Wifi works during installation but disabled after?

Issues related to configuring your network
Post Reply
SirSkorpan
Posts: 6
Joined: 2018/09/29 18:40:52

Wifi works during installation but disabled after?

Post by SirSkorpan » 2018/09/29 19:36:21

I'm running (or at least trying to run) CentOS 7 on a Dell XPS 15 9560, as a learning experience I've opted for a minimal installation to get to configure and install as much as possible from scratch; seems I'm getting what I asked for.

During installation I got to configure a WiFi connection, I could see that I received an IP and I was told the speed of the connection (6Mb/s which seems slow but it's a connection). When the installation was finished, however, I couldn't connect to a WiFi network. I ran nmtui and the configuration was correct (after all it worked during installation), lshw the following info:

Code: Select all

 *-network DISABLED
    description: Wireless interface
    product: QCA6174 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter
    vendor: Qualcomm Atheros
    ...
    logical name: wlp2s0
    ...
    configuration: broadcast=yes driver=ath10k_pci driverversion=3.10.0-862.11.6.el7.x86_64 firmware=WLAN.RM.4.4.1-00051-QCARMSWP-1 latency=0 link=no multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11 resources:  irq:140 memory:ed200000-ed3fffff
So It seems my WiFi card is disabled, not sure how that could be? (I did try to use the fn+PrtScr shortcut to enable/disable the WiFi but that did nothing.

I found this bug report for Ubuntu and tried the proposed solution but it didn't work.

I'm not very knowledgeable when it comes to Linux or CentOS, so the output from dmesg doesn't tell me much but a grep for the ath10k driver provides this:

Image

Where do I go from here? It seems there are drivers present, as I could receive an IP during installation but perhaps they are not loaded? Or is there a trick to enabling the WiFi device (which is indicated as disabled) some way? Is there any additional info I need to provide?

User avatar
TrevorH
Site Admin
Posts: 33202
Joined: 2009/09/24 10:40:56
Location: Brighton, UK

Re: Wifi works during installation but disabled after?

Post by TrevorH » 2018/09/29 19:47:55

Is the NetworkManager-wifi package installed? rpm -q NetworkManager-wifi will tell you.
The future appears to be RHEL or Debian. I think I'm going Debian.
Info for USB installs on http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/InstallFromUSBkey
CentOS 5 and 6 are deadest, do not use them.
Use the FAQ Luke

SirSkorpan
Posts: 6
Joined: 2018/09/29 18:40:52

Re: Wifi works during installation but disabled after?

Post by SirSkorpan » 2018/09/29 21:30:17

Indeed, the NetworkManager-wifi package was missing. I downloaded it from the centos mirror and installed it with yum install. Now I can reach the internet and I was able to do a yum update, thanks a bunch! :)

However, I now get the following error message in my terminal in a loop (a few seconds between each print out):

Code: Select all

[  434.857124] pcieport 0000:00:1c.0: AER: Corrected error received: id=00e0
[  434.857186] pcieport 0000:00:1c.0: PCIe Bus Error: severity=Corrected, type=Data Link Layer, id=00e0(Transmitter ID)
[  434.862575] pcieport 0000:00:1c.0:   device [8086:a110] error status/mask=00001000/00002000
[  434.864873] pcieport 0000:00:1c.0:    [12] Replay Timer Timeout  
I suspect, from its mention of "Data Link Layer", that it is related to the network card? Perhaps you'd be able to shed some light?

(The print out started before I did the yum update)

User avatar
TrevorH
Site Admin
Posts: 33202
Joined: 2009/09/24 10:40:56
Location: Brighton, UK

Re: Wifi works during installation but disabled after?

Post by TrevorH » 2018/09/29 21:34:09

If the NetworkManager-wifi package was missing from your install, that makes it sound like you installed from very old media as that bug was found and fixed a long long time ago (7.1? 7.2?). What is the output from uname -r on your machine? If it's anything other than 3.10.0-862.el7.x86_64 or higher (the latest is currently 3.10.0-862.14.4.el7.x86_64) then you most likely used an old iso image. Run a full yum update in that case and then reboot into the latest kernel and see if the problem persists. In fact, yum update if you don't have 3.10.0-862.14.4.el7.x86_64 installed and running.
The future appears to be RHEL or Debian. I think I'm going Debian.
Info for USB installs on http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/InstallFromUSBkey
CentOS 5 and 6 are deadest, do not use them.
Use the FAQ Luke

SirSkorpan
Posts: 6
Joined: 2018/09/29 18:40:52

Re: Wifi works during installation but disabled after?

Post by SirSkorpan » 2018/09/29 22:38:37

Before yum update I was running 3.10.0-862.el7.x86_64 after I'm running 3.10.0-862.14.4.el7.x86_64 kernel, according to uname -r. I downloaded the DVD iso from the official site, so it would have surprised me if the kernel was old.

Unfortunately the error messages persists after yum update and a reboot :(

Perhaps I downloaded the wrong NetworkManager-wifi package? I took it from here, NetworkManager-wifi-1.10.2-13.el7.x86_64.rpm.

SirSkorpan
Posts: 6
Joined: 2018/09/29 18:40:52

Re: Wifi works during installation but disabled after?

Post by SirSkorpan » 2018/09/29 22:45:25

I actually reinstalled just to make sure I wasn't mistaken and rpm -q NetworkManager-wifi did indeed, after a fresh install, return:

Code: Select all

package NetworkManager-wifi is not installed

User avatar
TrevorH
Site Admin
Posts: 33202
Joined: 2009/09/24 10:40:56
Location: Brighton, UK

Re: Wifi works during installation but disabled after?

Post by TrevorH » 2018/09/29 22:53:24

Running yum update will get you the latest packages including NM-wifi 1.10.2-16.el7_5

I'm not sure that your error messages have anything to do with the wifi though. According to /usr/share/hwdata/pci.ids, 8086:a110 is "Sunrise Point-H PCI Express Root Port #1". That looks similar to https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1293424 and the suggestion there is to append pci=noaer to the kernel command line and see if that helps. I also see other suggestions to try pcie_aspm=off but I'd try the first one before that.
The future appears to be RHEL or Debian. I think I'm going Debian.
Info for USB installs on http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/InstallFromUSBkey
CentOS 5 and 6 are deadest, do not use them.
Use the FAQ Luke

SirSkorpan
Posts: 6
Joined: 2018/09/29 18:40:52

Re: Wifi works during installation but disabled after?

Post by SirSkorpan » 2018/09/29 23:53:21

Ah, I see so the message I see is just a log entry explaining that something on the PCIe bus, my graphics card perhaps, encountered an error, which was possible to correct. If I read the information about AER correctly, it is not really a problem if it is logged as "Corrected". Adding "pci=noaer" to the end of the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX string in /etc/default/grub (and updating the grub.cfg) seems to have done the trick. As I understand it, this just suppresses the output of the logging to the terminal. I'll let it run through the night to see if I see any logging, but for now it seems like this issue is solved. Thank you very much for your help :D

SirSkorpan
Posts: 6
Joined: 2018/09/29 18:40:52

Re: Wifi works during installation but disabled after?

Post by SirSkorpan » 2018/09/30 13:01:58

Just reporting back, It seems it is all solved. Still not sure why the NetworkManager-wifi package wasn't installed from the beginning, is it supposed to be with a minimal installation?

User avatar
TrevorH
Site Admin
Posts: 33202
Joined: 2009/09/24 10:40:56
Location: Brighton, UK

Re: Wifi works during installation but disabled after?

Post by TrevorH » 2018/09/30 13:30:39

Well, I just checked a minimal install that I did last night and it was installed there.
The future appears to be RHEL or Debian. I think I'm going Debian.
Info for USB installs on http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/InstallFromUSBkey
CentOS 5 and 6 are deadest, do not use them.
Use the FAQ Luke

Post Reply