraki: So what can you do if the BIOS is already latest version, and you don’t have Windows? I got an Acer Travelmate, and I remember this Windows trick working, but got no Win anymore. 🙁

@Christoph: unfortunately, you go install windows. Having an external USB HDD around is good for this. It’s obnoxious I know but since the vendor hasn’t bothered to spec how it works you’re left waiting for someone to reverse engineer it. You could try installing the latest kernel, new support might have been added.

@ppetraki: actually, in the meantime I managed to solve my problem (without windows): askubuntu.com/questions/166328/…

Try sudo ifconfig wlan0 down , then sudo ifconfig wlan0 up (if necessary). If that doesn’t work, try killing the session or even rebooting.

Hope that works, usually does the trick for me in those sticky wifi situations (and only really useful command I’ve found in wifi troubleshooting documentation that isn’t related to driver configuration).

Just tried the tip from another forum. I got an acer one ZG5 running Ubuntu 11.04. Had the wirelss disabled by hardware switch showing in the wireless drop-down. Tried booting Ubuntu from USB and still had same problem. Simply had to remove battery and put back in. Don’t know why it works but it did for me and others quoted.

Symptoms: This problem started to occur after I removed the battery from my computer (Toshiba laptop) running Ubuntu 11.10 and reinserted it. Suddenly I noticed the messages «device not ready» and «wireless is disabled by hardware switch».

Solution: To solve the problem simply:

In this case the solution is in the cause of the problem! Try if this works for you!

If you dual boot Windows and Ubuntu, then your Windows installation may have changed some settings. Just boot into Windows, re-enable wireless there, then the wireless should be working fine in Ubuntu

this was also troubling me a lot on a Lenovo G570.

• Update the BIOS
• Take out the battery and place it in again
• Boot into pre-installed Windows 7
• Enable the wifi functionality:
  • get the dialogue up by Fn+F5
  • verify that networks are there

  lspci -nnk | grep -i net -A2 01:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Qualcomm Atheros AR8152 v2.0 Fast Ethernet [1969:2062] (rev c1) Subsystem: Lenovo Device [17aa:3979] Kernel driver in use: atl1c 02:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4313 802.11b/g/n Wireless LAN Controller [14e4:4727] (rev 01) Subsystem: Broadcom Corporation Device [14e4:051b] Kernel driver in use: bcma-pci-bridge lsmod | egrep 'ssb|wl|b43|b44|ndis|bcma|brcm|brcmsmac|broad|brm' brcmsmac 550698 0 cordic 12574 1 brcmsmac brcmutil 14755 1 brcmsmac bcma 41051 1 brcmsmac mac80211 606457 1 brcmsmac cfg80211 510937 2 brcmsmac,mac80211 

  Thanks to all who posted their hints and suggestions above!!

  Источник

  How to activate WiFi when it says «disabled by hardware switch»?

  I have VAIO VPCEA23EN with Ubuntu 12.04 32 Bit. Bluetooth is working but not WiFi.
  It says «disabled by hardware switch» even when it’s enabled.

  You tried toggling the wifi switch? Also did you check to see if wifi is enabled in bios? Also, did you check System Settings > Additional Drivers?

  if you want help, you need to tell us what kind of wireless card you have, not what kind of computer you have.

  3 Answers 3

  Open the terminal. the shortcut is:

  If it did not work from the beginning.Try typing it again like 2 or 3 times and then see

  Sometimes the hard switch won’t work. So this command works like a hard switch and helps enabling the Wifi.

  Thanks for Down-voting my solution. I guess if you have a better solution you can Lighten us with it 🙂

  I have seen similar behaviour with my Dell E5430. If the machine is booted with the hardware switch in the off position, then toggling it does nothing, and the wireless interface cannot be activated until the machine is rebooted with the switch in the ‘on’ position.

  Once this is done — the hard switch works as expected — powering the wireless card up and down.

  I have a similar problem with my asus x550c notebook none of the above answers helped but I have found that if I boot up and log in then close the lid and then open the lid again when I log in again the wi fi will be working hope this helps other users

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