TL-WN722N wifi adaptor not associating with AP from Kali-2018.2

[Natalia]

Hi,

Some assistance if you would, please.
Yes, I have searched long and hard before coming to this forum.

Specs:

Running Windows 10 Home on a Lenovo Ideapad, CPU Intel i5-8250U, 8Gb RAM.

VirtualBox 5.2.14 r123301

Kali & linux versions:
Kali-Linux-2018.2-vbox-amd64
4.15.0-kali2-amd64 GNU/Linux
Version 5.2.8 r120774 '5.2.8_Debian

Unable to get my TP-WN722N wifi adaptor to work/access the internet. The adaptor light flashes during Kali startup and the USB icon on screen displays the red dot. When Kali has completed startup, the red dot disappears, no green dot.

My Kali Network Settings - is attached to NAT with default settings. I also played around with Bridged Adaptor and selected by TN-W722N in the Name drop-down box, but resulted in the same failure.

iwconfig gives me:
eth0 no wireless extensions.


wlan0 unassociated ESSID:"" Nickname:"<WIFI@REALTEK>"
Mode:Managed Frequency=2.412 GHz Access Point: Not-Associated
Sensitivity:0/0
Retryff RTS thrff Fragment thrff
Encryption keyff
Power Managementff
Link Quality:0 Signal level:0 Noise level:0
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0


lo no wireless extensions.

My TP-WN722N adaptor is attached via USB2.0.
I have installed the Windows 10 driver, and the adaptor works fine outside of Kali. The machine also runs an Atheros Qualcomm QCA9377 Wireless Network Adaptor card.

It gets interesting when I run dmesg, but I'm not experienced enough to understand ...

[ 12.552379] r8188eu: module is from the staging directory, the quality is unknown, you have been warned.
[ 12.599330] Chip Version Info: CHIP_8188E_Normal_Chip_TSMC_D_CUT_1T1R_RomVer(0)
[ 14.180761] snd_intel8x0 0000:00:05.0: white list rate for 1028:0177 is 48000
[ 14.402564] Adding 2095100k swap on /dev/sda5. Priority:-2 extents:1 across:2095100k FS
[ 14.480598] usbcore: registered new interface driver r8188eu
[ 18.186256] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): eth0: link is not ready
[ 18.192023] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): eth0: link is not ready
[ 18.203192] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlan0: link is not ready
[ 18.278842] r8188eu 1-1:1.0: firmware: direct-loading firmware rtlwifi/rtl8188eufw.bin
[ 25.348506] fuse init (API version 7.26)
[ 34.587050] MAC Address = xxxxxxxxxxxx
[ 34.691112] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlan0: link is not ready
[ 35.085030] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlan0: link is not ready
[ 61.102768] r8188eu 1-1:1.0: firmware: direct-loading firmware rtlwifi/rtl8188eufw.bin
[ 94.139003] r8188eu 1-1:1.0: firmware: direct-loading firmware rtlwifi/rtl8188eufw.bin
[ 180.292864] rfkill: input handler disabled


What additional information can I provide?

Help me Obi-Wan Kanobis, you're my only hope!

Thanks in advance, Natalia