No wifi lm19.1 / No wired or wireless after upgrade to 20 <solved>

[MxRockatansky]

Hi,

I've just installed lm 20 and now can't access wired or wireless internet.

My original issue was that I couldn't get wifi working.
Using: lm 19.1 xfce, BCM43142 [14e4:4365] (rev 1). I was using the STA driver, have switched to b43 and then bcmwl, still no joy.
I then installed wicd to try that instead of network manager, no wifi networks detected.
I've also tried a AC1300 TP-link adapter, and confirmed that the wifi network is working on other devices.
Some of the online advice assumed minimum 19.3, so I decided to upgrade, first to 19.3 then immediately to 20, at which point I lost wired too.

I then tried the advice here : viewtopic.php?f=53&t=339607 , but am having trouble making the offline install. The installer tells me that the same version is available in a software channel, I'm recommended to install from there instead, that I likely don't want to install this package directly and should install the meta-package instead. When I try and continue anyway, it tells me I need to download linux-image-5.8.0-36-generic & linux-modules-5.8.0-36-generic, which it then fails to do because offline.

I think the wicd install removed the network manager, and the 20 upgrade removed wicd, so I currently have neither.

Can someone please walk me through offline install of packages? Or suggest another fix?

[sleeper12]

Just my 2 cents, but since you seem to have messed up several things, I'd start with a clean install of Mint. Then proceed from there.

[MxRockatansky]

Just my 2 cents, but since you seem to have messed up several things, I'd start with a clean install of Mint. Then proceed from there.

Yeah that's definitely my next plan, if no one has any other suggestions. Either start over or restore to yesterday's backup. It was a clean install of 19.1 though, and it bugs me that I haven't figured out why wifi never worked on it.

[sleeper12]

Did wifi work in the live session of Mint?

[MxRockatansky]

I have never gotten wifi working at any stage. It was running off wired when I was using it with lm19.1 2 years ago, and I've just pulled it out of storage again. Wifi worked with windows, but that was 5+ years ago so I could be misremembering. Device manager detects the inbuilt broadcom device, so it's not just been unseated or similar.

[Larry78723]

Please post the output of the following commands:

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iwconfig

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ifconfig

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mokutil --sb-state

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rfkill list all

[Hoser Rob]

Definitely do what Larry78723 said.

Also, have a look here:

https://askubuntu.com/questions/1271818 ... untu-20-04

BTW nice to see someone post the broadcom PCI ID in the beginner section. You need that.

[MxRockatansky]

Thanks, here goes.

iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.
enp2s0 no wireless extensions.

ifconfig
lo: flags=73<UP, LOOPBACK, RUNNING> mtu 65536
inet 127.0.0.1 netmask 255.0.0.0
inet6 ::1 prefixlen 128 scopeid 0x10<host>
loop txqueuelen 1000 (Local Loopback)
RX packets 90501 bytes 6984923 (6.9MB)
RX errors 0 dropped 0 overruns 0 frame 0
TX packets 90501 bytes 6984923 (6.9MB)
TX errors 0 dropped 0 overruns 0 carrier 0 collisions 0

mokutil --sb-state
SecureBoot enabled

rfkill list all
0:hci0 Bluetooth
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: no

[sleeper12]

You should disable secure boot in Bios. That alone may get wifi working.

[MxRockatansky]

Disabling secureboot didn't do anything, probably because by that point things were already buggered.

Disabling secureboot then timeshifting back to 19.1 restored wired and has it recognising local wifi signals for the first time! I'll try upgrading again with secureboot off at a later stage.

Thanks for your help!

[MxRockatansky]

Wifi dropped and needed to be prompted to reconnect repeatedly over a few hour period. I then reupgraded to 19.3 and lost wifi completely again. It's recognising local networks (which it wasn't doing before I disabled secureboot) but not connecting. I'm still using bcmwl-kernel-source, based on chart in answer here for pci.id 14e4:4365 rev 01 - https://askubuntu.com/questions/55868/i ... ss-drivers.

I can go back down to 19.1 if I have to, but I was hoping to figure out what the issue is and also be able to run latest edition of lm.

[MxRockatansky]

In the last hour, I've gotten about 2 minutes of wifi connection.

More info:
andy@andy-hp-e016a:~$ lspci -nnk | grep -iA3 net
02:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL810xE PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller [10ec:8136] (rev 07)
Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company RTL810xE PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller [103c:2b5a]
Kernel driver in use: r8169
Kernel modules: r8169
03:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Inc. and subsidiaries BCM43142 802.11b/g/n [14e4:4365] (rev 01)
Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company BCM43142 802.11b/g/n [103c:804a]
Kernel driver in use: wl
Kernel modules: bcma, wl

Might blacklisting bcma help?

[sleeper12]

Are you using the outdated 5.0 kernel on 19.3? If so, try the 5.4 kernel or maybe go back to the 4.15 kernel that you likely had on 19.1.

I don't know if blacklisting bcma would help or not, but pretty sure the wl driver you have is the correct one.

[MxRockatansky]

uname -r
5.4

Reverting to 4.15 via GRUB doesn't show any nearby wifi networks, and doesn't connect on my saved wifi.

Reverting to 5.0 shows wifi networks, doesn't connect.

I've already tested running lm 20 off a live boot to try test a clean install in case it was some conflict I'd introduced, but it doesn't work off live boot- shows wifi networks, doesn't connect.

I'm gonna revert to yesterday mornings timeshift next, given it mostly worked with some prompted reconnecting but that was only a couple hours (compared to it connected once for about a minute after 19.3 upgrade), and just test out how stable the connection is under that setup. I'm moving in the next few days and have to go into quarantine with wifi only for 2 weeks, so I'm on a deadline to get it as good as its gonna get.

[MxRockatansky]

ugh, I was worried this might happen.

I've reverted to the timeshift point I manually created when everything was briefly working, and it's not connecting now.

Edit: Connection is intermittent and slow, drops out regularly, pops up password box frequently, doesn't always reconnect even when prompted. Repeating command upthread shows only wl module.
03:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Inc. and subsidiaries BCM43142 802.11b/g/n [14e4:4365] (rev 01)
Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company BCM43142 802.11b/g/n [103c:804a]
Kernel driver in use: wl
Kernel modules: wl

[sleeper12]

Is power management on, (should be off)? Check:

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 iwconfig 

[sleeper12]

If it's on, do:

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 sudo sed -i 's/3/2/' /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/default-wifi-powersave-on.conf 

Reboot

[MxRockatansky]

It was on, have confirmed now off. There might be some improvement in how patchy/slow it was with the phone hotspot (too soon to say & I don't have much phone data budget for testing), but it still refuses to connect to home wifi. I've confirmed the home wifi is working with other devices fine.

iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.

enp2s0 no wireless extensions.

wlp3s0 IEEE 802.11 ESSID:"AndroidAP"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.412 GHz Access Point: 58:C5:CB:A5:2E:E3
Retry short limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Power Management:off

When I turn my hotspot off,
iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.

enp2s0 no wireless extensions.

wlp3s0 IEEE 802.11 ESSID:off/any
Mode:Managed Access Point: Not-Associated
Retry short limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Power Management:off

[MxRockatansky]

It's been pretty good the last 24 hours, I'm gonna call that solved, thank you!