Problem with Connman

[Member stevix]

I picked up another cheap laptop few days ago, and as I usually do I booted up a few distros from USB stick before deciding which one to install. When I booted antiX 21 (64, Full) it booted ok and the Connman screen appeared almost straight away. Problem is there isn’t any info in it.

The Status tab shows Wifi powered on, tethering off, but nothing in the services box at the bottom.
The Details tab shows a completely blank page.
The Wireless tab – At the top, just below Wireless Services, it shows Wifi Technologies, 1 found, 1 powered. All four of the buttons to the left, Connect, Disconnect, Remove, Rescan, are greyed out. The large box below is empty, no networks are shown.

Now this is where things get weird. If I plug the exact same USB stick into any of my other laptops antiX boots fine and Connman behaves perfectly as expected, and I can connect to internet immediately. Which would suggest there’s nothing wrong with the USB stick or iso.

However, all the other distros I tried on this particular laptop connected to internet without any problems. Which would suggest the laptop/wireless card isn’t at fault either.

I’m currently running MX on it (again, without any issues) and used that to identify the wireless card, which is a Qualcomm Atheros AR9285.

If anyone has any ideas as to what on earth is going on, please fire away, because I’m at a loss.

Thanks

[Member punranger]

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What happens if you try to load another kernel at bootup?

antiX linux: The best way to revive an old computer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCTaUAP6sSg

[Member seaken64]

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Your wifi adapter is not getting the correct driver. Try loading a different driver for your hardware. Or as stated, maybe a different kernel.

Seaken64

[Member marcelocripe]

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Hello stevix.

You need to read the topic: How to: correctly use antiX forum.

Post the output of the commands in the Terminal emulator in the topics you start:

inxi -Fxz

or

inxi -zv7

Also try checking if your laptop has key combinations to enable or disable the wireless network card. If you still don’t see the list of wireless networks near you, try using the “antiX WiFi Switch” program, click on the menu so antiX, Applications, antiX, antiX WiFi Switch. Click the Ceni button, wait for the message saying that Ceni should now be able to connect to your wireless network. Then click on the ConnMan button and wait for the message saying that ConnMan should now be able to connect to your wireless network. I had to do this procedure on some wireless network cards of different brands and models to be able to display the list of networks.

marcelocripe
(Original text in Brazilian Portuguese language)

– – – – –

Olá stevix.

Você precisa ler o tópcio: How to: correctly use antiX forum.

Poste o resultado dos comandos no emulador de Terminal nos tópicos que você iniciar:

inxi -Fxz

ou

inxi -zv7

Tente também verificar se o seu laptop possui combinações de teclas para ativar ou desativar a placa de rede sem fio. Se mesmo assim não for exibido a lista de redes sem fio próximas a você, tente utilizar o programa “antiX WiFi Switch”, clique no menu so antiX, Aplicativos, antiX, antiX WiFi Switch. Clique no botão Ceni, aguarde a mensagem dizendo que o Ceni já deve ser capaz de se conectar ao sua rede sem fio. Em seguida, clique no botão ConnMan e aguarde a mensagem dizendo que o ConnMan já deve ser capaz de se conectar ao sua rede sem fio. Eu precisei fazer este procedimento em algumas placas de rede sem fio de diferentes marcas e modelos para conseguir exibir a lista de redes.

marcelocripe
(Texto original em idioma Português do Brasil)

[Moderator caprea]

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You might get it activated with
antix-wifi-switch --gui connman

Trying another kernel is a good idea, especially if it’s the full version of antiX on the live usb.Then two kernels, old and modern are installed by default.
If nothing helps please post the output of
rfkill

[Member stevix]

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Tried a different kernel, made no difference. Also checked RFKill, definitely shows as unblocked. Tried the wifi switch thing and everything went haywire. At one point I got some “critical error” message. Not sure what went wrong there, could have been something I did.

I am already familiar with posting the output of inxi -Fxz, but that’s a bit awkward with no internet connection (I’m typing this on a different laptop). Same goes for installing additional drivers. If someone can tell me exactly what to look for in inxi -Fxz then I can check it.

I suspect someone is going to suggest connecting by Ethernet? Well I did have an Ethernet cable, but as it hasn’t been used since around 2010 there’s no telling where that’s gone, so it’ll mean buying a new one. And as we’re currently experiencing some postal strikes here in the UK it will be at least a week until I can get one.

[Moderator caprea]

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If connman can not be made to run, another way is to use ceni.
Did you try it? Either by using wifi-switcher or from control-centre > network > network-assistant(ceni)
Does ceni see your wifi-card?

Edit: after you tried ceni and it will not work, it’s the best to use wifi-switcher for going back to connman.

You can post from the output of inxi -nxxx the driver and the chipID of your wlan card,but I guess that’s not the problem because your card is not a problematic one, normally.
I have a laptop which sometimes suddenly looses contact to the router and I have to go very close to the router with it to restore the connection.So I would make tests nearby the router.

[Member stevix]

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I think it was when I tried Ceni that I got the “Critical Error” message. I’ll have another go at things at the weekend, and this time I’ll try to write down exactly what any messages say.

The slightly annoying thing is that a laptop I used to have had the infamous Broadcom B43 wifi, yet that connected straight away, no problem.

[Member PPC]

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stevix wrote:

I am already familiar with posting the output of inxi -Fxz, but that’s a bit awkward with no internet connection

Try outputing the result of the inixi command to file, then save that file to a thumb drive and use the computer with the working network connection to post it here.

Example:

inxi -nxxx >~/inxi-results.txt

That could help the experts here to understand what’s wrong. It can be the wrong kernel (which one did you test) or a missing driver- those are usually the main culprits…

P.

Edit: My working wifi card gives this results, when I run “inxi -nxxx”:

Network:
Device-1: Realtek RTL810xE PCI Express Fast Ethernet vendor: Elite Systems
driver: r8169 v: kernel pcie: speed: 2.5 GT/s lanes: 1 port: 2000
bus-ID: 03:00.0 chip-ID: 10ec:8136 class-ID: 0200

[…]

IF: wlan0 state: up mac: xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx

• This reply was modified 5 months, 1 week ago by PPC.

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

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@stevix: Sometimes “error messages” whether serious or not do not impact the system, unless they result in a system kernel failure.

IF that is not the case, as a couple of people have already mentioned, the tool in the Menu antiX –> Change WiFi program is the proper tool to use.
It allows you to SAFELY switch between the two supported network management programs, CENI and CONNMAN. Moreover, it “cleans up” if you change between the two, and it’s the only mechanism we can recommend; it helps clean up potential conflicts between the two programs.

Oh yes, that brings up another matter: don’t start using one network manager, then switch to another one without cleaning out the other one first; that’s a sure recipe for continued problems, but if you use the Change WiFi program to select, one at a time, the two programs supported, that may help.

Another thing that helps: on some systems, INITIALLY CONNMAN doesn’t work correctly, so if you switch to CENI, using the tool, then switch BACK to CONNMAN, sometimes that helps.

IF (and only IF) neither of these network management programs refuse to work, even after carefully trying each of them, it IS possible to use other network management programs; unfortunately unless one of us happens to be familiar with them and has a way to assist you, the support and diagnosis of other tools will be your responsibility.

We *used* to use and support wicd; some people may remember it. The reason we no longer do so is that development of this software is no longer maintained.

If you HAVE to go on your own, perhaps iwd could be helpful. I suggest more experimentation with the Change WiFi program before you try that.
I’m sorry if it turns out that our distribution doesn’t work well with your hardware. If worse comes to worse, you did mention that MX Linux work; many of us here also enjoy that distribution too.

--
Brian Masinick

[Moderator christophe]

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Regarding ceni on antiX 21/22:
I have noticed that it throws an error when scanning for wifi, but if you wait a minute or two, it will detect networks. So if you try ceni again, be patient. Give it a few minutes. I thought ceni was broken, but I had to get up to do something, and when I came back, (even though it looked like it was giving me an error before I left) it had found a list of networks.

confirmed antiX frugaler, since 2019

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

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@christophe: Thanks for mentioning this! Now that you have mentioned it, on a few of my older systems I find a similar scenario; it definitely takes some patience, sometimes 2 minutes, sometimes even 5 minutes, depending on the age and the quality of the network interface.

On new hardware, it’s almost immediate, and I haven’t had issues with any network manager at all.
So patience is definitely a virtue in this situation and I too appreciate this reminder, since I’ve faced a similar scenario on at least one of my older systems.

--
Brian Masinick

[Member stevix]

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Haven’t had time to do much so far, but I did briefly run inxi – Fxz, and lo and behold it shows wlan as “down”. So where do I go from here, try Ceni, find the root cause of the problem, or is there a simple command to change it to “up”?

Thanks

[Moderator Brian Masinick]

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I came back to this because I am using antiX today on one of my older systems.
It started with Connman, but it wasn’t connecting properly to the service.
So I waited for a moment or two, switched to Ceni, but didn’t really try to connect
because I wanted to see if I could get Connman working.

Sure enough, repeating the procedure, waiting a moment with Ceni, then, again using
the Change WiFi program to switch BACK to Connman, it connected, and not only connected,
it also “remembered” the specific access point I use, so it was an AUTOMATIC connection.

Some days everything works immediately, other days it takes a bit of fiddling, but this
switching between programs, waiting in between does work.

If you prefer Ceni, do the same thing 1-2 times with a bit of pause in between.
If your system has a recognizable network card, this wait and reset approach usually results
in a connection.

--
Brian Masinick

[Member stevix]

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I’ve just come back to this after abandoning it for a while. Went into the Wifi switcher, changed to CENI, and lo and behold everything worked. Didn’t get the critical error message, got something completely different appeared on screen. Followed it through and connected to Wifi fine. I don’t have any explanation for it, as I didn’t do anything whatsoever differently to what I had done before.

I had a similar issue last year (different distro, different laptop) when I tried to do something which failed miserably. So I tried again, and again, then suddenly at about the fourth attempt everything went ok, despite not having done anything differently.

I can only put it down to the great mysteries of computers!

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