Usb wifi dropped out / rtl8192eu-linux-driver on Ubuntu 16.04

The wifi device TP-LINK TL-WN823N was previously working, as in previous thread: TP-Link TL-WN823N v3 wifi dongle not detected But now it is not detected again. I re-followed the instructions in the previous thread but it is still not detected. What next?

lsusb

Bus 002 Device 006: ID 148f:2573 Ralink Technology, Corp. RT2501/RT2573 Wireless Adapter
Bus 02 Device 005: ID 2357:0109  
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 0644:0200 TEAC Corp. All-In-One Multi-Card Reader CA200/B/S
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 007 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 006 Device 002: ID 046d:c52b Logitech, Inc. Unifying Receiver
Bus 006 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 1058:25a1 Western Digital Technologies, Inc. 
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 1058:25a2 Western Digital Technologies, Inc. 
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 0bc2:2321 Seagate RSS LLC Expansion Portable
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub

lsmod | grep cfg; mokutil --sb-state

(after installing mokutil):

cfg80211              630784  2 rt2x00lib,mac80211
EFI variables are not supported on this system

As I recall, Bus 02 Device 005: ID 2357:0109 is the one which had the functioning wifi usb before.


If you have internet access by any other means (wired or through USB tethering), you can installed the RTL8192EU drivers from Mange's GitHub repo. Here are the steps as described on the GitHub page:

Building and installing using DKMS

  1. Install DKMS and other required tools:

    sudo apt-get install git linux-headers-generic build-essential dkms
    
  2. Clone this repository and change your directory to cloned path.

    git clone https://github.com/Mange/rtl8192eu-linux-driver
    cd rtl8192eu-linux-driver
    
  3. Add the driver to DKMS. This will copy the source to a system directory so that it can used to rebuild the module on kernel upgrades.

    sudo dkms add .
    
  4. Build and install the driver.

    sudo dkms install rtl8192eu/1.0
    
  5. Distributions based on Debian & Ubuntu have RTL8XXXU driver present & running in kernelspace. To use our RTL8192EU driver, we need to blacklist RTL8XXXU.

    echo "blacklist rtl8xxxu" | sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/rtl8xxxu.conf
    
  6. Force RTL8192EU Driver to be active from boot.

    echo -e "8192eu\n\nloop" | sudo tee -a /etc/modules
    
  7. Newer versions of Ubuntu has weird plugging/replugging issue (Check #94). This includes weird idling issues, To fix this:

    echo "options 8192eu rtw_power_mgnt=0 rtw_enusbss=0" | sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/8192eu.conf
    
  8. Update changes to Grub & initramfs

    sudo update-grub; sudo update-initramfs -u
    
  9. Reboot system to load new changes from newly generated initramfs.

    systemctl reboot -i
    
  10. After the reboot, you can check that your kernel has loaded the right module:

    sudo lshw -c network
    

You should see the line driver=8192eu