Ping Transmit Failed: A General Failure Error

As a frequent remote worker, I've come to rely on my stable Wi-Fi connection at home. However, recently, I faced a frustrating issue that left me unable to access the internet from my HP Elitebook 8470p laptop. The problem was a 'General Failure' error when trying to ping the internet using the command line.

Before digging deeper into the issue, I made sure there were no IP assignment conflicts with other Wi-Fi connected devices by renewing IPs and reflushing DNS and resetting WinSock stack. Unfortunately, this didn't resolve the issue, as I was still getting a General Failure error. The ping statistics showed that all four packets sent had been lost, resulting in a 100% loss.

To rule out any issues with my Linux router, I decided to check if it was the bottleneck by pinging my default gateway (192.168.2.1). This revealed no issues, as the output showed my notebook IP, default gateway, and DNS IP were all properly assigned.

My Intel(R) Centrino(R) Ultimate-N 6300 AGN Wireless LAN adapter was also functioning correctly, as I could normally connect to my Wi-Fi network and see an internet IP assigned. However, when I tried pinging Google from the command line, I received an error message.

Initially, I thought the issue might be related to my Wi-Fi router (D-Link DI524), so I restarted it. Unfortunately, this didn't resolve the problem either. It was then that I realized the issue might be related to malware, as I had recently run Malwarebytes and removed some malicious software from my laptop.

After further investigation, I discovered that the malware removal process might have caused the Wi-Fi internet connection on my work computer to stop working suddenly. While this was an inconvenient setback, I was relieved to eventually resolve the issue and regain access to the internet.

Ping transmit failed general failure