Dell laptops have an option for power management in the BIOS setting to control WLAN radio. If enabled, it will sense the connection of the system to a wired network and subsequently disable the selected wireless radios (WLAN and/or WWAN). Upon disconnection from the wired network, the selected wireless radios will be re-enabled.
When Dell docking station (the ethernet is Realtek r8153 USB controller), with runtime PM enabled, is the wired network, WLAN radio won't be re-enabled after unplugging ethernet cable. By checking rfkill, the radio is hard blocked. Disable runtime PM of the r8153 USB device can work around this issue.
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ProblemType: Bug
ApportVersion: 2.20.9-0ubuntu7.9
Architecture: amd64
AudioDevicesInUse:
USER PID ACCESS COMMAND
/dev/snd/controlC0: u 2160 F.... pulseaudio
CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
DistributionChannelDescriptor:
# This is the distribution channel descriptor for the OEM CDs
# For more information see http://wiki.ubuntu.com/DistributionChannelDescriptor
canonical-oem-somerville-bionic-amd64-20190418-59+beaver-osp1-highsparrow+X32
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 18.04
InstallationDate: Installed on 2020-01-10 (54 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 18.04 "Bionic" - Build amd64 LIVE Binary 20190418-12:10
MachineType: Dell Inc. Latitude 9510
Package: linux (not installed)
ProcEnviron:
TERM=xterm-256color
PATH=(custom, no user)
XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
LANG=en_US.UTF-8
SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcFB: 0 inteldrmfb
ProcKernelCmdLine: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-5.0.0-1040-oem-osp1 root=UUID=d12aa9db-fdec-46cc-aefd-77a0c7e61db2 ro thunderbolt.dyndbg=+p quiet splash vt.handoff=1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 5.0.0-1040.45-oem-osp1 5.0.21
RelatedPackageVersions:
linux-restricted-modules-5.0.0-1040-oem-osp1 N/A
linux-backports-modules-5.0.0-1040-oem-osp1 N/A
linux-firmware 1.173.14
Tags: bionic
Uname: Linux 5.0.0-1040-oem-osp1 x86_64
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
UserGroups: adm cdrom dip lpadmin plugdev sambashare sudo
_MarkForUpload: True
dmi.bios.date: 12/24/2019
dmi.bios.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.bios.version: 0.2.6
dmi.board.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.chassis.type: 31
dmi.chassis.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnDellInc.:bvr0.2.6:bd12/24/2019:svnDellInc.:pnLatitude9510:pvr:rvnDellInc.:rn:rvr:cvnDellInc.:ct31:cvr:
dmi.product.family: Latitude
dmi.product.name: Latitude 9510
dmi.product.sku: 0983
dmi.sys.vendor: Dell Inc.
apport information