Bug 1359340

Created attachment 1182963 [details]
dmidecode

Description of problem:

The wireless network on my laptop HP Envy 6-1160ez with a Ralink RT3290 network controller does not work. In the menue/network settings the airplane mode is "on" and can not be switched to "off". Attempts to switch the wireless on using rfkill fail and the wireless is still shown as "hard blocked: yes". The problem seems to be known for various laptops (HP, Asus, etc.) and various linux distributions (fedora, ubuntu, archlinux) including numerous releases of the distributions.


Version-Release number of selected components:
Here is a little information on my system:

I run Fedora 24 under EFI-secure mode. In the BIOS/UEFI the following setting are applied:
UEFI: enabled
legacy support: disabled

Here some information

iwconfig

lo        no wireless extensions.

wlo1      IEEE 802.11bgn  ESSID:off/any
          Mode:Managed  Access Point: Not-Associated   Tx-Power=off
          Retry short limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Encryption key:off
          Power Management:off

eno1      no wireless extensions.


lspci -v

...
01:00.2 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 0a)
        Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Device 1896
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 29
        I/O ports at 2000 [size=256]
        Memory at c0404000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=4K]
        Memory at c0400000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=16K]
        Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 3
        Capabilities: [50] MSI: Enable+ Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit+
        Capabilities: [70] Express Endpoint, MSI 01
        Capabilities: [b0] MSI-X: Enable- Count=4 Masked-
        Capabilities: [d0] Vital Product Data
        Capabilities: [100] Advanced Error Reporting
        Capabilities: [160] Device Serial Number 3b-00-00-00-68-4c-e0-00
        Kernel driver in use: r8169
        Kernel modules: r8169

02:00.0 Network controller: Ralink corp. RT3290 Wireless 802.11n 1T/1R PCIe
        Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Ralink RT3290LE 802.11bgn 1x1 Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0 Combo Adapter
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 17
        Memory at c0510000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
        Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 3
        Capabilities: [50] MSI: Enable- Count=1/32 Maskable- 64bit+
        Capabilities: [70] Express Endpoint, MSI 00
        Capabilities: [100] Advanced Error Reporting
        Capabilities: [140] Device Serial Number 00-00-45-60-78-23-94-68
        Kernel driver in use: rt2800pci
        Kernel modules: rt2800pci

02:00.1 Bluetooth: Ralink corp. RT3290 Bluetooth
        Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Ralink RT3290LE 802.11bgn 1x1 Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0 Combo Adapter
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0
        Memory at c0500000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
        Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 3
        Capabilities: [50] MSI: Enable- Count=1/32 Maskable- 64bit+
        Capabilities: [70] Express Endpoint, MSI 00
        Capabilities: [100] Advanced Error Reporting
        Capabilities: [140] Device Serial Number 00-00-46-60-78-23-94-68


1. Fix by menu selection
Selecting in the gnome menu "settings" -> "network".
Then toggle the airplane mode from "on" to "off" does not work. The mode immediately switches back to "on"

2. Fix by rfkill
rfkill shows that the wireless is hard blocked. Run:
rfkill list all
0: phy0: Wireless LAN
        Soft blocked: no
        Hard blocked: yes
Then run:
rfkill unblock all
Unfortunately this does not fix the problem. The device still remains in the status "Hard blocked: yes"

3. Fix by nmcli
nmcli shows that the wireless is disabled. Run:
nmcli radio wifi
disabled
Then run:
nmcli radio wifi on
Unfortunately this also does not fix the probelm. The device  still remains in the status "disabled"

4. Fix by using the hardware button
My laptop does not have a specific hardware button to switch on wireless. There is a button "F12" which shows a wireless symbold and a red light. Unfortunaltey pressing "F12" or pressing "FN + F12" does not give any results.

Analysis Background:
The Ralink RT3290 seems to be a very common wireless hardware in laptops. It has been frequently used in HP-Laptops, Asus-Laptops and others. I first ran into this problem 4 years ago with Fedora 18 and ubuntu 12.10 and have been unable to fix the problem at that time. The bug also seems to be in numerous distributions like Fedora, ubuntu and archlinux. The bug still seems to be unsolved according to many reports and has not been reported to Fedora 21 yet. This bug report tries to summarize the status as of February 2014 and document the bug for Fedora 24. Here are some external references:
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1190467
http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=299388
http://askubuntu.com/questions/459436/ubuntu-14-04-ralink-rt-3290-wireless-lan-hard-blocked
http://askubuntu.com/questions/360589/problems-with-rt3290-card-running-using-rt2800-driver-on-ubuntu-13-04
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=1356895#p1356895

Please find as attachment the output pf:
dmesg
dmidecode

Please let me know if you need further information.
Please let me also know if you experience the same or similar problems. In this case please provide the hardware/software info as shown above. 
Thanks.