Solved And everything was going so well! Until ... .

[Polliwog]

Still a newbie, still just getting started. And, as the title says, all was going well. Mint Cinnamon installed, updated, various packages installed (or found and then installed), running on my new 1 Gb fiber connection with vpn keeping things pretty private. UNTIL:
Fired up this morning and couldn't connect to the internet. It was working fine Sunday, didn't use the machine Monday. Tuesday morning, crickets.

• Checked connection to the router. It says connected.
• Checked the vpn. It says not connected. Several tries, still not connecting.
• Maybe the vpn crashed and locked the connection and nothing can get out? Exited vpn so the lock (if there) would be removed. Still no internet connection.
• Okay, so it's not the vpn.
• The connection to the router looks quite normal and the connection is automatic and it says connected, but it doesn't go anywhere. (Not part of a local network yet.)
• My connection to the router on a Win10 machine is just fine, with and without the vpn.
• My wife's connection to the router on an iPhone and on an iPad are just fine, with and without the vpn.

Communication to the router is via an app; been there and all looks normal, linux machine is logged as on-line with internet access permitted. Just like other machines.
I've looked at everything I can think of to see if something looks misconfigured in linux; firewall is turned off, network connections all look proper and I've run out of knowledge (and in this part of the world, I have no experience to draw on).
At this point, I'm lost. Can someone help with this? Pretty please?

 

[kc1di]

Is this a wifi connection? give us some info on your system in a terminal type this command and post the output here.

inxi -Fxxzr

If this is Wifi connection give us the output of

rfkill list

 

[z7vl7abxc]

if this is wifi, i also check the output of the command
nmcli radio wifi to see if it is disabled. in addition, this script gathers lots of networking info: https://github.com/UbuntuForums/wireless-info

if you run that script, you may want to check and see if there is any info you want to redact.

 

[KGIII]

The output of mtr or traceroute (which may not be installed) might also be helpful...

Better Network Diagnostics With MTR • Linux Tips

This article will show you how to get better network diagnostics with MTR, a tool called "My Traceroute" combining both traceroute and ping.

linux-tips.us

If neither is installed, we can also try ping linux.org to see how far along your traffic is getting.

If you can connect with your cell phone now's a good time to do it - though you'd run those commands before connecting via tethering your phone. Running them while connected to another network would defeat the purposes.

 

[Condobloke]

which vpn is in use?

Did you reboot after discoinnecting the vpn?

Have you rebooted the router ?

 

[wizardfromoz]

Moving this to Linux Networking.

Good luck

Wizard

 

[Polliwog]

Does the move to Linux Networking mean I'm not a newbie any more? I sure still feel like one.

My apologies for the information deficit: Yes, I'm talking WiFi. And Yes, I've rebooted the router (a couple of times along the way). Sorry for leaving the info gap.

So now, I've run "inxi -Fxxzr," "rfkill list," and "ping linux.org." Results are in the attached .pdf file.

I've not run "traceroute" or the "wireless-info" script because I can't download 'em 'til I get on line. Catch 22.

I did run "mtr," but couldn't copy the result. It showed no response from outside the local machine. The sole response was from 127.0.0.0 and none from my router.

The router continues to be working well with our other (non-linux) machines. Apparently it's not a router problem. And, to repeat myself, the linux machine in issue was on line via that router and working like a charm on Sunday. No clue what changed, as the machine was shut down and untouched until Tuesday morning. And no connection.

And I'm still entirely lost but I did survive my first visit to the command line since DOS and dBase II (many years ago). You guys make it easy. I'll have to start building a vocabulary in BASH.

Thanks, and I'll hope to hear some good ideas.

 

[z7vl7abxc]

ping linux.org
ping: linux.org: Name or service not known

that looks like it could be a dns issue to me since your system can't resolve the website name to a numerical address. on linux mint 20 and 21 xfce when i run the command journalctl -b | grep nameserver, i can see that my nameserver is set to 127.0.0.53#53. mint actually has a program (small script actually) called
dns-fix that will switch your nameserver to google's 8.8.8.8 address.

you might want to wait and see if anyone else also thinks this could be a dns issue. if you don't want to wait, a reboot should reset any changes made by dns-fix.

 

[KGIII]

Does the move to Linux Networking mean I'm not a newbie any more?

It's @wizardfromoz doing some housecleaning, really. We move posts around when they're better suited for another sub-forum. There's often no 'ideal sub-forum', so I aim for 'the most appropriate - except I don't always notice in my haste.

 

[Polliwog]

Thanks, z7vl7abxc. dns-fix did indeed fix the problem and I am now back on line.
I first tried a ping to 8.8.8.8; that worked, so I ran the fix and sure enough, good things come from the forum!
I'm beginning to like it here!!! Now to mark the thread resolved.

fair winds and following seas,
Jim Waldron

 

[z7vl7abxc]

you're welcome. i'm glad that helped but does the fix persist after a shutdown or reboot?

 

[wizardfromoz]

...but does the fix persist after a shutdown or reboot?

If it does, that is as good a time as any to take a Timeshift snapshot, and use the Comments field to write something meaningful like "wifi fixed" - that way if your Timeshift is set up to cull snapshots periodically, you won't lose that one.

Cheers

Wizard

 

[Polliwog]

Fix of DNS is persistent. Did discover that I had to run it again on my wife's profile on the machine, as the fix was apparently limited to my profile and account. Again I could ping an ip address but a DNS name resolution was not happening. Fix was just as effective for her as it was for me.
Since it is specific to a user profile, there may be a clue in here for the cause, although I still have no idea what happened or what caused the DNS to get blocked.
I'll report back if it happens again in hopes of adding to the collective knowledge.
Haven't yet learned about a Timeshift snapshot. Whazzit?

 

[z7vl7abxc]

thank you for reporting back that the fix was persistent, but you had to run it for your wife's profile. that is interesting. i think we would have needed more info from a broken profile to find an exact why. usually a fix and a working system beats needing to find those though

Timeshift is similar to system restore in windows. this is a page from the original developer explaining some of what it does. by default it will exclude any of your personal files since the focus is on system files: https://teejeetech.com/timeshift/

 

[wizardfromoz]

Linux Mint has Timeshift installed by default. You will likely find it under Menu - System.

The distro Linux Lite has a tutorial here

https://www.linuxliteos.com/manual/tutorials.html#timeshift

which is worth a read.

Since June 2022, Timeshift's author, Tony George, has relinquished its future development and maintenance to Linux Mint.

You can also ask me questions about it at my Thread here

https://www.linux.org/threads/timeshift-similar-solutions-safeguard-recover-your-linux.15241/

Wizard