Ubuntu 11.04 wifi randomly won't display available networks (Broadcom ATA card)

beezum88 · 10-12-2011, 04:00 PM

I'm running Ubuntu 11.04 in a dual-boot with Windows on a Dell Inspiron N4010 (kernel: 2.6.38-11-generic-pae). Sometimes (about half the time as far as I can tell), when I boot Ubuntu, the network manager refuses to acknowledge that there are available wifi networks. I've made sure both "wireless" and "networking" are enabled. I've even stopped the network manager process, deleted the NetworkManager.state file, and restarted it to no avail. It still says there are no available networks. And yes, there are available networks because they're there when I boot into Windows.

This same pattern will repeat the next couple times I reboot, then I'll give up. After a while, I'll boot Ubuntu again, and everything's hunky dory. Network Manager starts, sees my default network and connects.

The most frustrating thing is when I booted just now to gather information like lspci, dmesg, etc., it worked with no problem. I'll post the current lshw output now, and later when it decides to not work again, I'll post lshw again for comparison.

Thanks for your help.

lshw:

Code:

*-network               
       description: Wireless interface
       product: BCM4313 802.11b/g/n Wireless LAN Controller
       vendor: Broadcom Corporation
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:04:00.0
       logical name: eth1
       version: 01
       serial: 1c:65:9d:a6:9a:57
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless
       configuration: broadcast=yes driver=wl0 driverversion=5.100.82.38 ip=128.62.82.29 latency=0 multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11
       resources: irq:17 memory:f0300000-f0303fff

beezum88 · 10-12-2011, 04:40 PM

And I rebooted and sure enough it didn't work again. So here's the promised lshw output when the wifi isn't working. I also tried to create an ad-hoc network and it would let me open the window to create the network, but the "Create" button was grayed out.

lshw:

Code:

 *-network
       description: Wireless interface
       product: BCM4313 802.11b/g/n Wireless LAN Controller
       vendor: Broadcom Corporation
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:04:00.0
       logical name: eth1
       version: 01
       serial: 1c:65:9d:a6:9a:57
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless
       configuration: broadcast=yes driver=wl0 driverversion=5.100.82.38 latency=0 multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11
       resources: irq:17 memory:f0300000-f0303fff

Zyzygy · 11-02-2011, 07:44 AM

I get the same thing having just upgraded from Kubuntu Natty 10.## to Oneiric 11.10 (Linux 3.0.0.12-generic, KDE 4.7.2) on an Asus 1000HE with Atheros AR928X. It worked OK in 10, upgrade to 11 - wireless problems.
In fact, after about half an hour wireless networks to finally appear, then all works OK.
Andrew