Can see Wifi but cant connect

[THEFALLGUY]

Hi

Just setting up my laptop, got everything sorted except the wifi.

I can see my homehub in the list of wireless networks when clicking on the network bit at the bottom right of the desktop so i assume the card is working fine but I cant get it to connect.

I can bring up the edit network module to configure it but the settings are bewildering am i missing something? shouldnt it just be right click on network, fill in password and connect?

all help greatfully recieved

[james147]

What wireless chip set so you have (lspci or lsusb should tell you)? What type of encryption is your network setup using?

[vinnywright]

well yes it should be .........but

lets have a look at whats working right now ............post the outputs of these commands.

lspci

will show us your hardware

ifconfig

will show what network interface is up

iwconfig

will show wirless info

sudo iwlist scan

hear just the part pertaning to YOUR wirless network (it will list all in range)

VINNY

[THEFALLGUY]

lspci

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 82855PM Processor to I/O Controller (rev 03)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82855PM Processor to AGP Controller (rev 03)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 01)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 01)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 01)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-M) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 01)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev 81)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801DBM (ICH4-M) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 01)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801DBM (ICH4-M) IDE Controller (rev 01)
00:1f.5 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) AC'97 Audio Controller (rev 01)
00:1f.6 Modem: Intel Corporation 82801DB/DBL/DBM (ICH4/ICH4-L/ICH4-M) AC'97 Modem Controller (rev 01)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV31 [Quadro FX Go700] (rev a1)
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5705M Gigabit Ethernet (rev 01)
02:01.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI7510 PC card Cardbus Controller (rev 01)
02:01.1 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI7510,7610 PC card Cardbus Controller (rev 01)
02:01.2 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Texas Instruments PCI7410,7510,7610 OHCI-Lynx Controller
02:01.3 System peripheral: Texas Instruments PCI7410,7510,7610 PCI Firmware Loading Function
02:03.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless LAN 2100 3B Mini PCI Adapter (rev 04)


ifconfig


eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:0b:db:95:a7:6b
inet addr:192.168.1.71 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::20b:dbff:fe95:a76b/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:658 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:756 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:477731 (477.7 KB) TX bytes:183802 (183.8 KB)
Interrupt:11

eth1 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:04:23:57:a2:ae
UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:46 errors:45 dropped:45 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:69 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:6210 (6.2 KB) TX bytes:10263 (10.2 KB)
Interrupt:5 Base address:0xc000 Memory:fafee000-fafeefff

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:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:216 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:216 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:17168 (17.1 KB) TX bytes:17168 (17.1 KB)


iwconfig

lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

eth1 unassociated ESSIDff/any Nickname:"ipw2100"
Mode:Managed Channel=0 Access Point: Not-Associated
Bit Rate:0 kb/s Tx-Power:16 dBm
Retry short limit:7 RTS thrff Fragment thrff
Power Managementff
Link Quality:0 Signal level:0 Noise level:0
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:7 Missed beacon:0

[THEFALLGUY]

sudo iwlist scan

Cell 03 - Address: 1C:1D:67:E5:B5:27
ESSID:"BTHub3-JS3N"
Protocol:IEEE 802.11bg
Mode:Master
Frequency:2.412 GHz (Channel 1)
Encryption keyn
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
Quality:93 Signal level:0 Noise level:0
IE: WPA Version 1
Group Cipher : TKIP
Pairwise Ciphers (2) : CCMP TKIP
Authentication Suites (1) : PSK
IE: IEEE 802.11i/WPA2 Version 1
Group Cipher : TKIP
Pairwise Ciphers (2) : CCMP TKIP
Authentication Suites (1) : PSK
Extra: Last beacon: 168ms ago


hope this helps

[The Liquidator]

It's not quite as simple as you thought, but nearly so.

You need to do 2 other things when in the network manager settings

Know what type of encryption to select - WEP/WPA etc.

Know what type of password is being used. Is it a straightforward password or is it a pre-shared Key. Make the wrong selection of either and you won't connect. If you can access your router configuration page you will know for sure, otherwise my best guess is that WPA & WPA2 encryption with a PSK password should be the options you select.

[THEFALLGUY]

It's not quite as simple as you thought, but nearly so.

You need to do 2 other things when in the network manager settings

Know what type of encryption to select - WEP/WPA etc.

Know what type of password is being used. Is it a straightforward password or is it a pre-shared Key. Make the wrong selection of either and you won't connect. If you can access your router configuration page you will know for sure, otherwise my best guess is that WPA & WPA2 encryption with a PSK password should be the options you select.

Its a BT home hub with WPA/WPA2 encryption which i have selected (WPA/WPA2 Personal) on the wireless security tab, the passord is correct in the password box

I am not sure what you mean by PSK password?

[The Liquidator]

I suspected by use of the term home hub you were referring to BT.

http://bt.custhelp.com/app/answers/d...-hub-to-wpa%3F

You will note the term there refers to PSK (pre-shared key). I guess that means the password is encrypted rather than being plain text.

I'm at a windows box right now so can't be sure about this, but now seem to recall that the need to specifically earmark the password as a PSK may date back a bit (probably to the time wireless was WEP). However, I suspect within the Network manager settings you may find that there is a reference to PSK in the type of encryption (It may be WPA/WPA2-PSK) or something like that. That may be the fix.

If it is not then we might need to be more radical and selecting an alternative wireless application, known as WICD, but let's see if this works first.

[THEFALLGUY]

I suspected by use of the term home hub you were referring to BT.

http://bt.custhelp.com/app/answers/d...-hub-to-wpa%3F

You will note the term there refers to PSK (pre-shared key). I guess that means the password is encrypted rather than being plain text.

I'm at a windows box right now so can't be sure about this, but now seem to recall that the need to specifically earmark the password as a PSK may date back a bit (probably to the time wireless was WEP). However, I suspect within the Network manager settings you may find that there is a reference to PSK in the type of encryption (It may be WPA/WPA2-PSK) or something like that. That may be the fix.

If it is not then we might need to be more radical and selecting an alternative wireless application, known as WICD, but let's see if this works first.

Hi yep its a BT homehub

The options in under the security tab are

WPA/WPA2 Personal
WPA/WPA2 Enterprise

i have choosen personal but its not working.

[The Liquidator]

When you have set it up, do you get any error messages or see anything at all happening?

Also once you have gone through the routine have you gone through the process of double-clicking on the icon in the main network-manager window, to trigger a connection, as IIRC you need to do that.


However, could this be the issue?


http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/netwo...ual-boot-linux

[The Liquidator]

Actually it's a known problem and it looks like BT don't give a s**t about Linux and people who dual boot with it. This is priceless as the home hub runs on linux.

http://community.bt.com/t5/BB-Speed-...fi/td-p/293857

Apparently you have to restart the router every time you switch OS, which is a bummer.

Virgin Media is much more linux -friendly imho.

[THEFALLGUY]

I dont get any errors and double clicking the icon for the hub gives a message that its configuring but then says not connected

Its a Homehub 3.0 , it works fine with an ethernet cable if that helps its just the wifi that wont connect.

[The Liquidator]

I think it is the problem that was identified in the forums. Apparently both the HH2 (after the firmware upgrade) and the HH3 apparently have problems Linux and dual-boot seems particularly bad.

With kubuntu running, restart the router. When it has restarted and configured, does it connect then?

However, what appears to be the best advice comes from the BT support forum as follows where one post was

"I'm afraid I far from have the solution. However, I can safely say that the issue is caused by the hub firmware and an incompatibility with the IPv4 DHCP. A new method seems to be implemented within the homehub automatic DHCP which Ubuntu (and it seems some other distro's) do not like much.

I don't know why this is or how to fix it, however I have managed to successfully connect my Ubuntu laptop to the home hub and repeatedly reboot to confirm working.

What you need to do is manually configure a static IP address for the IPv4 connection. I cover briefly below how to do that

Method (This is for Ubuntu 11.10 but should be almost identical on other Ubuntu versions):

1. Attempt to connect to your Homehub connection, this will fail but don't worry.

2. Click the wi-fi symbol and select "Edit Connections..."

3. Click on the "Wireless" tab.

4. Select your Homehub connection from the list and click edit. (Alternatively double click on the connection)

5. Select the "IPv4 Settings" tab.

6. For "Method", Select "Manual" from the drop down box.

7. In the "Addresses" Box, for "Address" enter "192.168.1.xx" Where xx is a number from 64-237. Ideally pick something in the middle to avoid IP address conflicts with other devices. I chose to use 100.
8. For "Netmask" enter 255.255.255.0
9. For "Gateway" enter "192.168.1.254" which should be the IP address on your network of your homehub. (It definitely is for HH2)
10. In the "DNS servers" box enter "192.168.1.254" which is again your HH IP.
11. I then deselected "Require IPv4 addressing for... complete".
12. Leave IPv6 on "Automatic" as this does not seem to cause issues for connection.
13. Save the settings and then click the wi-fi icon and try and reconnect to the HH network.

This should now work perfectly for you. Let me know how it's gone for you guys,

Rich
p.s, you call yourself a tech company ,BT, but not knowing to suggest manual DHCP is a bit ridiculous, and using "we're not trained to support that" as a guise... I've probably known more about computers than your tech support guys since I was 10.."

Certainly worth a try.. Good luck!

[THEFALLGUY]

I tried this as best i could follow but no luck i think I might just go and buy a mac :-(

[HalationEffect]

I tried this as best i could follow but no luck i think I might just go and buy a mac :-(

If you do decide to go with the "replacing hardware solution", surely it would be significantly cheaper to replace the HomeHub with a standard wireless router...

I used to work for BT Internet, and unless things have changed greatly (which I doubt), their support for customers using OS X is rather limited.