Comment 0 for bug 278008

The symptoms I see are very similar to bug 193970 but with a different wireless chipset. I can't tell whether it's the same problem or not, so I'm filing a separate bug as it's easier to merge them than to tear them apart.

If I turn off the (physical) RF kill switch after it has been on (either since boot or after having activated it manually), the LED never turns on and the card doesn't scan:

perseus:[~] sudo iwlist wlan0 scan
wlan0 No scan results

Nothing is shown in dmesg from iwlagn when I turn off the kill switch, but other RF devices in the system change state, so I can see that it's working:

[ 1622.808097] usb 5-1: new full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 3
[ 1622.978959] usb 5-1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
[ 1623.078159] usbcore: registered new interface driver usbserial
[ 1623.079377] usbserial: USB Serial support registered for generic
[ 1623.080048] usbcore: registered new interface driver usbserial_generic
[ 1623.080054] usbserial: USB Serial Driver core
[ 1623.083579] usbserial: USB Serial support registered for Sierra USB modem
[ 1623.084636] sierra 5-1:1.0: Sierra USB modem converter detected
[ 1623.087396] usb 5-1: Sierra USB modem converter now attached to ttyUSB0
[ 1623.088828] usb 5-1: Sierra USB modem converter now attached to ttyUSB1
[ 1623.090216] usb 5-1: Sierra USB modem converter now attached to ttyUSB2
[ 1623.090927] usbcore: registered new interface driver sierra
[ 1623.090931] sierra: USB Driver for Sierra Wireless USB modems: v.1.3.2

Unloading and reloading the module gets it working, i.e. the LED turns on and scanning works:

perseus:[~] sudo modprobe -r iwlagn && sudo modprobe iwlagn
perseus:[~] sudo iwlist wlan0 scan
wlan0 Scan completed :
          Cell 01 - Address: 00:1C:10:A3:02:15
[...lots of networks...]

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: amd64
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 8.10
Package: linux-image-2.6.27-5-generic 2.6.27-5.8 [modified: lib/modules/2.6.27-5-generic/modules.pcimap lib/modules/2.6.27-5-generic/modules.dep lib/modules/2.6.27-5-generic/modules.ieee1394map lib/modules/2.6.27-5-generic/modules.usbmap lib/modules/2.6.27-5-generic/modules.isapnpmap lib/modules/2.6.27-5-generic/modules.inputmap lib/modules/2.6.27-5-generic/modules.seriomap lib/modules/2.6.27-5-generic/modules.alias lib/modules/2.6.27-5-generic/modules.symbols]
ProcCmdLine: root=UUID=305dde78-d20a-4248-aaf4-09447b7c5791 ro quiet splash
ProcEnviron:
 LC_COLLATE=C
 PATH=/home/username/bin:/usr/lib/ccache:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/bin/X11:/sbin:/usr/sbin:/usr/games:/usr/lib/surfraw
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/zsh
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.27-5.8-generic
SourcePackage: linux