Laptop lost power during update, now no wifi [SOLVED]

[stereo555]

Dell Latitude E6400 running Mate 18.3 Sylvia. Last night I powered up the laptop, brought up the Update Manager to install updates, and in the middle of the update the laptop battery went dead. No wifi after that. I've been using this laptop for two years with no issues at all, wifi has always worked fine, it uses the Broadcom card. I've found plenty of random "fixes" online but rather than trying something that might make a small problem bigger I decided I'd be better off checking with the experts. I now have an ethernet cable plugged in to post this. This is an older laptop I use just for checking out different distros, so it's not crucial to get this fixed. I was considering just re-installing, but understanding how to fix this would be more useful in case of a similar problem in the future.

Here's inxi -Fzxs -

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 Latitude-E6400 ~ $ inxi -Fzx
System:    Host: Latitude-E6400 Kernel: 4.13.0-37-generic x86_64 (64 bit gcc: 5.4.0)
           Desktop: MATE 1.18.0 (Gtk 3.18.9-1ubuntu3.3)
           Distro: Linux Mint 18.3 Sylvia
Machine:   System: Dell (portable) product: Latitude E6400
           Mobo: Dell model: 0U692R Bios: Dell v: A19 date: 10/30/2009
CPU:       Dual core Intel Core2 Duo P8700 (-MCP-) cache: 3072 KB
           flags: (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 ssse3 vmx) bmips: 10107
           clock speeds: max: 2535 MHz 1: 800 MHz 2: 2534 MHz
Graphics:  Card: Intel Mobile 4 Series Integrated Graphics Controller
           bus-ID: 00:02.0
           Display Server: X.Org 1.18.4 drivers: intel (unloaded: fbdev,vesa)
           Resolution: 1280x800@60.00hz
           GLX Renderer: Mesa DRI Mobile Intel GM45 Express
           GLX Version: 2.1 Mesa 17.2.8 Direct Rendering: Yes
Audio:     Card Intel 82801I (ICH9 Family) HD Audio Controller bus-ID: 00:1b.0
Network:   Card-1: Intel 82567LM Gigabit Network Connection
           driver: e1000e port: efe0 bus-ID: 00:19.0
           IF: enp0s25 state: down mac: <filter>
           Card-2: Broadcom BCM4322 802.11a/b/g/n Wireless LAN Controller
           bus-ID: 0c:00.0
           IF: N/A state: N/A mac: N/A
Drives:    HDD Total Size: 160.0GB (14.0% used)
           ID-1: /dev/sda model: ST9160823AS size: 160.0GB
Partition: ID-1: / size: 19G used: 10G (58%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda1
           ID-2: /home size: 125G used: 7.2G (7%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda3
           ID-3: swap-1 size: 4.24GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sda5
RAID:      No RAID devices: /proc/mdstat, md_mod kernel module present
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 37.5C mobo: N/A
           Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: N/A
Info:      Processes: 147 Uptime: 7 min Memory: 374.5/3898.0MB
           Init: systemd runlevel: 5 Gcc sys: 5.4.0
           Client: Shell (bash 4.3.481) inxi: 2.2.35 

[Termy]

What happens if you execute dpkg --audit and also apt-get -s install -f?

[stereo555]

No return from audit. apt-get says it needs root, should I do it again using sudo?

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Latitude-E6400 ~ $ dpkg --audit
Latitude-E6400 ~ $ apt-get -s install -f
NOTE: This is only a simulation!
      apt-get needs root privileges for real execution.
      Keep also in mind that locking is deactivated,
      so don't depend on the relevance to the real current situation!
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  fonts-roboto fonts-roboto-hinted kodi-bin kodi-data libcec4 libcrossguid1
  libjs-iscroll libllvm4.0 libmicrohttpd10 libmysqlclient20 libnfs8
  libp8-platform2 libpcrecpp0v5 libsdl2-2.0-0 libshairplay0 libsndio6.1
  libssh-4 libvdpau1 mysql-common python-bluez python-simplejson
Use 'apt autoremove' to remove them.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 3 not upgraded.

[Termy]

No it's okay, it's just a courtesy warning. I had you use the -s flag so apt-get would run as a simulation, so as to not risk actually doing anything by mistake. Unfortunately, the output did not yield anything I can see as useful. Perhaps someone else has an idea, as my brain is a bit fried at the moment. I was expecting messages telling you that something has an unfinished or broken installation, which can happen; quite surprise it's not showing that. Maybe it installed OK? The lack of wireless could be down to something else happening at the same time, but that's not necessarily likely.

If you're using network-manager, which you likely are, you could try:

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sudo apt-get install --reinstall network-manager

...although it may reset your wireless settings or something; it shouldn't do, but it might. To check if you're using that, run:

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dpkg -l | grep network-manager

...to see if the output shows ii at the start of the line(s), which indicates it was installed; for example, this output shows me that Firefox is installed:

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$ dpkg -l | grep firefox
ii  firefox                                     59.0.2+build1-0ubuntu0.16.04.1             amd64        Safe and easy web browser from Mozilla

[stereo555]

No luck resetting the network manager either. While it would be nice to know just what is going on with this, the simplest solution will be to just reinstall so I'll go that route. Thanks Termy very much for giving it a shot! I do appreciate it.

[JeremyB]

What is the result for

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lspci -nnk | grep -iA3 net; dpkg -l | grep linux-image

[stereo555]

Well, the fix turned out to be a lot simpler than I thought it would be. Just thought I'd try this before reinstalling - I brought up the Driver Manager, clicked on "Do not use this device" under the Broadcom card, restarted, and then went back to the Driver Manager and selected the Broadcom card, and once again restarted. All is well, wifi was back immediately.