I've been having a strange and annoying problem with my Linux box (Xubuntu 17.04) for months now. Sometimes the internet is fine, sometimes, however, it is incredibly slow. None of the other computers on the network have this same problem. I've checked and the problem seems to be with the connection to the router. I often now keep open a window pinging my router, and it frequently just stops responding for significant periods of time.

My computer is attached to a wireless router that I'm using as a client bridge. I used to think the problem was in this router, but I have attached other devices to it and they don't experience the same problem. I can also plug in a wireless usb adapter and get pretty much the same behaviour (only worse, which is why I started using the client bridge in the first place).

My only clue is that I have noticed that if I disconnect from the bridge and then reconnect, the connection to the main router always restarts at least for a while. This happens consistently, but I have no idea what it means or where to look for further clues.

Any of the network tools to see connection speeds, errors and maybe to know the exact channel might be a start.

Looking at any router logs may help, router settings too.


There may be some /var/logs that may help.

I'd also run a few other live media to see what's going on.

Could use a phone maybe to sweep the wifi in that area if you can't set up a wifi radar type program on linux.

Interference in that area from almost any device.

Move computer.

The list goes on.

Thanks for your quick response.

I've pretty much ruled out wireless interference or related issues. As I said, other devices uses the same client bridge have no problem, and other devices using wireless in close proximity (such as a laptop I have) never experience anything like this.

I've looked in the logs, but in the absence of a message that starts ERROR, I have a lot of data and no idea what I'm looking for.

I don't think there is one single command to find the issue.

There are a lot of ways to look and they all take time.

You have to start on some of the ideas I posted and or go to other web pages for clues. Keep searching online for ideas maybe also.