wifi problem mint and ubuntu

johnmcdnl

Hey. I've been using ubuntu and mint without problems for the past year or so but I'm having a bit of trouble now trying to connect to the WiFi in my college apartments..

My network card can pickup the wireless connection no problem at all but when trying to enter wpa password key the laptop attempts to connect but then fails.. (yes I am sure I have the password right) I think its down to the network using aes instead of tkip and I can't find the option to switch between them.. I've used the laptop at home and in college and can connect to my phone's hotspot with no problems what so ever and and my windows installation has no problems either...

I think its because of the aes but I'm no expert on the difference between tkip and aes so I could be completely wrong on this... (im probably miles of the mark but its the only thing that I can think of)

One of my friends is using ubuntu without problems either so its actually really confusing me..

Does anyone have any idea what the problem may be and how I can go about fixing it ?

Cheers :-)


(I'll land back up now and it'll work flawlessly knowing my luck but anyways)

MarkR

Try deleting the profile for that ssid, and starting again.

Right click on network icon, and choose edit connections. Delete yours and look for the network again.

johnmcdnl

MarkR wrote: »

Try deleting the profile for that ssid, and starting again.

Right click on network icon, and choose edit connections. Delete yours and look for the network again.

Tried and failed a few times so far.. will try again though

MarkR

If it was me, start simple. Get rid of all protection of the router. Check to make sure they aren't blocking unknown mac addresses, limiting dhcp pool etc.

Once you can connect with no security, add wpa and try again. Have you considered connecting to it via a network cable for a second?

johnmcdnl

MarkR wrote: »

If it was me, start simple. Get rid of all protection of the router. Check to make sure they aren't blocking unknown mac addresses, limiting dhcp pool etc.

Once you can connect with no security, add wpa and try again. Have you considered connecting to it via a network cable for a second?

and this is the biggest problem...

it's a wifi network for the entire block... we have to send in MAC address to offices to be allowed on the network which I've done... I can't fiddle round with settings or even just connect with a cable as there is no router in the apartment

My windows partition on the laptop can connect without any problems at all...

just tried connecting with my desktop which is running on ubuntu there and it can connect to the network without problem... just can't understand why my laptop won't connect

murphaph

There are lots of problems with particular wireless chipsets when trying to connect using encryption. I have battled with Linux wireless (Ralink chipset and also trying to connect with AES-works with encryption off but that's not an option) for ages and got it to work for a while by compiling a slightly modified driver (since broken again but that's another story).

You'll need to start by finding out what chipset your laptop has and work from there. If you have the Ralink driver mentioned in this thread you could try the fix which worked for me (for a while anyway).

Linux wireless support is sadly still far from perfect. My mate has had the same problems with his laptop.