TP-LINK TL-WN722 Not showing up

[BowlOfPetunias]

Hi everyone,

I just bought a WiFi Pineapple Nano and a TP-LINK TL-WN722N USB WiFi card to act as a 3rd host radio.

I've booted the Nano, upgraded the firmware using my Android phone as a USB tether (currently running firmware 1.1.3) but when I attach the TP-Link to the USB socket on the pinepple and boot it, I can't select or see wlan2 from the WiFi Client Mode selection box on the Networking page.

Could anyone give me any tips on what to try? I can see on the advanced tab in USB it shows 'Atheros Communications, Inc. AR9721 802.11n on Bus 001 Device 003 so it looks as though it sees it ok, just not making it available as an interface to allow me to connect to a WiFi network.

Thanks in advance for the help.

[BowlOfPetunias]

Should add, the box lists this as a TL-WN722 Ver2.0 if that makes a difference to the compatibility

[BowlOfPetunias]

think I may have worked out the issue in that ver 2.0 of these adapters does not use an Atheros chipset so I assume there's no drivers and hence no wlan2 interface.  Looking on Amazon others are stating Linux issues as a result of it being ver 2.0.

Can anyone suggest a good alternative that Amazon sell? (I'm in the UK so ordering from Hak5 would mean long shipping and import duty)

[Just_a_User]

Yep no drivers on pineapple for that dongle, works with my Linux install tho.

Bought Ralink RT5370 and works perfectly.

Edited July 3, 2017 by Just_a_User

[Foxtrot]

Please post the VID:PID from the output of `lsusb` for the dongle

[BowlOfPetunias]

42 minutes ago, Just_a_User said:

Yep no drivers on pineapple for that dongle, works with my Linux install tho.

Bought Ralink RT5370 and works perfectly.

Would this one do the trick? https://www.amazon.co.uk/Racksoy-Professional-Wireless-Compatible-Raspberry/dp/B00JZFT3VS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1499118466&sr=8-1&keywords=Ralink+RT5370

[BowlOfPetunias]

17 minutes ago, Foxtrot said:

Please post the VID:PID from the output of `lsusb` for the dongle

I've just boxed it back up, I'll grab it back out soon and have a go (I'm not great with Linux, but will have a go at lsusb)

[Just_a_User]

My Bad, was a different device that wasn’t working, its a TP-LINK TL-WN725N.

dmesg output: -

[54149.033004] usb 2-2: New USB device found, idVendor=0bda, idProduct=8179
[54149.033015] usb 2-2: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
[54149.033023] usb 2-2: Product: 802.11n NIC
[54149.033029] usb 2-2: Manufacturer: Realtek

My TL-WN722N works fine with my Tetra. haven’t used it on nano yet.

dmesg output

[54800.622507] usb 2-1: New USB device found, idVendor=0cf3, idProduct=9271
[54800.622519] usb 2-1: New USB device strings: Mfr=16, Product=32, SerialNumber=48
[54800.622527] usb 2-1: Product: USB2.0 WLAN
[54800.622533] usb 2-1: Manufacturer: ATHEROS

[b0N3z]

mine works fine on both nano and tetra. TP-Link TL-WN722N.

[Th3.Tikbalang]

First time using this dongle on my NANO. same issue, no WLAN2.

Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0cf3:9271 Qualcomm Atheros Communications AR9271 802.11n
Bus 001 Device 005: ID 2357:010c TP-Link TL-WN722N v2
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 058f:6254 Alcor Micro Corp. USB Hub
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

Any advise?

[dark_pyrro]

The answer is most likely some posts up this thread. The output in your post shows that it's the v2 variant of the TL-WN722N adapter and that is based on the RTL8188 chipset, not the Atheros one (that comes with the 1.x version). So, those who say that their TL-WN722N adapter works probably has got the 1.x version and those who experience issues have some other version of the same adapter "model" with an incompatible chipset (or at least a chipset with missing drivers).

[Th3.Tikbalang]

1 hour ago, dark_pyrro said:

The answer is most likely some posts up this thread. The output in your post shows that it's the v2 variant of the TL-WN722N adapter and that is based on the RTL8188 chipset, not the Atheros one (that comes with the 1.x version). So, those who say that their TL-WN722N adapter works probably has got the 1.x version and those who experience issues have some other version of the same adapter "model" with an incompatible chipset (or at least a chipset with missing drivers).

Thanks for the reply.

Sorry, forgot to mention that the TP-Link box states "Model: TL-WN722N(US) Ver:3.20".  Can't find the chipset used.

[Th3.Tikbalang]

I think the chicpset is "Realtek RTL8188EUS"

[dark_pyrro]

Yes it does, and both the v2 and v3 variants seem to share the same PID and that's probably why lsusb identifies it as a v2 even if it's actually a v3. Same chipset anyway.