Hotspot not working on focal 20.04

Ian

This post is deleted!

huy

@Ian I am using focal channel RC version 2023-W27 date 07/06/2023

Ian

@huy I just checked which chanel I am on and it claims that I am on the Dev channel. I was sure I was on RC. Tried to change channel and just get the scrolling circle and 'fetching channels'.

EDIT. Got past the scrolly circle... but no channels are shown, just a blank screen under the title 'Channel to get updates from'

arubislander

@huy I am writing this on my laptop connected to my hotspot configured with WPA2 security on Pixel 3a Focal on devel channel. So I can also confirm that it does work. Maybe there is some specific issue with either your device or your installation track.

Ian

@huy Not sure how it happened but it would appear that I was on the Dev channel. I was on there for a few weeks but it was a bit too flaky for a daily driver so I switched to the RC channel. At some stage the channel switched back without me realising - no idea how.

I have managed to switch back to RC and I can confirm that hotspot does not work on (2023-w12/4).... but it does work OK on Dev.

huy

@Ian hotspot works on stable 16.04. i switch to rc 20.04 it works but set password it fails to connect. on Sony X, I only see rc channel no dev

Ian

@huy It is now working for me on RC 2023-W28.

huy

@Ian when will w28 release bro.

Ian

@huy Not sure when it became availlable, but I installed it yesterday from the RC channel.

huy

@Ian Failed to connect to hotspot when setting password on RC 2023-W29.

TakoR

@huy I also have this bug on 20.04/rc. It's not a problem on 16.04/stable and I can connect there rather quickly.

I am also using WPA2-personal. If anyone has a workaround, that would be appreciated. Cheers.

slowcyclist

@TakoR I only recently made the move to focal (RC 2024-W03) and saw the same problem of hotspot only working with no password.
Some research revealed that Volla devices also had a similar problem that has been solved by adding a file in Networkmanager configuration.

The same fix (detailed below) works also for the Xperia X. You will need to reapply it at each upgrade of the OS until it is merged in the device tree, if ever.

1-From a computer open a terminal session on your phone using either "adb shell" or ssh. Alternatively you can do it in terminal app on the phone itself, but it is very cumbersome.

2-make the image writable (until reboot) :

sudo mount -o remount,rw /

3-create the new file with appropriate content:

cat << EOF > /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/fix-ap-with-password.conf
[main]
wifi-wpa-psk-pmf-no-optional-ap=yes
EOF

4-reboot the phone

5- my (linux) laptop could still not pair with the hotspot at that point. So I deleted the failed wifi hotspot config on the laptop and also edited the hoptspot config on the phone, changing the password and rebooted the phone again. After that, the laptop could connect the hotspot with password. I guess that not all of these last steps are needed.

Besides that issue and other minor quirks, I am very pleased with the OS upgrade. I just changed the channel, and upgraded as I had done before for the xenial upgrade. After that, I upgraded all apps. The new version has about a doubled battery life (for my rather lite use case, at least) compared to xenial and it solved the bug which made the camera app record half-green pictures about 1/3 of the time.

TakoR

@slowcyclist Thanks for your reply.
I've been away for quite some time, so apologies for the delayed response.

Since the suggestion involves the read-only rootfs, how did your OTA-5 update turn out?

I am not able to mount the image as writable, by the way. I've done it before but not on a UT device, so I am not sure if there is a better syntax. I used it as a sign not to tamper with rootfs, for now, until I am able to confirm that OTA updates are not going to be affected by the workaround.

I've only observed that the inability to connect to the hotspot can be related to the WiFi WPA-PSK security, as well. It may be a good idea to have some options regarding WiFi security, but it will have to be a bit more universal, as in all devices have them, even though, at the moment, only our Xperia X devices have this hotspot issue, at the moment.