[Dell Vostro 1014] using wi-fi hot key to turn off wireless kills wifi for good

[Jeff Lane ]

Natty on a Vostro 1014 for certification testing.

During testing, the tester checks hot-key functionality. part of this test is to turn wireless off and on using the hotkey (on the Vostro 1014 its Fn+F11). Hitting the wireless hotkey the first time does indeed shut the wireless card down.

however, after that, there is no way to turn it back on. Hitting the wireless hotkey afterwards does nothing. network manager keeps saying that the wireless device is turned off by physical switch.

Even rebooting several times and wireless is still disabled on this system.

I went as far as checking BIOS and it was still enabled in BIOS.
---
AlsaVersion: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version 1.0.23.
AlsaVersion_: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version 1.0.23.
AplayDevices:
 **** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
 card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: CONEXANT Analog [CONEXANT Analog]
   Subdevices: 1/1
   Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
Architecture: i386
ArecordDevices:
 **** List of CAPTURE Hardware Devices ****
 card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: CONEXANT Analog [CONEXANT Analog]
   Subdevices: 1/1
   Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
AudioDevicesInUse:
 USER PID ACCESS COMMAND
 /dev/snd/controlC0: ubuntu 1482 F.... pulseaudio
CRDA: Error: [Errno 2] No such file or directory
Card0.Amixer.info:
 Card hw:0 'Intel'/'HDA Intel at 0xf6afc000 irq 49'
   Mixer name : 'Conexant CX20585'
   Components : 'HDA:14f15069,10280401,00100302'
   Controls : 9
   Simple ctrls : 6
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.04
HibernationDevice: RESUME=UUID=58d45f6a-c9c6-4d76-addc-a2ce949e4ad5
HibernationDevice_: RESUME=UUID=58d45f6a-c9c6-4d76-addc-a2ce949e4ad5
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 11.04 "Natty Narwhal" - Release i386 (20110427.1)
InstallationMedia_: Ubuntu 11.04 "Natty Narwhal" - Release i386 (20110427.1)
MachineType: Dell Inc. Vostro 1014
Package: linux (not installed)
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_US:en
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.38-8-generic-pae root=UUID=cc198993-b8fd-46d2-a452-d43edd8bfa08 ro quiet splash initcall_debug vt.handoff=7
ProcKernelCmdLine_: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.38-8-generic-pae root=UUID=cc198993-b8fd-46d2-a452-d43edd8bfa08 ro quiet splash initcall_debug vt.handoff=7
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.38-8.42-generic-pae 2.6.38.2
ProcVersionSignature_: Ubuntu 2.6.38-8.42-generic-pae 2.6.38.2
RelatedPackageVersions:
 linux-restricted-modules-2.6.38-8-generic-pae N/A
 linux-backports-modules-2.6.38-8-generic-pae N/A
 linux-firmware 1.52
Tags: natty running-unity natty running-unity
Uname: Linux 2.6.38-8-generic-pae i686
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
UserGroups: adm admin cdrom dialout lpadmin plugdev sambashare
dmi.bios.date: 10/19/2010
dmi.bios.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.bios.version: X20
dmi.board.name: C2E3C1
dmi.board.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.chassis.type: 8
dmi.chassis.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnDellInc.:bvrX20:bd10/19/2010:svnDellInc.:pnVostro1014:pvr:rvnDellInc.:rnC2E3C1:rvr:cvnDellInc.:ct8:cvr:
dmi.product.name: Vostro 1014
dmi.sys.vendor: Dell Inc.

[Ara Pulido (ara)]

Jeff, can you please run apport-collect 774592 for this system?

[Jeff Lane  (bladernr)]

Additional info... this seems incredibly common to the Dell systems. All Dells I've tested so far exhibit this behaviour.

The upside is that I finally managed to get wireless turned back on on the Latitude 2120. The downside is that I had to reinstall the OS to do so.

For whatever reason, reinstalling fixed it.

So this tells me that using the hot-key to disable wireless sets a bit somewhere in the OS but from that point on, that bit can't be unset. So that may be a good clue where to start looking to resolve this, and it should resolve this issue across all the dells.

[Jeff Lane  (bladernr)]

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[esodin (jomar)]

I experienced the same problem (one you turn off wifi with hotkey) in Natty on two Dells: Studio XPS 16 and Studio 15 and found that I could turn it back on by uninstalling the Broadcom driver and then reinstalling it again.

[Chris Van Hoof (vanhoof)]

Marc -- In your recent testing of the 1014 have you seen this with the current -proposed kernel?

[Marc Legris (maaarc-deactivatedaccount-deactivatedaccount-deactivatedaccount-deactivatedaccount-deactivatedaccount)]

@Chris
Updated to 2.6.38-9 and the hotkey still kills wireless for good. rfkill shows bluetooth and wlan always being soft blocked.

[Sravan Kumar (sravaniitb)]

Hey Marc and Jeff.

I have noticed that I can get it working earlier by 'rfkill unblock all' but yesterday I have updated the system . And since then I am not able to catch up with Wi Fi even after my earlier trick.

I am a regular user of Wi Fi and this is annoying me a lot on Dell Vostro 1014 with natty.
I hope the issue would be resolved soon . Could you just throw some insights on the same.

[Ara Pulido (ara)]

Assigning back to Chris

[Keng-Yu Lin (lexical)]

The patch is already sent to upstream and ubuntu kernel mailing list (for Natty SRU) for review.

Manoj and I tested and confirmed that this bug is fixed by the kernel debs (http://people.canonical.com/~lexical/bugs/lp772768/)