Solve Sudden Failure to Recognize Wired/WiFi

[3dski7059]

I’ve had issues where my 24.04 system suddenly failed to detect any available networks. I started my system early in the day and performed a normal shutdown, but any subsequent restart would fail to recognize my available networks.

If you know hardware and configurations are unlikely problems, because your network was available and working, you may want to skip those investigations and reinstall your kernel instead:

1. Determine your kernel version with uname -r (save this version number)
2. sudo apt install --reinstall linux-generic
3. sudo apt install linux-modules-extra--generic
4. restart

If this works, you will have saved hours of time digging elsewhere. If this doesn’t solve your problem, you can begin troubleshooting to determine if you need to solve a hardware, driver, or configuration issue.

[ian-weisser]

FYI: We do already have a good, easy, step-by-step troubleshooting guide for network problems.
We do welcome suggestions to improve it.

Network Connection Troubleshooting

Network Connection Troubleshooting What to add to your support question Step 1: Check for System Updates When troubleshooting network connections, it’s important that your system is fully updated if possible. This fixes many problems. Using a working internet connection, Open a terminal (CTRL+ALT+T) and run: sudo apt update sudo apt full-upgrade Reboot if prompted to do so. Test your connection. Step 2: Install diagnotic tools There are two tools: A script to gather information about yo…

You can also reach it from “start here” on the main page:

[guiverc]

I’ll give an example of a problem in what was written

@3dski7059

I’ve had issues where my 24.04 system

You list the release (24.04) but don’t actually specify product (Server, Desktop, or flavor), which can matter as they do have different defaults.

@3dski7059

1. Determine your kernel version with uname -r (save this version number)
2. sudo apt install --reinstall linux-generic

At this point the product does matter, you start by having a user look at what kernel is running (ie. uname -r), but make no allowance for what is seen there.

If the user was running Ubuntu 24.04 LTS Desktop for example; the linux-generic package will NOT be installed, and a quick look at a manifest for what is included on the 24.04.3 ISO can confirm this

The Ubuntu 24.04 LTS Desktop ISOs include the HWE kernel stack; ie. 6.14 kernel represented by the line

linux-generic-hwe-24.04	6.14.0-27.27~24.04.1

in the manifest, ie. package linux-generic-hwe-24.04 and NOT linux-generic is expected for desktop users, and flavor uses who installed with the .2 or later point release ISO.

( FYI: The linux-generic package will install, depending on architecture either of the following

linux-generic | 6.8.0-84.84            | noble-security  | amd64, arm64, armhf, ppc64el, s390x
linux-generic | 6.14.0-32.32.1~24.04.1 | noble-security  | riscv64

)

Whilst both HWE & GA kernel stacks can co-exist on the same install if only open-source kernel modules are used; many closed-source kernel modules will prevent this, and your text makes no allowance for users who may have problems with your instructions due to this fact.

In fact what you have implies the same kernel will be re-install (--reinstall) when for Desktop (and many flavor) users it’ll install an additional kernel stack/package, which can add complexity to their system.

@3dski7059

sudo apt install linux-modules-extra–generic

The next line refers to a package that doesn’t even exist for noble (24.04), or other supported releases either.

I fear that what you wrote, whilst attempting to help users, due to incompleteness and inaccuracies may actually make the problem more complex & difficult for a good number of them.