hard blocked rfkill status of second WiFi adapter is incorrectly handled

[Márton Németh]

Toshiba Satellite C50-B-19U laptop contains a WiFi adapter handled by ath9k kernel driver. This WiFi adapter got disabled somehow and "rfkill list" reports that it is in "Hard blocked: yes" state. (Pressing the WiFi button only changes the "Soft blocked" state.)

I tried to quickly work around this problem by plugging a second WiFi adapter to an USB port. This second WiFi adapter is reconginsed and "rfkill list" reports to that adapter that it is "Hard blocked: no" state. However nm-applet shows for both adapter "Wi-Fi is disabled by hardware switch". The same thing happens with the "nmcli radio" output.

I have done some investigation and found that:
 - if only one WiFi adapter is in the system and it is "Hard blocked: yes" state then "nmcli radio" reports WIFI-HW disabled, that's OK
 - if two WiFi adapters are present in the system and one of them is "Hard blocked: yes" state and the other is "Hard blocked: no" state then "nmcli radio" reports WIFI-HW disabled. Expected would be that only the had blocked WiFi adapter is disabled, the other one which is "Hard blocked: no" shall still work. nm-applet lists the two adapter separately anyway but both seems to reported as "Wi-Fi is disabled by hardware switch" which is not the correct situation in the system
 - if the first WiFi adapter's kernel driver is unloaded then the second WiFi adapter remains in the system only with "Hard blocked: no" state and that adapter starts to work. "nmcli radio" reports that WIFI-HW is enabled.

root@ubuntu:~# lspci -v -d 168c:0036
02:00.0 Network controller: Qualcomm Atheros QCA9565 / AR9565 Wireless Network Adapter (rev 01)
 Subsystem: XAVi Technologies Corp. Device 28a2
 Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 17
 Memory at d0700000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=512K]
 Expansion ROM at d0780000 [disabled] [size=64K]
 Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 2
 Capabilities: [50] MSI: Enable- Count=1/4 Maskable+ 64bit+
 Capabilities: [70] Express Endpoint, MSI 00
 Capabilities: [100] Advanced Error Reporting
 Capabilities: [140] Virtual Channel
 Capabilities: [160] Device Serial Number 00-00-00-00-00-00-00-00
 Kernel driver in use: ath9k

root@ubuntu:~# rfkill list
1: phy0: Wireless LAN
 Soft blocked: no
 Hard blocked: yes
root@ubuntu:~# nmcli radio
WIFI-HW WIFI WWAN-HW WWAN
disabled disabled enabled enabled
root@ubuntu:~#
root@ubuntu:~# # plug second Wifi adapter to USB port
root@ubuntu:~#
root@ubuntu:~# rfkill list
1: phy0: Wireless LAN
 Soft blocked: no
 Hard blocked: yes
4: phy2: Wireless LAN
 Soft blocked: no
 Hard blocked: no
root@ubuntu:~# nmcli radio
WIFI-HW WIFI WWAN-HW WWAN
disabled disabled enabled enabled
root@ubuntu:~#
root@ubuntu:~#
root@ubuntu:~# # remove the first wifi adapter's driver which is hardware blocked
root@ubuntu:~#
root@ubuntu:~# rmmod ath9k
root@ubuntu:~#
(nm-applet:14506): GLib-CRITICAL **: Source ID 116 was not found when attempting to remove it

root@ubuntu:~# rfkill list
4: phy2: Wireless LAN
 Soft blocked: no
 Hard blocked: no
root@ubuntu:~# nmcli radio
WIFI-HW WIFI WWAN-HW WWAN
enabled enabled enabled enabled
root@ubuntu:~#
root@ubuntu:~#
root@ubuntu:~# # load the first wifi adapter's driver again
root@ubuntu:~#
root@ubuntu:~# modprobe ath9k
root@ubuntu:~#
root@ubuntu:~# rfkill list
4: phy2: Wireless LAN
 Soft blocked: no
 Hard blocked: no
5: phy3: Wireless LAN
 Soft blocked: no
 Hard blocked: yes
root@ubuntu:~# nmcli radio
WIFI-HW WIFI WWAN-HW WWAN
disabled disabled enabled enabled
root@ubuntu:~#

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 15.10
Package: network-manager 1.0.4-0ubuntu5.2
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.2.0-22.27-generic 4.2.6
Uname: Linux 4.2.0-22-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.19.1-0ubuntu5
Architecture: amd64
Date: Sun Dec 20 14:48:19 2015
IpRoute:
 default via 192.168.1.254 dev enp1s0 proto static metric 100
 169.254.0.0/16 dev enp1s0 scope link metric 1000
 192.168.1.0/24 dev enp1s0 proto kernel scope link src 192.168.1.67 metric 100
NetworkManager.state:
 [main]
 NetworkingEnabled=true
 WirelessEnabled=true
 WWANEnabled=true
 WimaxEnabled=true
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=hu
 TERM=xterm-256color
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: network-manager
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
nmcli-con:
 NAME UUID TYPE TIMESTAMP TIMESTAMP-REAL AUTOCONNECT AUTOCONNECT-PRIORITY READONLY DBUS-PATH ACTIVE DEVICE STATE ACTIVE-PATH
 Ercsi b36e1b3f-c748-49d0-9924-be19ff10ebf0 802-11-wireless 1450571599 Sun Dec 20 01:33:19 2015 no 0 no /org/freedesktop/NetworkManager/Settings/1 no -- -- --
 Wired connection 1 7b091e02-6558-4bc7-8aee-544ec8248218 802-3-ethernet 1450619269 Sun Dec 20 14:47:49 2015 yes 0 no /org/freedesktop/NetworkManager/Settings/0 yes enp1s0 activated /org/freedesktop/NetworkManager/ActiveConnection/0
nmcli-dev:
 DEVICE TYPE STATE DBUS-PATH CONNECTION CON-UUID CON-PATH
 enp1s0 ethernet connected /org/freedesktop/NetworkManager/Devices/0 Wired connection 1 7b091e02-6558-4bc7-8aee-544ec8248218 /org/freedesktop/NetworkManager/ActiveConnection/0
 wlp2s0 wifi unavailable /org/freedesktop/NetworkManager/Devices/5 -- -- --
 wlx001f1f3afe46 wifi unavailable /org/freedesktop/NetworkManager/Devices/4 -- -- --
 lo loopback unmanaged /org/freedesktop/NetworkManager/Devices/1 -- -- --
nmcli-nm: Error: command ['nmcli', '-f', 'all', 'nm'] failed with exit code 2: Error: Object 'nm' is unknown, try 'nmcli help'.

[Márton Németh (nm127-freemail)]

As a side note: after reading a lot of different forum topics I found the following method how to change "Hard blocked: yes" state to "Hard blocked: no" state of the "rfkill list" output.

On Toshiba Satellite C50-B-19U laptop, start from powered off state. Laptop batter can remain in the laptop (it is not removeable anyway easily in case of this model). AC adapter can remain plugged. Push the power button and keep it pressed. The laptop will not power up until power button is held pushed. After about 10 seconds the white LED showing that the AC adapter is connected properly is goes off and blinks once. After this the white LED is on again. The power button was kept pushed until 30 seconds is elapsed (but I'm not sure if it is needed at all, the blink of the white LED seems to be a good feedback.) When the power button is released the laptop keeps turned off. Pushing the power button again shortly starts the laptop and the following BIOS message appears:

**** RTC battery is low ****
Press Enter to set Date/Time.
[Enter]

After this BIOS Setup appears ("TOSHIBA Setup Utility") and System Time starts from 00:00:00, System Date starts from 01/01/2014. Set the time and date manually and then boot Ubuntu. The "rfkill list" shows now "Hard blocked: no"

root@ubuntu:~# rfkill list
1: phy0: Wireless LAN
 Soft blocked: no
 Hard blocked: no
root@ubuntu:~# root@csuka-ubuntu:~# rfkill list
1: phy0: Wireless LAN
 Soft blocked: no
 Hard blocked: no
root@ubuntu:~#

I don't know, however, how to reproduce the original state of this bug report: how to enable "Hard blocked: yes" state again on the internal WiFi adapter.