Ubuntu 24.04.2 LTS - Wireless connection issue, RTL8821CE

Support and Help
1

I have been running Ubuntu 24.04 LTS for a number of months on a PC and laptop without incident. They are both up to date with upgrades. Starting Feb 20, the date version 2 was released, on one of the devices I have started getting this error message when logging in:

Authentication required - Passwords or encryption keys are required to access the wireless network “my network name”.

Sometimes I get a connection and sometimes I do not. I have read that others are having this issue with different drivers. Is there an updated RTL8821CE I could try? I am a simple Ubuntu user, can I get step by step with commands on how to do this? Or can I anticipate Ubuntu will release an update in the very near future? Thank you.

2

First off, you deleted the entire template but left a <!-- at the top. That indicates a comment, so it made all your text invisible. You probably don’t want to do that in the future. :slight_smile:

Secondly, you deleted the entire template. It’s there for a reason: to make sure that we have all the information we need to answer your question. To be fair, it’s a little limited. But we’d need to know:

  1. Your kernel. I’d suggest you use inxi which will give us some other basic system information, too.
  2. Information about your networking hardware. Try lshw -numeric -sanitize -class network.
3

Thank you for fixing this for me. I am new to this Discourse group and thought it was strange I could not see my post. Right now I cannot get a connection on my troubling device but will add the information you requested when I do. Likely tomorrow.

4

This is the kernel and networking info requested by wxl

kevin@kevin-Inspiron-15-3520:~$ inxi
System:
  Host: kevin-Inspiron-15-3520 Kernel: 6.11.0-17-generic arch: x86_64 bits: 64
  Desktop: GNOME v: 46.0 Distro: Ubuntu 24.04.2 LTS (Noble Numbat)

  kevin@kevin-Inspiron-15-3520:~$ sudo lshw -numeric -sanitize -class network
  *-network                 
       description: Wireless interface
       product: RTL8821CE 802.11ac PCIe Wireless Network Adapter [10EC:C821]
       vendor: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. [10EC]
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:01:00.0
       logical name: wlp1s0
       version: 00
       serial: [REMOVED]
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless
       configuration: broadcast=yes driver=rtw_8821ce driverversion=6.11.0-17-generic firmware=N/A latency=0 link=no multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11
       resources: irq:164 ioport:3000(size=256) memory:74000000-7400ffff
  *-network
       description: Ethernet interface
       physical id: f
       bus info: usb@2:1
       logical name: enx00e04c6a0280
       serial: [REMOVED]
       size: 1Gbit/s
       capacity: 1Gbit/s
       capabilities: ethernet physical tp mii 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt 1000bt-fd autonegotiation
       configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=r8152 driverversion=v1.12.13 duplex=full firmware=rtl8153a-4 v2 02/07/20 ip=[REMOVED] link=yes multicast=yes port=MII speed=1Gbit/s

What can I do for this? Thank you.

5

I do not think I am going to get a resolution from this posting, but I have learned at least these things:
1)I have this kernel: Kernel: 6.11.0-17-generic
and this driver: driver=rtw_8821ce driverversion=6.11.0-17-generic.
So I believe this means I have the best driver for the kernel and there is nothing to upgrade or install for a driver.
2)Ubuntu wireless issues are quite common, especially with RealTek drivers. I am grateful this worked with 24.04.1, otherwise I may have suspected it was the hardware on the new laptop, as this is the first Ubuntu installation on this device.
3)Plugging in is not so bad. Maybe a future upgrade will accidentally fix what the dot 2 accidentally broke.

Thank you to everyone who read this.

6

Can you use the Grub menu at boot, choose advanced options and boot one of the 6.8.0 kernels and see if it functions better

1 Like
7

Here’s another valuable piece of information: the PCI ID of that device. This is an unambiguous way of referring to it. I use these for searches with problematic devices.

It’s interesting to note that this is part of two machines that are Ubuntu certified. It would stand to reason that the card itself is also certified.

Judging by your terminal prompt, I’m guessing you have a Dell Inspiron, which is not certified for 24.04. In fact, almost no Dell laptops are. Of the ones there, a couple use Realtek chips, but not that one.

Of course, I’m not sure that those things get re-certified with new kernel updates. I see many updates to rtw88 in the kernel changelogs since Noble was released. And there have been many updates as a whole.

@Jeremy31 suggestion is a good one. The only problem with it is that the latest kernel is the latest kernel for security updates. Not good for long term use. If you’re living on the edge like that, you might be better off trying the proposed kernel. That could be equally problematic and possibly even worse, though. But at least if you try those, you can get some sense as to where the problem lies— and then you can file a bug report so it can get fixed once and for all in the updated kernel.

8

I don’t think Ubuntu desktop users have a choice as I think package linux-generic-hwe-24.04 is installed rather than linux-generic and a lot of users got the 6.11 kernel a couple weeks ago

9

This is really helpful as well as disappointing, but good to know. My laptop is not certified nor is my wifi card certified with 24.04.
I have researched about how to boot into the grub menu, and everything I read suggests grub is for dual boot. This is not dual boot, I installed Ubuntu over Windows. I do not think changing the kernel is the way to go. If the wireless is unreliable and everything else is working I will plug in.
Thank you for your help.

10

Well, not really
Even with a single Ubuntu OS, grub makes it easy to:-

  • Boot Ubuntu using an earlier kernel
  • Boot into Recovery mode
  • Easy access to UEFI settings
1 Like
11

I have a similar issue, but the symptoms are more like this → https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/24-04-2-seems-to-have-broken-bluetooth-device-discovery-eek/55768/11

It’s a realtek card with the same driver as OPs.

12

With respect to the GRUB suggestion, I installed the grub-customizer, and moved kernel 6.8.0-52-generic to the top of the list and restarted. The wireless connection had the same issues, so I moved 6.11.0-17-generic back to the top.
I previously read the posting on the broken bluetooth and I agree with you that they are likely closely related.
Thank you.