More issues with Fedora 22 and BCM43227 wireless adapter

I upgraded my quad-core Acer laptop to Fedora 22 (scratch install, I don't trust fedup and because OS/2 was such a pain) and of course, the Broadcom wireless adapter on my laptop would not work.

I did a lot of Googling on this one but did not find anything that solve my problem.  I checked dmesg and noticed messages about not being able to find b43-open/ucode30_mimo.fw file.  I noticed that /etc/modprobe.d/ files did not have any blacklisting for the b43 driver.  I did notice that /usr/lib/modprobe.d/broadcom-wl-blacklist.conf did contain blacklisting for b43 drivers.  This got me to thinking about why broadcom-wl package is installed.

I looked at the files in the broadcom-wl package
/usr/share/doc/broadcom-wl/README_6.30.223.248.txt made reference to instructions on how the package is built.  I ran the following command to see what was in the directory:

ls /lib/modules/`uname -r`/build

I noticed that the directory was empty.  When I ran the following command:

ls /lib/modules/`uname -r`

I notived the build directory was a symbolic link to the kernel headers.  This link showed up red in my terminator session which I knew right away kernel-devel package was not installed.

I ran the following 2 commands and without rebooting, the NetworkManger applet showed my BCM43227 correctly.

sudo dnf install kernel-devel
sudo dnf reinstall akmod-wl
sudo dnf reinstall broadcom-wl

I am not sure the reinstall of the akmod-wl the is needed but the sequence seemed to get the wireless device working.

I tried reinstalling broadcom-wl and akmod-wl before installing the kernel-devel package. There were no errors.  This might be a bug in one of thw *-wl package prerequisites.  Not sure I want to open a bugzilla or not.

Now I can call it a night!  Only took me 90 minutes to figure out.

Using XFCE4 on Fedora 21

I recently took my Walmart Red Acer and added a 256GB SSD drive at a cost of $109.  The result was an incredible increase in performance.  Boot time when from about 1.5 minutes or more to right around 30 seconds.  Applications pretty much pop up almost immediately and my colleagues at work were impressed.

I was using Gnome-shell as my desktop but I got tired of all the mousing.  There were a few performance issues that I think were related to Gnome-shell so I switched to my favorite XFCE.  I was disappointed to learn the bluetooth applet was no longer supported.  The solution was to install the bluedevil-autostart package.  This added a startup that gave me a bluetooth icon in the notification icon tray of XFCE.  While I need to manually turn on the bluetooth device using the Acer touchpad (I grew up with a ThinkPad so a touchpad is a challenge for me).  I am sure there is a way to automate the powering on of bluetooth.  I think bluetoothctl is the right place to start.

One more thing...  While I was switching to XFCE in Fedora 21 as my default workspace, I also switched from gdm to lightdm as my desktop manager.  The process for doing this is much similar now.  All I had to do was disable gdm and enable lightdm via systemctl and reboot my laptop.  Here are the commands I used just to be sure:

sudo systemctl disable gdm
sudo systemctl enable lightdm
sudo reboot

Beware of changing the background at the lightdm signon page.  The image mush have an alpha channel in the image.  After some Googling, the magic is to run this command to make sure it has the alpha channel:

 convert wallpaper.jpg wallpaper-with-alpha-channel.jpg

I copied the wallpaper-with-alpha-channel.jpg to /usr/share/backgrounds as root user just to rule out any permissions issues.  The background= line in /etc/lightdm/lightdm-gtk-greeter.conf need to be updated with this new file.

My Walmart Red Acer is now a much faster machine.

How I fixed Broadcom BCM4318 wireless on Elementary OS Linux

I came across an article on the Internet describing the latest version of Elementary OS (based on Ubuntu).  It looked like it would be nice to try on my Dell Inspiron 1300 laptop (Pentium M, 2GB memory, 250GB HDD).

I first tried the Additional Drivers in the Settings app.  Unfortunately, this only caused an error during install and when I tried to fix it with apt-get --configure -a, the result was a kernel panic.

Here is a link to the web site I used  here to fix this problem.  Seems to work after rebooting.  I do not know if I will have to re-install after every kernel update or not.  I do not think that will be necessary.

Here is a quick summary of the solution:

To fix the problem run the following commands:$ sudo apt-get install b43-fwcutter$ wget http://mirror2.openwrt.org/sources/broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5.tar.bz2$ tar xf broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5.tar.bz2 $ cd broadcom-wl-4.150.10.5/driver/$ sudo b43-fwcutter -w /lib/firmware/ wl_apsta_mimo.o$ sudo modprobe b43$ sudo echo "b43" >> /etc/modules

Deleting old kernels on Fedora/Red Hat/CentOS

Reference: http://www.if-not-true-then-false.com/2012/delete-remove-old-kernels-on-fedora-centos-red-hat-rhel/

Edit /etc/yum.conf and change/add the following line:

    installonly_limit=2

Install yum-utils:

    sudo yum -y install yum-utils

Run command to reduce total kernels to 2:

   package-cleanup --oldkernels --count=2

Just in case, re-build grub2 config file:

   sudo grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg

Using fiirewall-cmd on Fedora 21 and Red Hat 7

I ran into a situation today where I had to open ports on the fireall on my Acer Aspire One that is running Fedora 21.  I used the firewall GUI but wanted to learn how to do this via the command line via firewall-cmd.  I found the following post on StackOverflow. I had to run the --reload for any changes to take affect.


Here are a few commands I used:

 ZZ=$(sudo firewall-cmd --get-zones); for Z in $ZZ; do echo -n "<Z=${Z}> ";firewall-cmd --zone=$Z --query-port=21/tcp; done

sudo firewall-cmd --get-zones

sudo firewall-cmd --zone=internal --add-port=21/tcp --permanent

sudo firewall-cmd --reload

Solved: Mono output to Bluetooth speaker on Fedora 21

I purchased a Jam Rewind bluetooth speaker over a month ago (November 2014?).  It works great with my Samsung Galaxy S4.  The speaker works great whenever I attach it to my 2 Android tablets.  I have not used it on either of my 2 laptops that have Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 nor my Lenovo IdeaTab Lynx K3011 tablet but I am sure it will sound great there also.

My two Acer laptops that run Windows (7 & 8.1) have Fedora 21 installed on each of them.  When I pair the Jam Rewind speaker to them, the resulting output is terrible.  I did some checking with the PulseAudio Volume Control and I found out that the Jam Rewind was using mono profile.

I did some Googling and determined that I needed an A2DP profile for the device.  I did more Googling and came  across an Ask Ubuntu post on StackExchange had a configuration option on PulseAudio Volume control.  I checked and on my Fedora 21 PulseAudio Volume Control there was a tab for selecting different profiles for the Jam Rewind:

Selecting the High Fidelity Playback (A2DP Sink) the sound out of the Jam Rewind is exceptional.   I was almost ready to give up on this one.  Good thing I don't give up too easy.

Phone calls stopped after first call: Samsung Galaxy S4

Today, I had 5 meetings at work.  I normally use my work issued Samsung Galaxy S4 and my Plantronics bluetooth headset with all my conference calls.  This has worked great for the past couple of years but today I noticed that after my first call, I when I dialed my next call, I did not hear the conference call lady ask me for my conference code.  This seemed strange.  I called my wifes phone but did not hear any ringing on my end.  My wife stopped in my office awhile later and said she saw I called.

I rebooted my cell phone (power off then physically powered it on, never trusted reboot but on the S4 it appears reboot does the same thing) and I was able to connect to my next call using my bluetooth headset.  I thought problem solved!  Nope.  The next call same symptoms, no ring or conference call-in lady's voice.  I suspect if I called my wife she would answer and not hear me.  Again, a reboot of the phone fixed the problem.

I did some experimenting and discovered that as long as I did not use the bluetooth headset, my calls would work.  Once I used the bluetooth headset for a call, that disabled my voice and microphone from the bluetooth headset AND from my phone (I disconnected the headset and still had the same problem).

Removing the battery, SIM card and SD card and replacing them did not solve the problem.  Calls worked fine until I connected the bluetooth headset and made a call. After that, any call, with or without the headset failed.

Googling for answers showed some promise.  One solution was to TURN OFF Google Drive.  I did that and even rebooted the phone. Same problem.

The solution?  Turn off the "OK Google" feature.  I recall that over the weekend, I disabled Google Now function and I think I enabled "OK Google" on all pages.  There was a reference to "OK, Google" causing this problem when I was Googling.  I had to reboot the phone for the "OK, Google" to be disabled and to be able to make calls with the bluetooth headset.

I'll probably keep "OK, Google" disabled just like I disabled "Google Now".  They are neat features but I don't really use them all that much.

How I got Plugable Dock working with Fedora 20 and Lenovo W520 laptop

I purchased a Plugable UD-160-A USB 2.0 Universal Docking Station a couple of years ago.  I use this with my Lenovo W520 laptop to avoid having to connect a keyboard, mouse, ethernet and external set of speakers.

This configuration worked fine when I ran Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.5 on my Lenovo W520.  I since switched to Fedora 20 on both my W520 and my W510 laptops.  I heard that Fedora 20 worked better with Plugable but that was not my case. 

My keyboard worked when I booted my laptop (I must use LUKs encrpytion so I must enter a password at each boot) but when I got my login screen (lightdm), the keyboard and mouse were not working and I tried searching and gave up on a solution until yesterday.  The lspci command showed my keyboard, mouse, ethernet adapter and audio sound device built-in into the Plugable device.

I found this post in on the Plugable website that contained a simple udev rule that needed to be commented out and the computer rebooted.  I applied the change and my keyboard, mouse and ethernet work.  I am assuming the speaker also works.

The solution was to to edit /lib/udev/rules.d/71-seat.rules as root user and comment the following line (second line actually):

# 'Plugable' USB hub, sound, network, graphics adapter
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="2230", ATTR{idProduct}=="000[13]", ENV{ID_AUTOSEAT}="1"

I am so happy that I don't have to plug so 6 cables into my Lenovo W520 laptop anymore when I am at home.

Custom wallpaper on Xubuntu 14.04

I am a big fan of XFCE.  So much so, it is my desktop of choice on most Linux desktops (servers, if they are mine).  I have two AcerOne laptops that have not the fastest hardware (one has 8GB memory but the poor AMD C70 dual core is not that fast) so I decided to update them to Xubuntu 14.04.  One of the things I like to do is customize the wallpaper.  I gave up on the AcerOne with the AMD C70 but the other one I finally made it a priority to figure out why I could not select my own wallpapper.

Here is what the desktop settings I get when I navigate to my wallpaper directory (~/Pictures/wallpaper):


Notice that all the jpeg files are greyed out and I cannot select one.

This post in the UbuntuForums had the solution but I did not understand the wording of the following solution at first:

It works here. Yes in Desktop settings the individual pictures are greyed out , but if you click "Open" all the pictures in the parent folder will be displayed in the desktop settings app's window, then just choose the wallpaper you want by clicking. So, you have to choose a folder instead of a picture in the dialogue, then choose the picture only after you have picked a folder.
Note the folder in the screenshot is "Pictures" rather than "Backdrops". I only have one picture so only one is displayed. I guess you should put all the wallpapers in one folder then.
Well I guess that is not very intuitive.

The solution of course is navigate to the directory ABOVE the directory that contains the image files and select the directory.

Instead of double-clicking press the Open button.  This will populate the thumbnails with the files.

This appears to be a usability feature that did not quite understand.  Too bad the developers do not support selecting individual files.   I have been using XFCE for quite some time and recall this working before.  Oh well, lesson learned.

Installing Xubuntu 14.02 on AcerOne model A0751H

I have a number of laptops.  While the Dell Inspiron 1300 is my favorite,  I just got back an AcerOne netbook (model A0751) from my daughter who had been running Windows XP on it.  Of course, I did not want to keep using Windows XP so I decided it was time to wipe it clean and install Linux on it.

I chose Xubuntu 14.02 because it looked so nice on the Dell Inspiron 1300 laptop I thought it was worth a try.  My only hesitation was the AcerOne has a strange Intel integrated graphics chip that goes by GMA500 or sometimes referred to as Poulsbo.  I recall installing Ubuntu previously on this netbook and it was a pain.  This time I did some research.

Booting the Xubuntu 14.02 Live DVD ends up in a funky graphics mode.  The entire display is scrunched up into 1/2 the screen size and it is somewhat distorted.  You can make out the desktop and the mouse is visible but installing from this is not good.  The solution I found was very simple:  at the boot screen for the Xubuntu 14.02 Live DVD, press the e key to add the following two additional boot parameters:

                 console=tty1 mem=986mb

I put these right after the boot parameters: quiet splash

The first screen will appear without any problems and all will be good.  These additional parameters will be included in the installation so there is no need to fix them (I do not recall exactly but it would not be hard to boot from hard disk and enter the parameters).

The only other problem I had was when I was listening to internet radio via VLC.  The audio was real choppy.  The solution to this problem is to add the following two lines into the file /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf at the bottom:

         options snd-hda-intel model=generic
        options snd-hda-intel position_fix=1

A reboot is needed to make this fix work and VLC is no longer choppy.

Fixing bluetooth on Dell 1300 laptop running Xubuntu 14.01

Last week I got tired of running the XFCE spin of Fedora 20 on my Dell Inspiron 1300 laptop (Pentium M, 2GB memory).  This is my favorite laptop because I like the solid keyboard.  It runs Linux and it is real snappy.

The XFCE spin of Fedora 20 installed without any need for tweaking the OS.  Unfortunately, Xubuntu 14.02 needed some help.  The Broadcom Corporation BCM4318 [AirForce One 54g] 802.11g Wireless LAN Controller was not recognized at first.  The cause of this was it was blacklisted in the /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf file.  The following line was commented out and a reboot made the wireless work as expected.

# blacklist bcm43xx

The second problem that needed to be fixed was getting the USB bluetooth to connect to a paired device.  This proved to be a bit more work to figure out but the combination of the following three items resulted in being able to connect to a paired device.

1. Install pulseaudio-module-bluetooth package.
   
2. Replace the contents of  /etc/bluetooth/audio.conf with:
   
   [General]Enable=Source,Media
   Disable=Socket
   [Headset]
   HFP=false
   MaxConnected=1
   FastConnectable=false
   [A2DP]
   SBCSources=1
   MPEG12Sources=0
   
3. Every boot I must run the following command:
   
   sudo pactl load-module module-bluetooth-discover
   
   

Fedora 20 update broke BCM43227 wireless on Acer laptop

I have an Acer laptop with an AMD Quad-Core processor and a Broadcom Corporation BCM43227 802.11b/g/n wireless adapter.  I had not performed updates for a while so tonight, I ran a manual update and a new kernel and lots of other packages got installed (over 100 for sure).  A reboot of my laptop and subsequent login found me with no wireless.

To make a long story short, I did some Googling on my cell phone and noticed a number of posts about having to install package akmod-wl.  The posts indicated that if rpmfusion was installed, this package should fix it.  Installing and a reboot was all that I needed to get wireless back and running.

This is one of those cases where using additional repositories might get you into trouble.   Hope this helps someone else and hope I don't need to use it again.

Configuring wake-up-on-lan on Red Hat

I have a T61 laptop in my office that I use for the following reasons:

1. have access to remotely because it is running the IBM Open Client and in case my laptop running Fedora 20 dies, I still have another alternative.  
2. When people have questions about IBM Open Client I have an place to go.
3. I know I can put IBM Open Client in a KVM but what if my laptop dies?
4. Backup my IBM Notes mail via replication.

Having this computer running full time does not make sense.  I have figured out how to set up the Wake-On-Lan feature on a Windows 7 server at home and it works very well.  The remainder of this blog post describes how I configured the Lenovo T61 running IBM Open Client (RHEL 6.5) to support Wake-On-Lan, a CLI command to put the T61 into suspend state and how to wake up the T61 from a remote server.

Here is a web page that describes how to install and configure WOL for Red Hat. 

The summary of steps (T61):

1. Make sure ethtool is installed: sudo yum install ethtool
2. Write down the interface hardware address (mac address):  Here is a sample of the ifconfig command and associated output.  The HW address is highlighted.

   # ifconfig eth0 eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:1B:FC:80:27:17             inet addr:9.10.87.237  Bcast:9.10.87.255  Mask:255.255.255.0           inet6 addr: fe80::21b:fcff:fe80:2717/64 Scope:Link           UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1           RX packets:110770824 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0           TX packets:215059219 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0           collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000           RX bytes:10476527981 (9.7 GiB)  TX bytes:321033506529 (298.9 GiB)           Interrupt:16

   
   
3. Verify wake-on-lan is enabled: sudo ethtool eth0.  You should see a value of g in one of the fields from ethtool.  If you do not, use the URL above to fix it.
4. To force server to go into suspend mode: sudo pm-suspend

Note: pm-suspend will hang a terminal ssh session.  I tried doing  "pm-suspend;exit" but that still hung my ssh terminal session.  Perhaps "pm-suspend &; exit" might work better.  Not sure.

From a remote server (not the T61 silly, it should be suspended):

1. The remote server must be on the same IP subnet.
2. Make sure ether-wake command is insalled: sudo yum -y install net-tools
3. Using the hardware address written down from step 2 in the previuos summary, send a wake-up message to the T61: ether-wake -i eth0  00:1B:FC:80:27:17
4. Wait approximately a minute for the T61 RHEL server to complete resuming from suspend mode.  Use ping to verify connection and if ping is successful, ssh or any other remote operation should be operational. 

Some notes on KDE4 in Fedora 19

I finally found some time to play with installing KDE4 themes in Fedora 19.  I was using my normal userid kurtis and was using the Login settings from the System Settings app.  This Login settings app would let me view themes on a server but when I clicked the install button, no error message or sudo password prompt would appear but when I went back to enable the theme, it was not there.  After doing some Google searching, I learned that in order to install themes, you must sign into KDE as root user.  The themes will download and install plus you can then use them.

I also discovered where the themes are stored.  The path is:

/usr/share/kde4/apps/kdm/themes

Thanks all for now. It's getting late and my eyes are getting very heavy...

How to: Flash player on google-chrome-stable and Fedora 19

I upgraded my old AMD single core system to Fedora 19 via fedup a couple of days ago.  The AMD system was running a fresh install of Fedora 18 and I did not have the flash player working.  Of course, the Fedora 19 upgrade did not give me a flash player either.  I tried a couple of web sites and got the following to work:

1. Installed autoten
2. Ran autoten from the command line (prompts for root password, nice!) and uninstalled previously installed codedec's and anything else it said was installed.  I noticed that Calligra and VLC got removed but that's OK for now.
3. Rebooted system (probably not needed).
4. Rand autoten again and installed codedecs and flash player (there were a lot of packages not found but it must have installed enough packages for VLC and flash player to work).
5. Tried viewing video in google-chrome-stable and got the error about unable to load plugin.
6. Did more Googling and tried a few things.  The one that worked was to delete .config/google-chrome directory in my home directory.
7. After running this, videos now worked from YouTube!
   

Note: Deleting the directory .config/google-chrome caused me to loose all my configuration.  I have Google synch activated so this was not a real problem.

Using x86 Android VM instead of ADT emulator

I have been trying to learn how to develop Android applications in my free time.  I have started the activity many times but never got very far each time.  One of the reasons is how slow it is to load the Android Developer Toolkit device emulator.  It seems to take forever to load and just as long to test the program.

I recently ran into a project called AndroVM (I think it now is a commercial product so I don't know if you can still get it for free).  This contains an Android x86 virtual machine that runs Android 4.1 (Jelly-Bean?). It runs real fast and nearly any application you can download from the Google Play Store works in this environment.  

The AndroVM is to be used with Oracle's VirtualBox free software.  There are instructions on how to install it and here they are <insert URL here>.  

In order to use the AndroVM you must start it and the Eclipse ADT.  The order is not important.  What is important is determining the IP address of the Android VM and connecting it to the ADT.  This is done by installing the Terminal Emulator from the Google Play Store.  This gives you a command line interface to the Android OS.  The command netcfg will show the IP address you need.  Here is an example:

The IP address of eth1 (this is the ethernet port of the NAT'd address) and this is the one we need to run a command in a Linux terminal.  I am not sure why a Bridged and a NAT'd ethernet devices are needed but both are for some reason otherwise the virtual machine is unable to connect to anything.

Open up a Linux terminal and switch to the sdk/platform-tools sub-directory of the location the ADT bundle file was uncompressed into.  Run the following command to connect the Eclipse ADT to the AndroVM device:

Now all you need to do is run your Android application from the Eclipse ADT and it should load and run in the AndroVM instance.  I am impressed on how fast apps load and run in the virtual machine.  So much faster than the ADT emulator.

Here are some other adb commands that I need to investigate:

adb shell

adb kill-server

July 8, 2013: Here is a where you can download Android 4.2:

https://code.google.com/p/android-x86/downloads/list

Here is a web site that has some directions on how to install under VirtualBox:

http://xmodulo.com/2013/05/how-to-install-and-run-android-x86-on-virtualbox.html

Workspace Switcher gone after upgrading to Ubuntu 13.04

I spent most of this evening (at least my Acer Aspire One did) upgrading my laptop from Ubuntu 12.10 to Ubuntu 13.04.  I normally try to avoid doing an upgrade from one Linux version to another (this aversion goes back to my days running OS/2 Warp) but I decided I would give it a try since I did a complete re-install after a failed attempt at getting IBM Notes 9 installed.

After about 2 hours of downloading and installing updated packages (over 1300 of them), I was able to reboot and have Ubuntu 13.04 running.  The system appears to be noticeably faster and the Unity desktop a bit cleaner and crisper.  The only thing I noticed right away was the Workspace Switcher was gone from the left launcher.  The rest are some notes on how I got it back.

1. Installed the unity-tweak-tool package which has the setting I need to restore the switcher.

sudo apt-get install unity-tweak-tool

2. Started the unity-tweak-tool by using the dasher search button.

3. From the Overview panel, I clicked on the Workspace Settings

4.  Click on the Workspace Settings tab if not already there and be sure to set the Workspace switcher to ON.

5. Now check to see if the Workspace Switcher is in the launcher

1. 
   
   

Solved: Belkin router getting WAN IP from Ubee Modem (Charter ISP)

Here is Rochester, Minnesota we have only one cable service provider and that is Charter Communications. I wish there was at least one other alternative available just to keep pricing in check but the service we have been getting the past 12 years has been excellent.  Cable TV is good, clear and crisp with lots of HD channels and the internet service is almost always available and fast.

Tonight, after I tucked my lovely wife into bed at approximately 11pm, I decided to log onto my old Dell Inspiron 1300 (Pentium M w/ 2GB memory) running a 32 bit Fedora 18 LXDE desktop.  I was doing some Googling as usual and all of a sudden I got a page error when I did a search from the top Google result page.  I did not think nothing of it but I could not obtain an IP address from any of my 3 wireless routers (one is primary the other two are just glorified access points).

My first course of action was to go down and recycle the cable modem, primary wireless router and the 8 port Linksys switch.  That took only about 10 minutes and when I got back up stairs I was connected to the primary router (a TP-Link TL-WR841N) that I purchased 2 of a couple of years ago at Amazon (the second one is out in my workshop as an access point).  I was able to continue my Google searching and after about 30 minutes, my connection to the primary TP-Link router failed again.  Another recycle fixed it but then after the third time, it was time to replace the router.

I had a cheapo Belkin wireless router that I purchased a couple of years ago and my daughter was not longer using.  I thought I would replace the problematic T-Link router with the Belkin router and figure out if the TP-Link was dying or just needed a firmware update.  I was not expecting problems but of course there was one pesky problem I had to overcome.

Here are the steps I followed thinking it would only take at most 20 minutes.  It ended up being almost 2 hours.

1. Connected Belkin router to my Fedora 18 laptop with ethernet cable and no wireless.
2. Changed the private subnet from 192.168.2 to 192.168.0 (there are other servers and wireless devices like our Tivo and Internet radio device just to name a few).
3. Created a new SSID similar to the old one with a 2 at the end and gave it the same WPA/WPA2 passphrase.
4. Tested the wireless connection and all worked.
5. Unplugged the TP-Link router from power, cable modem and all 4 ethernet cables going to various other devices in our home (office, shop, third router, bedrooms).
6. Plugged the cable modem into the proper RJ-45 port on the Belkin router (yellow female RJ-45 port vs 4 white colored ports).
7. Unplugged the cable modem and Linksys 8 port switch and waited a couple of minutes then powered on cable modem and then the Belkin router and switch after the cable modem likes came on.
8. Laptop could access the Belkin wireless and give me an IP address and I could ping the router and all the other devices on the home network.
9. I could not access the internet.
10. The Belkin router web gui showed a message at the top indicating Internet connection was not available.
11. Checked the router settings and there was no WAN IP address, network mask or DNS servers listed. Everything was 0.
12. Tried switching from Dynamic (DHCP connection to cable modem) to static IP but nothing seemed to return a WAN IP address and the rest.
13. I checked the Router logs and I did find the following message many times:
    
    DHCP Client: [WAN]Could not find DHCP daemon to get information
    
14. Looked like to me that the Ubee wireless modem that we rent from Charter Communications was not doling out DHCP addresses. 
15. I remembered something a Charter technical support person told me in order to get a more complete reset of the cable modem.  The trick was to unscrew the coax cable from the Ubee machine and wait 5 minutes and recable and power on the cable modem and router.  Of course, this did not solve the problem.
16. Good my employer provides me a Verizon Android phone that has a built in Wifi hot spot.  I used it to connect my laptop to the Internet so I could Google issues with the WAN and the DHCP message above.
17. I found that one person thinks Charter is blocking certain routers and of course Belkin was one manufacturer that was supposedly being blocked.  The solution was to use the Belkin web gui to clone the MAC address of my laptops ethernet port to the router.  The MAC address/ID identifies the manufacturer so I thought this would be my solution.
18. Cloned my laptop ethernet port to the Belkin router and rebooted the router.  Still no WAN info in the Belkin web gui and I still could not access the internet from my laptop that was back connected to the Belkin router.
19. Searching for the DHCP error message above and adding Belkin to the Google search argument, I came a cross this web page that said some cable modems only issue on DHCP address.  I checked the Ubee cable modem and it had a reset switch so I gave it a try.
20. I unplugged the ethernet cable to the Belkin router and pressed the reset button in for about 30 seconds.  The Ubee cable modem shut off all but one light and then it took about 3-4 minutes before all 5 lights were one (one was orange instead of green but I think that is normal).
21. Re-connected the wireless on my laptop to the Belkin wireless SSID.
22. I opened the Belkin router web gui and low-and-behold I now had a WAN IP address, network mask and DNS servers.
23. I could now ping www.google.com and all was good.

I am not certain if it was a combination of cloning the MAC address of my laptop ethernet port onto the Belkin router AND the Ubee modem reset button that got the DHCP address to be handed out from the Ubee router.  I think I would have be OK if I would just had pressed the reset button on the Ubee cable modem.

It late so now that I got this information saved somewhere safe, I can now go to bed.  Tomorrow, I will try to resurrect the TP-Link router.

Bluetooth headset stopped after Android upgrade

The other day Verizon released an OTA (over-the-air) update of Android for my work Motorola Droid 4 smartphone.   I installed it when the noticed arrived and the reboot appeared to work just fine.  I had a Plantronics Voyager HD headset that I purchased about a year ago on Amazon paired with the phone prior to installing the Android upgrade.

I connected the bluetooth headset and was able to listen to my favourite radio station via the TuneIn application I purchased some time ago.  Sound was just fine and the headset connected right away.  I received some phone call while the headset was connected and noticed I could hear the phone ring through the headset but I could not carry on a conversation using the headset.  I had to switch back to the smartphone. 

I used my wife's phone to make calls to my cell phone.  After about a half a dozen attempts I decided to delete the headset bluetooth profile and re-discover and pair it again.  Once I did that, the bluetooth headset could be used for both music and phone calls.  Who would have known.  I also am glad to report that my headset also connects more consistently with the new Android version.

All contacts are missing on HTC EVO 4G phone

My wife has an HTC EVO 4G phone that all of a sudden appears to have lost all the contacts.  Since this phone is running Android, I was pretty sure my wifes' contacts were safely stored in the Google cloud somewhere (I set up her phone and created her Google account and set it as the default for the phone).

I was leaving on a business trip later in the morning so I did some Googling and found a post where someone said to clear the Contacts application cache and restart the phone.  I noticed right away when I looked at ALL applications from the system settings why her contacts were missing.  There was a button at the top right that said Enable.  After talking to my wife, I discovered that her son had tried to move apps to her SD card to free up space (the HTC EVO 4G has little internal storage).  The Android Contacts app had the Move to SD card  button disabled and I am almost certain that my step-son accidentally disabled the contacts when he meant to move the app to the SD card.

The moral of the story: if there are no contacts, make sure the Android/Google contacts app is enabled.