That seems unusual. The Ubuntu laptop I use for imaging laptops can just connect to the wifi with the gui.
Try booting up off of the usb you made for Ubuntu and see if you can just connect with the gui without installing.
If that doesn’t work I would make a boot usb of another distro and just try to join the wifi without installing it.
The first one checks to see if you configured something funkily. The second checks to see if the distro is the issue.