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[XOIOWA]

Hi All!

I've been reading this forum since receiving my XO in November, but just now have signed up for an account.  Until now my XO has worked well with my WEP access point at my home.  Today I woke up, booted the XO, and I'm not seeing any access points at all.  There's nothing at all in the neighborhood view (I usually see 3-4 of my neighbors plus the mesh channels).  So, I think it's a problem with wireless being disabled for some reason.

I tried to check the radio status at the terminal using this:
$ sugar-control-panel -g radio

but, I get a series of messages (I don't want to type them all here, so I'll abbreviate)
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/sugar-control-panel", line 87, in <module>
    main ()
  File "/usr/bin/sugar-control-panel", line 74, in main
    method
  File "/usr/share/sugar/shell/controlpanel/control.py", line 313, in print_radio
    print get_radio()
.
.
.
 dbus.exceptionsDBusException: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.ServiceUnknown: The name org.freedesktop.NetworkManager was not provided by any .service files


I am not exactly a linux newbie, I know only enough to be dangerous.  Any help in troubleshooting would be greatly appreciated.  BTW, I'm running build 650, and I really don't want to upgrade yet.  I haven't had any trouble with 650 until today, and I haven't done anything to the system since it was last connecting to wifi. 

Thanks

[XOIOWA]

Replying to my own post:

I tried again today, hoping that an overnight rest would make a difference.  My XO is not showing anything in the neighborhood view.  It seems that wifi is totally not working for some reason.  I have removed the networks.cfg file, as suggested in other posts, but no change.

Anybody willing/able to help me troubleshoot this problem?  I don't know what to check next.

[LaPaglia]

It would help if you could print the actual errors you get when you do the $ sugar-control-panel -g radio. Since its not normal to get information like that knowing what its saying would help the troubleshooting.

[XOIOWA]

Thanks for your response.  I just rebooted, found the same issue, and here is the exact output after doing

$ sugar-control-panel -g radio

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/sugar-control-panel", line 87 in <module>
    main()
  File "/usr/bin/sugar-control-panel", line 74 in main
    method()
  File "/usr/share/sugar/shell/controlpanel/control.py", line 313, in print_radio
    print get_radio()
  File "/usr/share/sugar/shell/controlpanel/control.py", line 302, in get_radio
    proxy = bus.get_object (NM_SERVICE_NAME, NM_SERVICE_PATH)
  File "/usr/lib/python/2.5/site-packages/dbus/proxies.py", line 244, in get_object
    follow_name_owner_changes=follow_name_owner_changes)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/dbus/proxies.py", line 237, in __init__
    self._named_service = conn.activate_name_owner(bus_name)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/dbus/bus.py", line 183 in activate_name_owner
    self.start_service_by_name(bus_name)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/dbus/bus.py", line 281 in start_service_by_name
    'su', (bus_name, flags)))
  File "/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/dbus/connection.py", line 607, in call_blocking
    message, timeout)
dbus.exceptions.DBusException:  org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.ServiceUnknown:  The name org.freedesktop.NetworkManager was not provided by any .service files
$
$

Thanks for looking at this... are there any more diagnostic commands that I could run to help troubleshoot my problem?

[Directive0]

Do these problems with wifi survive a reflash?

[XOIOWA]

Okay, after work today I tried to boot while holding the O game button, to reset my XO to it's factory settings.  I did that twice, both times it told me there was a boot failure, and that it would shut down in 10 seconds, which it did.

So, now I'm looking at the wiki to see how to reflash.  I'll report back when I do that.

[XOIOWA]

Okay, I did reflash.  That was a learning experience in itself.  I discovered that holding the O game button while powering on only works -after- you've upgraded your system.  Since I was still on the 650 build, I could not do that.  So, I downloaded the os650.img file and the fs.zip file and put them on a thumbdrive and did the activated upgrade instructions outlined here:

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Activated_Upgrade#Upgrade_the_Activated_Laptop

Everything worked fine on that, and now I have Wifi back!  Yippie!  I now have a clean build 650, so I'll want to go through and make the few edits that I've done.  I want to turn off the automatic frame, for instance, and get the full abiword library.

I am disappointed that I don't know what the problem was.  Re-installing always seems like a band-aid fix to me.  I'd rather know what caused the problem in the first place, so that I can either fix it, or avoid it.  But, at this point I'm just happy to have my wifi back.

Thanks to those who chimed in on this thread!

[LaPaglia]

I agree about the band-aid but some times you have to cover the cut and not wonder where the sharp edge was.


(Don't ask me My grandfather used to say that) 

[LesleyT]

Having the same issue but mine is surviving a reflash.
Unless what I'm reflashing it from is corrupted. 

*grumble*

[XOIOWA]

Are you running a build newer than 650?

If so, have you tried booting in to the previous install?  To do that, hold down the O game pad button and power on.

If that works, then you'll know if it's a software or hardware problem.  That would be a good start.

[LesleyT]

I've booted from previous installs, new installs, reflashed, rolled back

It's on crack

I even redownloaded the image on my thumb drive, wondering if it was corrupted and reflashed from it.

I would see mesh portals but sometimes no wifi and sometimes wifi for a moment in neighborhood view.  Under my little X, my connections are grayed out with mesh network or "Disconnected" as titles.

help?

[XOIOWA]

Uh, this is beyond me.  I don't really know much about how the wifi works.  Hopefully someone else can step in with practical troubleshooting techniques to isolate the problem.

[LesleyT]

Well, I'm back at my house and it works like it always did.  Hrmm........

Strange.  I forget what I have at home, but school is a WAP.
One of my many reflashes fixed it I guess, but settings are still messed up at school.

Strange strange strange.  There's a ghost in my machine. 

I'll have to wait for Monday to tinker.  Thanks for the help though.

[LesleyT]

Oh, I've been talking to the help volunteers about tracking my other XO and I asked about this because mine did exactly what yours did -- the radio status request returned an error.  Then I reflashed and all of this started.

He said an activity might have corrupted my settings.  hrm...

[rwhe]

Having the same issue but mine is surviving a reflash.
Unless what I'm reflashing it from is corrupted. 

*grumble*

LesleyT, had what sounds like the very same problem with my wife's XO. Reflashing would sometimes help, sometimes not. See this thread:

http://en.forum.laptop.org/viewtopic.php?f=1329&t=154604

An engineer advised me on the #olpc IRC channel that I should type this command twice as root:

/sbin/iwlist eth0 scan

If I didn't see a list of neighborhood access points in text mode the second time I typed it, then I either had a problem with (1) the kernel, (2) the wireless drivers, or (3) the wireless hardware. Since I reflashed multiple times, I had fresh copies of 1 and 2, so 3 (the hardware) had to be at fault.

We're RMAing her XO tonight.

Best wishes, and keep up the good work.