Broadcom wireless failure in kernel 4.15.0-10-generic

Development Discussion
,
#1

wireless_difficulties_18.04 alpha - February 24, 2018

My broadcom wireless worked on UM 18.04 alpha until an update on Thursday, Feb. 22nd and perhaps a little before. Following are the terminal commands I ran to get some sort of hint on each kernel.

4.13.0-32-generic - working
michael@D830:~$ iwconfig
wlan0 IEEE 802.11 ESSID:“imelda”
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.412 GHz Access Point: 00:13:10:8F:16:CA
Bit Rate=9 Mb/s Tx-Power=20 dBm
Retry short limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Power Management:off
Link Quality=70/70 Signal level=-37 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:1 Invalid misc:57 Missed beacon:0

enp9s0 no wireless extensions.

lo no wireless extensions.

4.15.0-10-generic - non working
michael@D830:~$ iwconfig
enp9s0 no wireless extensions.

lo no wireless extensions.

4.13.0-32-generic - working
michael@D830:~$ ifconfig
enp9s0: flags=4099<UP,BROADCAST,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
ether 00:1c:23:93:26:45 txqueuelen 1000 (Ethernet)
RX packets 0 bytes 0 (0.0 B)
RX errors 0 dropped 0 overruns 0 frame 0
TX packets 0 bytes 0 (0.0 B)
TX errors 0 dropped 0 overruns 0 carrier 0 collisions 0
device interrupt 17

lo: flags=73<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING> mtu 65536
inet 127.0.0.1 netmask 255.0.0.0
inet6 ::1 prefixlen 128 scopeid 0x10
loop txqueuelen 1000 (Local Loopback)
RX packets 136 bytes 9759 (9.7 KB)
RX errors 0 dropped 0 overruns 0 frame 0
TX packets 136 bytes 9759 (9.7 KB)
TX errors 0 dropped 0 overruns 0 carrier 0 collisions 0

wlan0: flags=4163<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
inet 192.168.1.153 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 192.168.1.255
inet6 fe80::a2c9:63a7:46d3:d3a4 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x20
ether 00:1c:26:3e:b1:89 txqueuelen 1000 (Ethernet)
RX packets 100 bytes 25832 (25.8 KB)
RX errors 0 dropped 3 overruns 0 frame 0
TX packets 106 bytes 13827 (13.8 KB)
TX errors 0 dropped 0 overruns 0 carrier 0 collisions 0

4.15.0-10-generic - non working
michael@D830:~$ ifconfig
enp9s0: flags=4099<UP,BROADCAST,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
ether 00:1c:23:93:26:45 txqueuelen 1000 (Ethernet)
RX packets 0 bytes 0 (0.0 B)
RX errors 0 dropped 0 overruns 0 frame 0
TX packets 0 bytes 0 (0.0 B)
TX errors 0 dropped 0 overruns 0 carrier 0 collisions 0
device interrupt 17

lo: flags=73<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING> mtu 65536
inet 127.0.0.1 netmask 255.0.0.0
inet6 ::1 prefixlen 128 scopeid 0x10
loop txqueuelen 1000 (Local Loopback)
RX packets 304 bytes 19514 (19.5 KB)
RX errors 0 dropped 0 overruns 0 frame 0
TX packets 304 bytes 19514 (19.5 KB)
TX errors 0 dropped 0 overruns 0 carrier 0 collisions 0

4.13.0-32-generic - working
michael@D830:~$ inxi -N
Network: Card-1: Broadcom Limited NetXtreme BCM5755M Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express driver: tg3
Card-2: Broadcom Limited BCM4311 802.11a/b/g driver: b43-pci-bridge

4.15.0-10-generic - non working
michael@D830:~$ inxi -N
Network: Card-1: Broadcom Limited NetXtreme BCM5755M Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express driver: tg3
Card-2: Broadcom Limited BCM4311 802.11a/b/g

4.13.0-32-generic - working
michael@D830:~$ lspci -vvnn | grep 14e4
09:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Broadcom Limited NetXtreme BCM5755M Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express [14e4:1673] (rev 02)
0c:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Limited BCM4311 802.11a/b/g [14e4:4312] (rev 01)

4.15.0-10-generic - non working
michael@D830:~$ lspci -vvnn | grep 14e4
09:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Broadcom Limited NetXtreme BCM5755M Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express [14e4:1673] (rev 02)
0c:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Limited BCM4311 802.11a/b/g [14e4:4312] (rev 01)

firmware-b43-installer and b43-fwcutter are installed. bcmwl-kernel-source is removed as is dkms.

https://askubuntu.com/questions/55868/installing-broadcom-wireless-drivers a great thread about my favorite wireless card.

So it looks like my wireless driver (b43-pci-bridge) is missing from the latest kernel. How’d that happen?

Broadcomm wireless not supported again
#2

Update - Someone else noticed this bug. Looks like it’ll get a fix in the next kernel. See - https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1751266

#3

Another Update - Just to be sure, I posted a bug specific to ubuntu-mate. See - https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu-mate/+bug/1753626

#4

Update - New kernel resolved wireless problem, 4.15.0-12-generic March 15th.

michael@D830:~$ sudo lshw -C network
  *-network
       description: Wireless interface
       product: BCM4311 802.11a/b/g
       vendor: Broadcom Limited
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:0c:00.0
       logical name: wlan1
       version: 01
       serial: 00:1c:26:3e:b1:89
       width: 32 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless
       configuration: broadcast=yes driver=b43 driverversion=4.15.0-12-generic firmware=666.2 ip=192.168.1.103 latency=0 link=yes multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11
       resources: irq:17 memory:f6cfc000-f6cfffff