Ubuntu 18.04 intel wireless ac 9260 "This device is not working" under additional drivers, but wifi is working

I just did a fresh 18.04 install. Now my wifi isn't recognized for some reason, but I'm using wifi right now. I'm not sure what this means here's a screenshot of it.

I tried some possible solutions here, but they didn't work for me. I also have windows 10 installed on the same laptop, but on another drive entirely. Also, worth mentioning is that I had Ubuntu 18.04 installed previous on the same laptop and I didn't have this problem before. Only after I tried doing a fresh install for the 3rd time (don't ask, I'm still learning) than I run into this issue.

I don't know if this is important, but after the install my system time was off by like 5hrs after I set the right time zones and everything. I had to go into bios and change the time and disable the automatic date & time settings for Ubuntu. Otherwise I wasn't even able to run Ubuntu updates because the time didn't match with the ubuntu servers. Anyway...

Here are some system specs:

Skynet:~$lspci -nnk | grep -i network -A 3
71:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Intel Corporation Wireless-AC 9260 [8086:2526] (rev 29) Subsystem: Intel Corporation Device [8086:0014] Kernel driver in use: iwlwifi Kernel modules: iwlwifi
Skynet:~$rfkill list
0: hci0: Bluetooth Soft blocked: no Hard blocked: no
2: phy1: Wireless LAN Soft blocked: no Hard blocked: no
Skynet:~$lspci | grep Network
71:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation Wireless-AC 9260 (rev 29)
Skynet:~$iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.
wlp113s0 IEEE 802.11 ESSID:"myFios-5.0GHz" Mode:Managed Frequency:5.18 GHz Access Point: 20:C0:47:E1:F4:FC Bit Rate=866.7 Mb/s Tx-Power=22 dBm Retry short limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off Encryption key:off Power Management:on Link Quality=66/70 Signal level=-44 dBm Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0 Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:137 Missed beacon:0
enp110s0 no wireless extensions.
Skynet:~$modinfo iwlwifi
filename: /lib/modules/5.3.0-26-generic/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/intel/iwlwifi/iwlwifi.ko
license: GPL
author: Copyright(c) 2003- 2015 Intel Corporation <>
description: Intel(R) Wireless WiFi driver for Linux
firmware: iwlwifi-100-5.ucode
firmware: iwlwifi-1000-5.ucode
firmware: iwlwifi-135-6.ucode
firmware: iwlwifi-105-6.ucode
firmware: iwlwifi-2030-6.ucode
firmware: iwlwifi-2000-6.ucode
firmware: iwlwifi-5150-2.ucode
firmware: iwlwifi-5000-5.ucode
firmware: iwlwifi-6000g2b-6.ucode
firmware: iwlwifi-6000g2a-6.ucode
firmware: iwlwifi-6050-5.ucode
firmware: iwlwifi-6000-6.ucode
firmware: iwlwifi-7265D-29.ucode
firmware: iwlwifi-7265-17.ucode
firmware: iwlwifi-3168-29.ucode
firmware: iwlwifi-3160-17.ucode
firmware: iwlwifi-7260-17.ucode
firmware: iwlwifi-8265-36.ucode
firmware: iwlwifi-8000C-36.ucode
firmware: iwlwifi-9260-th-b0-jf-b0-46.ucode
firmware: iwlwifi-9000-pu-b0-jf-b0-46.ucode
firmware: iwlwifi-ty-a0-gf-a0-48.ucode
firmware: iwlwifi-so-a0-gf-a0-48.ucode
firmware: iwlwifi-so-a0-hr-b0-48.ucode
firmware: iwlwifi-so-a0-jf-b0-48.ucode
firmware: iwlwifi-cc-a0-48.ucode
firmware: iwlwifi-QuQnj-b0-jf-b0-48.ucode
firmware: iwlwifi-QuZ-a0-jf-b0-48.ucode
firmware: iwlwifi-QuZ-a0-hr-b0-48.ucode
firmware: iwlwifi-Qu-b0-jf-b0-48.ucode
firmware: iwlwifi-Qu-c0-hr-b0-48.ucode
firmware: iwlwifi-QuQnj-a0-hr-a0-48.ucode
firmware: iwlwifi-QuQnj-b0-hr-b0-48.ucode
firmware: iwlwifi-Qu-b0-hr-b0-48.ucode
firmware: iwlwifi-QuQnj-f0-hr-a0-48.ucode
firmware: iwlwifi-Qu-a0-jf-b0-48.ucode
firmware: iwlwifi-Qu-a0-hr-a0-48.ucode

According to the solution here it's ok to leave it as is, but I'm not entirely sure because as I mentioned before I had ubuntu working fine before and only after a fresh install I ran into this problem. I would appreciate any help with this. I'm at a loss here, thank you.

1 Answer

Mystery found, but not solved. This appears to be a bug. If anyone else is having this problem, check it out at that link.

software-properties-gtk erroneously reports that certain Intel wireless adapter cards are not working
Bug #1859308 reported by Naël on 2020-01-12
Bug Description
On Ubuntu 20.04 (development branch), as of today, Additional Drivers (software-properties-gtk 0.98.6) reports that the device "Intel Corporation: Wireless-AC 9260" is not working, and suggests using a manually installed driver (cf. screenshot).
However the device is working correctly: * lsmod | grep iwlwifi, lspci -v, lshw, dmesg | grep iwlwifi all show that its driver iwlwifi is in use * ls /lib/firmware/*9260* show that the appropriate firmware files are present
And I am indeed writing this bug report connected to an ac (5 GHz) wifi network, where I can verify a ~130-160 Mbps download speed, so software-properties-gtk shouldn't report the device as not working and suggest manually installing a driver. Not sure why it says so?
EDIT: bug confirmed as affecting the following Intel wireless adapter cards, and assumedly more to come: Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX200 Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 3165 Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 7260 Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 8260 Intel Wireless-AC 9260
Also for reference here are the specs of Intel adapter cards:
ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 20.04
Package: software-properties-gtk 0.98.6
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 5.4.0-9.12-generic 5.4.3
Uname: Linux 5.4.0-9-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.11-0ubuntu15
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
Date: Sun Jan 12 00:53:43 2020
ExecutablePath: /usr/bin/software-properties-gtk
InstallationDate: Installed on 2019-12-29 (13 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 20.04 LTS "Focal Fossa" - Alpha amd64 (20191226)
InterpreterPath: /usr/bin/python3.7
PackageArchitecture: all
Python3Details: /usr/bin/python3.7, Python 3.7.6, python3-minimal, 3.7.5-1ubuntu1
PythonDetails: /usr/bin/python2.7, Python 2.7.17, python-minimal, 2.7.17-1
SourcePackage: software-properties
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)