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Since one week ago, my laptop keeps disconnecting randomly from home wifi (we have Virgin Media at home) and then randomly connecting on. But the connecting won't last long. However, when I use the Eduroam at university, there is no such problem.

Below is the system information:

'  *-network                 
   description: Wireless interface
   product: QCA9377 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter
   vendor: Qualcomm Atheros
   physical id: 0
   bus info: pci@0000:01:00.0
   logical name: wlp1s0
   version: 31
   serial: b0:52:16:c3:87:f9
   width: 64 bits
   clock: 33MHz
   capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless
   configuration: broadcast=yes driver=ath10k_pci driverversion=4.15.0-51-generic firmware=WLAN.TF.2.1-00021-QCARMSWP-1 ip=192.168.0.87 latency=0 link=yes multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11
   resources: irq:129 memory:d1000000-d11fffff 

'*-network
   description: Ethernet interface
   product: RTL810xE PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller
   vendor: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.
   physical id: 0
   bus info: pci@0000:02:00.0
   logical name: enp2s0
   version: 07
   serial: 58:8a:5a:18:ef:10
   size: 10Mbit/s
   capacity: 100Mbit/s
   width: 64 bits
   clock: 33MHz
   capabilities: pm msi pciexpress msix vpd bus_master cap_list ethernet physical tp mii 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd autonegotiation
   configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=r8169 driverversion=2.3LK-NAPI duplex=half firmware=rtl8106e-1_0.0.1 06/29/12 latency=0 link=no multicast=yes port=MII speed=10Mbit/s
   resources: irq:17 ioport:e000(size=256) memory:d1204000-d1204fff memory:d1200000-d1203fff

'*-network
   description: Ethernet interface
   physical id: 2
   logical name: docker0
   serial: 02:42:93:89:a7:11
   capabilities: ethernet physical
   configuration: broadcast=yes driver=bridge driverversion=2.3 firmware=N/A ip=172.17.0.1 link=no multicast=yes'

I tried some suggestions, like below, it didn't solve the problem permanently. 

' $ sudo ifconfig wlp1s0 down
  $ sudo iwconfig wlp1s0 power off
  $ sudo ifconfig wlp1s0 up
  $ sudo service network-manager restart'

Or disabled the ipv6, add 8.8.8.8 on ipv4, but none works.

I also followed suggestions from https://askubuntu.com/questions/1030653/wifi-randomly-disconnected-on-ubuntu-18-04-lts, but still didn't solve this issue.

I don't know why this problem only occurs on my home wifi.

Could experts kindly give me some suggestions, please? Thank you.

Amy
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    Try to change your bandwidth setting to 20MHz (or from 5GHz to 2.4GHz) in your router settings. The same problem was reported and solved here. – Freddy Jun 16 '19 at 17:04
  • @Freddy It worked! Solved this problem. Thank you very much! – Amy Jun 18 '19 at 11:08

3 Answers3

12

Finally solved this annoying problem! Thanks for Freddy's reminder and the linked webpage, this issue turned out to be a router setting problem, rather than related with the Ubuntu system.

Just copy the solution here: go to the router setting, change the Channel option from Auto to channel 9. I also disabled the Wifi frequency 5Ghz (also might work by change bandwidth from auto to 20MHz). After did this, my wifi connection works well at home.

I think the reason why I didn't find the right solution at the beginning was I focused my key words at "Ubuntu disconnecting from wifi" which linked me to totally different methods. But I forgot the fact that my computer works well when connecting from Eduroam.

It might be useful for some Ubuntu users (I am not an export) to aware the difference between those wifi randomly disconnecting issues.

Amy
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    Since you're not the only one, it's probably a driver/firmware problem of your QCA9377 wifi card and the router setting is a workaround. It might be resolved by a kernel update, but I don't know if this issue has been fixed yet. – Freddy Jun 18 '19 at 17:09
  • Thank you for posting the solution that worked for you. Next time you're here you can accept it (with the tick mark) to show the issue is resolved. – Chris Davies Oct 04 '19 at 07:27
  • Thanks a lot! It worked for me. – Rakesh Gupta Apr 04 '20 at 16:57
2

What solved the problem for me is installing the correct wireless drivers.

Here are the steps I followed:

  1. Run the following to determine Wireless chipset.

lspci | grep -i Network

It returned the following for me:

02:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Inc. and subsidiaries BCM43224 82.11a/b/g/n (rev 01)

  1. Search for the right driver to install.

sudo apt search wireless > /tmp/x

Found the following relevant entry in /tmp/x:

bcmwl-kernel-source/bionic-updates 6.30.223.271+bdcom-0ubuntu5~18.04.1 amd64 Broadcom 802.11 Linux STA wireless driver source

  1. Now, install the driver as follows:

sudo apt install bcmwl-kernel-source/bionic-updates

[Reference that helped the most: https://quora.com/How-do-I-fix-a-WiFi-problem-in-Ubuntu-18-04 ]

Partha Biswas
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0

Maybe the issue is in the security settings from the router, according to this link: https://www.tp-link.com/us/support/faq/1533/

In the router page, I discovered that the MAC address from my laptop was in a "Blocked DoS Host List", then I cleaned this list. Additionally, I increased the threshold values to 500.

Fabrício Pereira
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