Linux mint laptop suddenly stopped being able to access the Internet - help/suggestions welcome

PhotoMan

Hi,

I wonder if anyone here can help with a problem I am having with my Linux Mint Huawei laptop. I am not an experienced or knowledgeable Linux user.

Until yesterday morning I was having no problems connecting wirelessly to my Fritzbox router and using the Internet for browsing and email. However, since yesterday morning I have been unable to connect to the router. My phone, and my wife's Windows laptop are having no problem connecting over WiFi to the router and accessing email and websites.

The IP address of my router is 192.168.178.1 and using this my other devices can connect to the router interface.

However, my Linux laptop is unable to access the Internet. Unfortunately the laptop does not have an ethernet port. 

After some Googling I tried booting into the Mint installation USB stick and running Mint live from it and it would still not connect to the Router or Internet.
I have tried rebooting the router but this didn't help.

My nuclear option would be to reinstall Mint on to the laptop to see if that fixes the problem.

Does anyone have any advice to offer this Linux novice? Is there anything I can try before a reinstall and is a reinstall likely to help?

Thank you to anyone who has read this far and to anyone with help/advice to offer.

Thank you.

flaneurs_lobster

Hardware failure of the onboard Wi-fi adapter? Sometimes if there is damage around the hinges then the aerial lead may have been severed.

If this were a Windows box then there are USB dongles for less than a tenner but no idea if these'll run under Linux.

PhotoMan

flaneurs_lobster said:

Hardware failure of the onboard Wi-fi adapter? Sometimes if there is damage around the hinges then the aerial lead may have been severed.

If this were a Windows box then there are USB dongles for less than a tenner but no idea if these'll run under Linux.

I should have mentioned that I have tried one of those - it was recognised and installed but didn't enable a connection. Thank you for looking at this though.

Vitor

In Mint, open a terminal and run lspci | grep -i network or lsusb | grep -i network (depending on whether your Huawei uses a PCIe or USB-attached card). This should show whether the card is physically seen by the system and help determine if there's a hardware fault on the card.

If the card is seen, trying connecting the laptop to a mobile's WiFi hotspot to determine if a firmware update to the router has stopped Mint's WiFi stack connecting. There might be a log on the Fritzbox to show why it's now rejecting conntion.

PhotoMan

Vitor said:

In Mint, open a terminal and run

lspci | grep -i network

or

| grep -i networklsusb 

(depending on whether your Huawei uses a PCIe or USB-attached card). This should show whether the card is physically seen by the system and help determine if there's a hardware fault on the card.

If the card is seen, trying connecting the laptop to a mobile's WiFi hotspot to determine if a firmware update to the router has stopped Mint connecting.

the pci command revealed 3c:00.0 Network controller : Intel Corporation Wireless 8265 / 8275 (rev 78)
(the word "Network" was in red)
I have connected successfully via my phone as a hotspot and checked for Mint updates in update manager and it says that my system is up to date.

Martin_the_Unjust

Many years ago I had a similar problem with a laptop, after much blood sweat and tears I discovered a slider switch at the side of it that turned wifi on/off 😘

PhotoMan

PhotoMan said:

Vitor said:

In Mint, open a terminal and run

lspci | grep -i network

or

| grep -i networklsusb 

(depending on whether your Huawei uses a PCIe or USB-attached card). This should show whether the card is physically seen by the system and help determine if there's a hardware fault on the card.

If the card is seen, trying connecting the laptop to a mobile's WiFi hotspot to determine if a firmware update to the router has stopped Mint connecting.

the pci command revealed 3c:00.0 Network controller : Intel Corporation Wireless 8265 / 8275 (rev 78)
(the word "Network" was in red)
I have connected successfully via my phone as a hotspot and checked for Mint updates in update manager and it says that my system is up to date.

The FritzBox interface says that the current router OS was installed on 23th January 2025 and is up to date

PhotoMan

Martin_the_Unjust said:

Many years ago I had a similar problem with a laptop, after much blood sweat and tears I discovered a slider switch at the side of it that turned wifi on/off 😘

Thanks for the thought. I don't have such a slider. There is a function key that toggles WiFi on and off but I have tried things with that toggled on and with it off. But thanks for the thought.

Vitor

On Mint, after a failed connection attempt to Frtizbox, run:

dmesg | grep iwlwifi

That will show you exactly what the Intel driver thinks is going wrong (authentication failed, unsupported cipher, etc.).

Try forgetting the Fritzbox network from the laptop, rescanning reconnecting again to rebuild the link.

PhotoMan

Vitor said:

On Mint, after a failed connection attempt to Frtizbox, run:

dmesg | grep iwlwifi

That will show you exactly what the Intel driver thinks is going wrong (authentication failed, unsupported cipher, etc.).

Try forgetting the Fritzbox network from the laptop, rescanning reconnecting again to rebuild the link.

dan@dan-MACH-WX9:~$ dmesg | grep iwlwifi
[    3.231188] iwlwifi 0000:3c:00.0: Detected crf-id 0xbadcafe, cnv-id 0x10 wfpm id 0x80000000
[    3.231325] iwlwifi 0000:3c:00.0: PCI dev 24fd/3e02, rev=0x230, rfid=0xd55555d5
[    3.255646] iwlwifi 0000:3c:00.0: loaded firmware version 36.ca7b901d.0 8265-36.ucode op_mode iwlmvm
[    3.964085] iwlwifi 0000:3c:00.0: Detected Intel(R) Dual Band Wireless AC 8275, REV=0x230
[    4.026530] iwlwifi 0000:3c:00.0: base HW address: 34:2e:b6:90:e5:8c, OTP minor version: 0x4
[    4.123442] iwlwifi 0000:3c:00.0 wlp60s0: renamed from wlan0
[    8.070321] iwlwifi 0000:3c:00.0: Registered PHC clock: iwlwifi-PTP, with index: 0

PhotoMan

Vitor said:

On Mint, after a failed connection attempt to Frtizbox, run:

dmesg | grep iwlwifi

That will show you exactly what the Intel driver thinks is going wrong (authentication failed, unsupported cipher, etc.).

Try forgetting the Fritzbox network from the laptop, rescanning reconnecting again to rebuild the link.

Done that and I get:
dan@dan-MACH-WX9:~$ dmesg | grep iwlwifi

[    3.231188] iwlwifi 0000:3c:00.0: Detected crf-id 0xbadcafe, cnv-id 0x10 wfpm id 0x80000000
[    3.231325] iwlwifi 0000:3c:00.0: PCI dev 24fd/3e02, rev=0x230, rfid=0xd55555d5
[    3.255646] iwlwifi 0000:3c:00.0: loaded firmware version 36.ca7b901d.0 8265-36.ucode op_mode iwlmvm
[    3.964085] iwlwifi 0000:3c:00.0: Detected Intel(R) Dual Band Wireless AC 8275, REV=0x230
[    4.026530] iwlwifi 0000:3c:00.0: base HW address: 34:2e:b6:90:e5:8c, OTP minor version: 0x4
[    4.123442] iwlwifi 0000:3c:00.0 wlp60s0: renamed from wlan0
[    8.070321] iwlwifi 0000:3c:00.0: Registered PHC clock: iwlwifi-PTP, with index: 0
(Sorry if this post is a duplicate)