Atheros WIFI cannot log into WPA router

[Barry Rueger]

Release: Linux Mint 15 "olivia"
Edition: Cinnamon 64-bit
Dell desktop PC
I am using a D-link PCI Wifi card. Atheros Communications Inc. AR5416 Wireless Network Adapter [AR5008 802.11(a)bgn] (rev 01)

Previously with Mint 13 WIFI worked fine. I recently did a clean install of Mint 15.

The WIFI sees my router (it shows up in all the various Network Manager places).
If I select it it will attempt to connect, will ask for the password.
Instead of connecting it will keep coming back to ask for password.

A USB WIFI key plugged into the same machine can connect with no problem.

NOTE: When I ran Mint 15 off of a USB stick ("live cd") it connected with no problem. The problem only appeared after installing Mint to the hard drive.

I checked out the Mint forums, and there does seem to be a lot of trouble with WIFI on this release, but I found no real solution.

Below is the output from mintwifi.py:

Note: wlan1 is the USB key that I'm currently connecting with. wlan0 is the PCI card which refuses to connect

barry@barry-Inspiron-531 ~ $ /usr/lib/linuxmint/mintWifi/mintWifi.py
-------------------------
* I. scanning WIFI PCI devices...
  -- Atheros Communications Inc. AR5416 Wireless Network Adapter [AR5008 802.11(a)bgn] (rev 01)
      ==> PCI ID = 168c:0023 (rev 01)
-------------------------
* II. querying ndiswrapper...
-------------------------
* III. querying iwconfig...
wlan1 IEEE 802.11bg ESSID:"orange"
          Mode:Managed Frequency:2.447 GHz Access Point: 00:22:B0:BA:18:AD
          Bit Rate=54 Mb/s Tx-Power=20 dBm
          Retry long limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
          Power Management:on
          Link Quality=62/70 Signal level=-48 dBm
          Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:3153 Missed beacon:0

eth0 no wireless extensions.

lo no wireless extensions.

wlan0 IEEE 802.11bgn ESSID:off/any
          Mode:Managed Access Point: Not-Associated Tx-Power=27 dBm
          Retry long limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
          Power Management:off

-------------------------
* IV. querying ifconfig...
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:1a:a0:5e:2a:10
          UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
          inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:65536 Metric:1
          RX packets:97330 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:97330 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:11102686 (11.1 MB) TX bytes:11102686 (11.1 MB)

wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:21:91:01:10:d4
          UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)

wlan1 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:21:29:e6:05:38
          inet addr:192.168.0.196 Bcast:192.168.0.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::221:29ff:fee6:538/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
          RX packets:889424 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:600140 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:1139148377 (1.1 GB) TX bytes:82931315 (82.9 MB)

-------------------------
* V. querying DHCP...
[sudo] password for barry:
^C-------------------------
* VI. querying nslookup google.com...
Server: 127.0.1.1
Address: 127.0.1.1#53

Non-authoritative answer:
Name: google.com
Address: 74.125.227.102
Name: google.com
Address: 74.125.227.103
Name: google.com
Address: 74.125.227.104
Name: google.com
Address: 74.125.227.105
Name: google.com
Address: 74.125.227.110
Name: google.com
Address: 74.125.227.96
Name: google.com
Address: 74.125.227.97
Name: google.com
Address: 74.125.227.98
Name: google.com
Address: 74.125.227.99
Name: google.com
Address: 74.125.227.100
Name: google.com
Address: 74.125.227.101

[Tucx (tucxforever)]

i also have this same issue. however i am determined to find a resolve for it immediately! i have 3 usb wifi nics, and each one has the same issue. Previously I was running LMDE on the same machine and had no issues... so it's definitely a driver / ndiswrapper type of issue. Which is frustrating. (I'm installing Lint 15 Cinnamon on all our office machines... which all use the same wifi dongles.)

ill post back with a solution hopefully soon (uunnlless) :-) you already figured one out? :::listening::: :-D

[Fernando Carlos de Sousa (fernandoanatomia)]

I have an atheros card and I can not connect to wpa enterprise networks. Unfortunately this is the type of network at my job. It worked fine with Linux Mint 14.

[Fernando Carlos de Sousa (fernandoanatomia)]

This workaround worked for me. It is from: https://bugs.launchpad.net/linuxmint/+bug/1187483
Thank you R. E. (remi-48-073e) !!!!

I found a workaround for my network, also working for eduroam.
Here illustrated with eduroam.

1) configure your network properly with the network manager, it will fail to authenticate

2) run the following in order to edit as root
        sudo gedit /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/eduroam
       (replace eduroam by your network)

3) in the editor replace "system-ca-certs=true" by "system-ca-certs=false" (or even just remove the line)

4) reconnect using the network manager, and it should work

I hope this helps.

[Barry Rueger (barry-rueger)]

OK, suddenly the darned thing works. I don't know why. I was about to try the workaround above, but my settings did not include "system-ca-certs=true".

I deleted all existing configuration files, and entered the password when it tried to log in, and it just worked.

At this point I'd suggest:

Navigate to /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/
Open the folder as root
Delete everything inside the folder.
Try setting up the connection again.