Ubuntu not connecting to NMEA -> WiFi unit

[pendragon]

I purchased the NMEA to WiFi Yakker from YakBitz about a year ago, and it's working perfectly on Windows 7 - 10 both 64bit since purchase.
It is used to send AIS data to OpenCpn on laptop & tablets

I recently setup a laptop to dual boot Win 7 & Ubuntu 20.04 (64bit)
On that laptop, the yakker works fine in Windows, but not in Ubuntu.
Ubuntu keeps asking for a password and will not connect. I have tried this many times now

I reset the yakker to factory, twice --->Again it connects fine to Windows but never in Ubuntu
I borowed a NMEA fo WiFi unit from a friend. and this works fine on both Windows & Ubuntu
So, I contacted the Yakbitz company for a solution , but Steve (person in charge) cannot help, as they never had this problem
I had quite a jolly time on line, looking for an solution, unfortunately to no avail, as yet.

So I ended up in this forum.
Does anyone have (had) experience or problems with the Yakker running on Ubuntu 20.04 and got a solution?
Thanks in advance for any pointers..

[Emmalina]

Go to your settings in Opencpn and check connections window you should have a serial address and enabled if not you need to find the correct com port !

[pendragon]

Originally Posted by Emmalina

Go to your settings in Opencpn and check connections window you should have a serial address and enabled if not you need to find the correct com port !

I have been using ocpn for many years and am very aware HOW to connect it to WiFi.
The problem is that UBUNTU does not make the WiFi connection to the laptop. It's like it does not remember the pass.

It keeps asking for a password over and over thus it can not connect,
I set the password up in Windows and it works fine.

[PippaB]

There are a couple of things I can suggest, but they are long shots (based on experience with both sides of the connection):

1. Manual key entry - after you have tried to connect once Ubuntu should save the connection information. If using a GUI, go to the network settings (or the WiFi icon if you have one), go to Settings for the SSID in question and modify the configuration, enter the password there rather than when asked. Sometimes works, no idea why.
2. Confirm security type - check in your Windows installation and make sure you have the correct network security type stored in Ubuntu.
3. WiFi version/driver - since it works in Windows you know the hardware can connect, but sometimes the Linux drivers can be a bit more painful. Check the driver config. One thing to look for is whether or not the driver is restricting the WiFi version (b/g/n/...). I’d guess the Yakbitz uses an older, probably b/g chip (specs are hard to come by on their site), some recent drivers won’t go that far back unless specifically told to do so.

Those are all things I’ve seen/found in various installations, don’t know if they will help in your case.

[Lake-Effect]

Your Yakker unit provides a wifi AP for client devices (laptop, tablets, phones) to connect to, to get the NMEA data. If some devices connect to the AP and some don't, the problem is most likely in the client device. So I suspect you have some setting (eg security type) in the Ubuntu wifi that's different from the setting in Windows.

Trying to connect to the Yakker with other client devices (eg android or IOS tablets/phones) will help confirm that the Yakker is ok, and maybe help show what's different about your Ubuntu settings. You can also try connecting to other APs from Ubuntu.

tl;dr: the problem is Ubuntu-related, not the Yakker. More ideas.

[pendragon]

Originally Posted by PippaB

There are a couple of things I can suggest, but they are long shots (based on experience with both sides of the connection):

1. Manual key entry - after you have tried to connect once Ubuntu should save the connection information. If using a GUI, go to the network settings (or the WiFi icon if you have one), go to Settings for the SSID in question and modify the configuration, enter the password there rather than when asked. Sometimes works, no idea why.
2. Confirm security type - check in your Windows installation and make sure you have the correct network security type stored in Ubuntu.
3. WiFi version/driver - since it works in Windows you know the hardware can connect, but sometimes the Linux drivers can be a bit more painful. Check the driver config. One thing to look for is whether or not the driver is restricting the WiFi version (b/g/n/...). I’d guess the Yakbitz uses an older, probably b/g chip (specs are hard to come by on their site), some recent drivers won’t go that far back unless specifically told to do so.

Those are all things I’ve seen/found in various installations, don’t know if they will help in your case.

1)The password was already entered, but i entered it again. It still asks for "Authentication required" So that's not working

2)Security type WPA &WPA2 personal. All settings are identical


3)I am very unfamiliar with ubuntu-> don't know how to find driver info. i'm still learning. No offense, but maybe Linux is not for me, probably because I've been stuck on MS, ever since dos 5 came out in '94

[pendragon]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

Your Yakker unit provides a wifi AP for client devices (laptop, tablets, phones) to connect to, to get the NMEA data. If some devices connect to the AP and some don't, the problem is most likely in the client device. So I suspect you have some setting (eg security type) in the Ubuntu wifi that's different from the setting in Windows.

Trying to connect to the Yakker with other client devices (eg android or IOS tablets/phones) will help confirm that the Yakker is ok, and maybe help show what's different about your Ubuntu settings. You can also try connecting to other APs from Ubuntu.

tl;dr: the problem is Ubuntu-related, not the Yakker. More ideas.

I have a internet connection via wifi also and that works spot on , on both Windows & Ubuntu.

The (security) settings in Ubuntu are identical for both AP's eg ( Router set on AP for internet and Yakker set on AP for AIS data)
In windows I can just switch between them without any problems eg click on one, it disconnects the other and vv.

The yakker also connects to Androids( tablets & phones) without any problems.
I'll now have a look at Your suggestion : More ideas" and will comment later

[pendragon]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

tl;dr: the problem is Ubuntu-related, not the Yakker. More ideas.

I checked out " More ideas " and tried everything they suggest.
All the 'fault' finding leads to nowhere for me. The site refers to refers to refers and i am getting lost
------------
In my original thread I mentioned having borrowed a NMEA to WiFi device from a friend.
I still have this o/b , I tried it again just now. on Win & Ubuntu and it works perfectly, connects no problems.


I opened both units and both utilize the same WiFi module eg ESP8266
https://www.google.com/search?q=esp8...client=gws-wiz


So my guess is that the Yakker WiFi bridge NMEA is somehow not compatible with Ubuntu 20.04 as it is and maybe needs programming to suit.

[Lake-Effect]

Originally Posted by pendragon

So my guess is that the Yakker WiFi bridge NMEA is somehow not compatible with Ubuntu 20.04 as it is and maybe needs programming to suit.

Sorry to hear that there's been no joy yet getting your Ubuntu PC connecting to the yakker. I had the impression from the link I sent that it sometimes took some fiddling or driver changes to get better wifi performance in Ubuntu.

I know the ESP8266 (and have played with them occasionally) and yes, it's possible that the wifi library used by the yakker devs is different than what another dev might choose.

It's hard to say whether Ubunto or Yakker are "wrong" about something in their wifi... but it could be a big effort to find the happiest settings or to find an actual problem. That's the joy of open-source , but some of us don't mind the challenge, when time permits.

Keep reading and plugging away if you can, but it might be most efficient to just buy the brand of device that you know already works, and sell the yakker.

[pendragon]

Thank you for all replies and help.

[Lake-Effect]

One crazy idea... I once had trouble with devices connecting because they didn't like short wifi passwords. Things started working when the password was 8 or more characters. I stuck with letters and numbers. It's so long ago I can't remember the exact situation... possibly a project I worked on with some wifi cameras etc.

Just something to try...

[scargo]

This sound more like your ubuntu station is not able to connect to wifi AP provided by your NMEA Yakker. I know nothing about this device. But I use Ubuntu and opencpn to connect to different devices either serial our through TCP/IP connection. This message is sent from a laptop running Ubuntu and connected to the Interenet through a wifi connection. And I use this laptop anywhere in the world with all kind of different wifi APs.


To help us help you, we need access to your logs to see what is going on when you try to connect.
To do so open a terminal window in your Ubuntu and type:


sudo tail -f /var/log/syslog
and type your password.



All the logs will be displayed on the terminal window
When you're done hit Ctrl-C to stop the command above.
run the following command from the same terminal window
sudo grep -i wifi /var/log/dmesg
These are kernel (wifi card kernel module) messages

If you have access to the logs in the Yakker that would help too.


copy and paste the logs related to the wifi connection here. We may be able to help you then.


Linux is a robust OS but works completely differently from windows. Nothing in Linux can be fixed by a reboot



Good luck.

[pendragon]

Originally Posted by scargo

This sound more like your ubuntu station is not able to connect to wifi AP provided by your NMEA Yakker. I know nothing about this device. But I use Ubuntu and opencpn to connect to different devices either serial our through TCP/IP connection. This message is sent from a laptop running Ubuntu and connected to the Interenet through a wifi connection. And I use this laptop anywhere in the world with all kind of different wifi APs.


To help us help you, we need access to your logs to see what is going on when you try to connect.
To do so open a terminal window in your Ubuntu and type:


sudo tail -f /var/log/syslog
and type your password.



All the logs will be displayed on the terminal window
When you're done hit Ctrl-C to stop the command above.
run the following command from the same terminal window
sudo grep -i wifi /var/log/dmesg
These are kernel (wifi card kernel module) messages

If you have access to the logs in the Yakker that would help too.


copy and paste the logs related to the wifi connection here. We may be able to help you then.


Linux is a robust OS but works completely differently from windows. Nothing in Linux can be fixed by a reboot



Good luck.

I connected to ( wifi )Yakker, but it refused gain. It auto connected again to the internet router

Here are the results of the commands you gave me:





adrian@adrian-T410:~/Desktop$ sudo tail -f /var/log/syslog
[sudo] password for adrian:
Mar 18 09:47:13 adrian-T410 NetworkManager[698]: <info> [1647550033.5784] device (wlp3s0): Activation: successful, device activated.
Mar 18 09:47:13 adrian-T410 systemd-resolved[655]: Using degraded feature set (UDP) for DNS server 192.168.2.1.
Mar 18 09:47:13 adrian-T410 wpa_supplicant[731]: wlp3s0: CTRL-EVENT-SIGNAL-CHANGE above=1 signal=-25 noise=9999 txrate=6500
Mar 18 09:47:14 adrian-T410 NetworkManager[698]: <info> [1647550034.1033] manager: NetworkManager state is now CONNECTED_GLOBAL
Mar 18 09:47:14 adrian-T410 whoopsie[1471]: [09:47:14] The default IPv4 route is: /org/freedesktop/NetworkManager/ActiveConnection/3
Mar 18 09:47:14 adrian-T410 whoopsie[1471]: [09:47:14] Not a paid data plan: /org/freedesktop/NetworkManager/ActiveConnection/3
Mar 18 09:47:14 adrian-T410 whoopsie[1471]: [09:47:14] Found usable connection: /org/freedesktop/NetworkManager/ActiveConnection/3
Mar 18 09:47:16 adrian-T410 whoopsie[1471]: [09:47:16] online
Mar 18 09:47:18 adrian-T410 systemd[840]: Started VTE child process 4627 launched by gnome-terminal-server process 4345.
Mar 18 09:47:24 adrian-T410 systemd[1]: NetworkManager-dispatcher.service: Succeeded.
^C
adrian@adrian-T410:~/Desktop$ sudo grep -i wifi /var/log/dmesg
[ 4.234565] kernel: Intel(R) Wireless WiFi driver for Linux
[ 4.234875] kernel: iwlwifi 0000:03:00.0: can't disable ASPM; OS doesn't have ASPM control
[ 4.236833] kernel: iwlwifi 0000:03:00.0: Direct firmware load for iwlwifi-6000-6.ucode failed with error -2
[ 4.236880] kernel: iwlwifi 0000:03:00.0: Direct firmware load for iwlwifi-6000-5.ucode failed with error -2
[ 4.240336] kernel: iwlwifi 0000:03:00.0: loaded firmware version 9.221.4.1 build 25532 6000-4.ucode op_mode iwldvm
[ 4.342828] kernel: iwlwifi 0000:03:00.0: CONFIG_IWLWIFI_DEBUG disabled
[ 4.342833] kernel: iwlwifi 0000:03:00.0: CONFIG_IWLWIFI_DEBUGFS enabled
[ 4.342835] kernel: iwlwifi 0000:03:00.0: CONFIG_IWLWIFI_DEVICE_TRACING enabled
[ 4.342837] kernel: iwlwifi 0000:03:00.0: Detected Intel(R) Centrino(R) Advanced-N 6200 AGN, REV=0x74
[ 4.660779] kernel: iwlwifi 0000:03:00.0 wlp3s0: renamed from wlan0
[ 9.711552] kernel: iwlwifi 0000:03:00.0: Radio type=0x1-0x3-0x1
[ 9.953991] kernel: iwlwifi 0000:03:00.0: Radio type=0x1-0x3-0x1
adrian@adrian-T410:~/Desktop$

[pendragon]

Originally Posted by scargo

This sound more like your ubuntu station is not able to connect to wifi AP provided by your NMEA Yakker. I know nothing about this device. But I use Ubuntu and opencpn to connect to different devices either serial our through TCP/IP connection. This message is sent from a laptop running Ubuntu and connected to the Interenet through a wifi connection. And I use this laptop anywhere in the world with all kind of different wifi APs.


To help us help you, we need access to your logs to see what is going on when you try to connect.
To do so open a terminal window in your Ubuntu and type:


sudo tail -f /var/log/syslog
and type your password.



All the logs will be displayed on the terminal window
When you're done hit Ctrl-C to stop the command above.
run the following command from the same terminal window
sudo grep -i wifi /var/log/dmesg
These are kernel (wifi card kernel module) messages

If you have access to the logs in the Yakker that would help too.


copy and paste the logs related to the wifi connection here. We may be able to help you then.


Linux is a robust OS but works completely differently from windows. Nothing in Linux can be fixed by a reboot



Good luck.

I ran the second command while the yakker was trying to connect: Result as follows:
drian@adrian-T410:~/Desktop$ sudo grep -i wifi /var/log/dmesg
[ 4.234565] kernel: Intel(R) Wireless WiFi driver for Linux
[ 4.234875] kernel: iwlwifi 0000:03:00.0: can't disable ASPM; OS doesn't have ASPM control
[ 4.236833] kernel: iwlwifi 0000:03:00.0: Direct firmware load for iwlwifi-6000-6.ucode failed with error -2
[ 4.236880] kernel: iwlwifi 0000:03:00.0: Direct firmware load for iwlwifi-6000-5.ucode failed with error -2
[ 4.240336] kernel: iwlwifi 0000:03:00.0: loaded firmware version 9.221.4.1 build 25532 6000-4.ucode op_mode iwldvm
[ 4.342828] kernel: iwlwifi 0000:03:00.0: CONFIG_IWLWIFI_DEBUG disabled
[ 4.342833] kernel: iwlwifi 0000:03:00.0: CONFIG_IWLWIFI_DEBUGFS enabled
[ 4.342835] kernel: iwlwifi 0000:03:00.0: CONFIG_IWLWIFI_DEVICE_TRACING enabled
[ 4.342837] kernel: iwlwifi 0000:03:00.0: Detected Intel(R) Centrino(R) Advanced-N 6200 AGN, REV=0x74
[ 4.660779] kernel: iwlwifi 0000:03:00.0 wlp3s0: renamed from wlan0
[ 9.711552] kernel: iwlwifi 0000:03:00.0: Radio type=0x1-0x3-0x1
[ 9.953991] kernel: iwlwifi 0000:03:00.0: Radio type=0x1-0x3-0x1
adrian@adrian-T410:~/Desktop$ sudo grep -i wifi /var/log/dmesg
[ 4.234565] kernel: Intel(R) Wireless WiFi driver for Linux
[ 4.234875] kernel: iwlwifi 0000:03:00.0: can't disable ASPM; OS doesn't have ASPM control
[ 4.236833] kernel: iwlwifi 0000:03:00.0: Direct firmware load for iwlwifi-6000-6.ucode failed with error -2
[ 4.236880] kernel: iwlwifi 0000:03:00.0: Direct firmware load for iwlwifi-6000-5.ucode failed with error -2
[ 4.240336] kernel: iwlwifi 0000:03:00.0: loaded firmware version 9.221.4.1 build 25532 6000-4.ucode op_mode iwldvm
[ 4.342828] kernel: iwlwifi 0000:03:00.0: CONFIG_IWLWIFI_DEBUG disabled
[ 4.342833] kernel: iwlwifi 0000:03:00.0: CONFIG_IWLWIFI_DEBUGFS enabled
[ 4.342835] kernel: iwlwifi 0000:03:00.0: CONFIG_IWLWIFI_DEVICE_TRACING enabled
[ 4.342837] kernel: iwlwifi 0000:03:00.0: Detected Intel(R) Centrino(R) Advanced-N 6200 AGN, REV=0x74
[ 4.660779] kernel: iwlwifi 0000:03:00.0 wlp3s0: renamed from wlan0
[ 9.711552] kernel: iwlwifi 0000:03:00.0: Radio type=0x1-0x3-0x1
[ 9.953991] kernel: iwlwifi 0000:03:00.0: Radio type=0x1-0x3-0x1
adrian@adrian-T410:~/Desktop$