[Ubuntu] Networking Issues

I’ve had networking issues on and off. The severity ranges from having my network manager disabled or having it drop out an be unable to connect randomly. I have a Dell XPS M1330, running Ubuntu 10.04.1 LTS with networking card:
Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 4965 AG or AGN [Kedron] Network Connection (rev 61).

These are the things I have checked and or run when I’ve had networking issues and one of them has usually resolved the problem:

When your wired/wireless networking manager says it’s disabled:
The file “/var/lib/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.state” contains:



[main]
NetworkingEnabled=true
WirelessEnabled=true
WWANEnabled=true

(make sure all these values are true)

you can edit it with simply:

sudo gedit /var/lib/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.state

then do:

sudo restart network-manager

Also check /etc/network/interfaces to verify an entry similar to:

auto eth1
iface eth1 inet dhcp

Sometimes this gets deleted.
I’ve even deleted this entire file, and restarted my computer and the networking issued fixed itself.

If the above steps aren’t working or your card has been dropping connections randomly it may be another issue with your driver or driver packages. If you know that restarting your computer will make it work for a little while longer then the fixes suggested below should help you out:

Use lspci to find your “Network Controller”

$ lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile PM965/GM965/GL960 Memory Controller Hub (rev 0c)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 0c)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile GM965/GL960 Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 0c)
00:1a.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 02)
00:1a.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #5 (rev 02)
00:1a.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #2 (rev 02)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 02)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 02)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 02)
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 4 (rev 02)
00:1c.5 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) PCI Express Port 6 (rev 02)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 02)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 02)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 02)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller #1 (rev 02)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev f2)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801HEM (ICH8M) LPC Interface Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801HBM/HEM (ICH8M/ICH8M-E) IDE Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 82801HBM/HEM (ICH8M/ICH8M-E) SATA AHCI Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801H (ICH8 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 02)
03:01.0 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Ricoh Co Ltd R5C832 IEEE 1394 Controller (rev 05)
03:01.1 SD Host controller: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C822 SD/SDIO/MMC/MS/MSPro Host Adapter (rev 22)
03:01.2 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd R5C592 Memory Stick Bus Host Adapter (rev 12)
03:01.3 System peripheral: Ricoh Co Ltd xD-Picture Card Controller (rev 12)
09:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetLink BCM5906M Fast Ethernet PCI Express (rev 02)
0c:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 4965 AG or AGN [Kedron] Network Connection (rev 61)

and lsmod to find what drivers your network card uses (or you can google them if your internet is working):

$ lsmod
Module Size Used by
nls_iso8859_1 3249 2
nls_cp437 4919 2
vfat 8933 2
fat 47767 1 vfat
usb_storage 39425 2
iwl3945 68727 0
iwlagn 105694 0
iwlcore 105922 2 iwl3945,iwlagn
aes_i586 7268 2
aes_generic 26863 1 aes_i586
snd_hda_codec_intelhdmi 11622 1
snd_hda_codec_idt 51978 1
snd_hda_intel 21941 4
arc4 1153 2
snd_hda_codec 74201 3 snd_hda_codec_intelhdmi,snd_hda_codec_idt,snd_hda_intel
snd_hwdep 5412 1 snd_hda_codec
max6650 8042 0
snd_pcm_oss 35308 0
snd_mixer_oss 13746 1 snd_pcm_oss
psmouse 63245 0
snd_pcm 70662 4 snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_pcm_oss
coretemp 4289 0
snd_seq_dummy 1338 0
mac80211 205146 3 iwl3945,iwlagn,iwlcore
snd_seq_oss 26726 0
cfg80211 126517 4 iwl3945,iwlagn,iwlcore,mac80211
snd_seq_midi 4557 0
sdhci_pci 5470 0
sdhci 15462 1 sdhci_pci
snd_rawmidi 19056 1 snd_seq_midi
snd_seq_midi_event 6003 2 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi
dell_wmi 1793 0
snd_seq 47263 6 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi,snd_seq_midi_event
dell_laptop 6856 0
uvcvideo 56990 0
snd_timer 19098 2 snd_pcm,snd_seq
snd_seq_device 5700 5 snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq
videodev 34361 1 uvcvideo
v4l1_compat 13251 2 uvcvideo,videodev
serio_raw 3978 0
snd 54148 20 snd_hda_codec_intelhdmi,snd_hda_codec_idt,snd_hda_intel,snd_hda_codec,snd_hwdep,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_pcm,snd_seq_oss,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq,snd_timer,snd_seq_device
led_class 2864 3 iwl3945,iwlcore,sdhci
soundcore 6620 1 snd
snd_page_alloc 7076 2 snd_hda_intel,snd_pcm
joydev 8708 0
dcdbas 5422 1 dell_laptop
lp 7028 0
parport 32635 1 lp
fbcon 35102 71
tileblit 2031 1 fbcon
font 7557 1 fbcon
bitblit 4707 1 fbcon
softcursor 1189 1 bitblit
vga16fb 11385 0
vgastate 8961 1 vga16fb
usbhid 36110 0
hid 67032 1 usbhid
i915 285076 3
drm_kms_helper 29297 1 i915
drm 162409 4 i915,drm_kms_helper
ohci1394 26950 0
intel_agp 24119 2 i915
tg3 109324 0
ieee1394 81181 1 ohci1394
ahci 32200 1
i2c_algo_bit 5028 1 i915
video 17375 1 i915
output 1871 1 video
agpgart 31724 2 drm,intel_agp

Use either the Internet while it is working to find the main driver module for your network card or a driver name (or names) that looks like your cards name and do the following commands to stop and restart your driver:
(In my case my driver is iwlagn)

sudo service network-manager stop
sudo rmmod iwlgan
sudo rmmod iwl3945
sudo rmmod iwlcore
sudo modprobe iwlgan
sudo modprobe iwl3945
sudo modprobe iwlcore
sudo service network-manager start

Basically, rmmod pulls your dymanically linked driver and stops it and modprobe restarts it.

Sometimes that still doesn’t work. I found a bug fix posted by Brian Wu in this thread that fixed my problems recently. The method is outlined below:

$ sudo apt-get install --reinstall linux-backports-modules-wireless-lucid-generic
$ sudo apt-get install --reinstall linux-backports-modules-headers-lucid-generic

I did both, I wasn’t sure which would work. Note: replace ‘lucid’ with whatever distro/version of linux/ubuntu you are running, jaunty, karmic, gusty…etc.

If all else fails, try using live cds of various versions to verify that it isn’t a hardware failure.