Wlan0 scan | grep essid

Shouldn't this show all the access points within range. When will it not if everything is working?

NO!

when you do not include the pkg to find ESSID's and use root permissions.
try this

OK my point was not root or sudo I know I have to use them. My tripup was using grep for essids and not finding the access point on my machine. It was present in the whole house but not visible to my machine.

pls make your example more true so others including me will understand you better then.

because as you wrote it. that will never work. as you presented your question with an example that'd never work .. their lays your mistake.

you usage for grep is case sensitive because of the way you wrote it. That too is your slip up.

had you ran the proper command properly using root it would have reviled that eesid is spelled EESID maybe then you'd of tried that instead. I do not know.

whatever the case maybe

case insensitive would be to just add the -i to your grep command.

$ sudo iwlist wlan0 scanning

$ sudo iw dev wlan0 scan

Various ways to scan the area.

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Forgive and be my friends. I will be on my best behavior from now on.

There is an internet symbol on the task bar before I went to the command line I checked it for signal normally it would show all access points in the area. It showed none. I am running Mint 17.3. Funny if my WiFi was not working why did it not show other access points that were up.This is a problem any ideas?

That internet symbol which shows a not connected, wireless or wired icon is the NetworkManager applet. When using a wireless adapter it periodically scans for access points and will automatically find and connect to the AP with the strongest signal.

If the applet AP list is empty it could be just desktop / NetworkManager / d-bus communication glitch. The quick check would be to restart the computer. If you run the iwlist scan command more then once and it does not show your AP (and your within its range) then you might have a hardware/driver problem. I assume that all other wireless devices are working correctly.

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Sometimes I need to bring up the interface (load driver and power up) before I can scan. Once it's up I don't need to do that step again (until reboot).

$ sudo ifconfig wlan0 up
$ sudo iwlist wlan0 scanning

$ sudo ip link dev wlan0 up
$ sudo iw dev wlan0 scan

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