Solution to Broadcom 43xx Card Problem (12.10 - Quantal Quetzal)

[Sef]

Problem in Precise Pangolin 12.04 with the Broadband 43xx Wireless Card: Unable to download firmware for wireless. (Also works for 11.10, 11.04, 10.10 and 10.04)

From the 'Additional Drivers' section:

This package contains Broadcom 802.11 Linux STA wireless driver for use with Broadcom's BCM4311-, BCM4312-, BCM4313-, BCM4321-,BCM4322-, BCM43224-, and BCM43225-, BCM43227- and BCM43228-basedhardware.

Possible Solutions:

Solution 1: After installing with the alternate cd, I needed a cable and after updating, I was able to download the STA driver through the 'Additional Drivers' section.

Solution 2: Another option is here.

Solution 3: System > Administration > Synaptic Package Manager > Search: firmware-b43-lpphy-installer > Click Mark > Click install > Close (This has been removed starting with 11.10 - Oneiric Ocelot. It may be installed with the Ubuntu Software Manager.)

Kontza found the solution (post #3), so thank him for it.

This solution fixed this problem on my Dell Inspiron 1545 with a Broadcom 4312 card. (Card Tech Specs: 0c:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.11b/g LP-PHY (rev 01))

Note: For 12.04 and earlier models, the original postings are here.

[dm_research]

Hi,

I recently updated my 11 year old daughter's laptop (a hand-me-down Dell Inspiron 1501 she uses to help with her schoolwork) from lubuntu 12.04 to lubuntu 12.10.

Everything seemed to go OK except wifi no longer works.

Previously, I believe I needed to blacklist the ssb and b44 drivers and to enable the b43 driver, to match her wifi-only usage pattern. I recall seeing a post somewhere that said there was some sort of incompatibility between the b43 and (ssb+b44) combination - they should not be loaded in the same session. In any case, it worked in lubuntu 12.04

After the lubuntu upgrade, there seems to be a link now between b43 and ssb. See example session below, where you can see that there is a new ssb_hcd driver that seems to be needed for b43, but it also brings the full ssb along too

$ lsmod | grep ssb
ssb_hcd                12749  0 
ssb                    50087  1 ssb_hcd

$ sudo modprobe -r ssb_hcd

$ lsmod | grep ssb

$ sudo modprobe b43

$ lsmod | grep ssb
ssb_hcd                12749  0 
ssb                    50087  2 ssb_hcd,b43

$ sudo modprobe -r b43
$ lsmod | grep ssb
ssb_hcd                12749  0 
ssb                    50087  1 ssb_hcd

$ sudo modprobe -r ssb_hcd
$ sudo modprobe -r ssb
$ sudo modprobe b43

$ lsmod | grep ssb
ssb_hcd                12749  0 
ssb                    50087  2 ssb_hcd,b43

Here is the output of sudo lsh -C network (with b43 and b44 enabled)

$ sudo lshw -C network
  *-network               
       description: Network controller
       product: BCM4311 802.11b/g WLAN
       vendor: Broadcom Corporation
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:05:00.0
       version: 01
       width: 32 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list
       configuration: driver=b43-pci-bridge latency=0
       resources: irq:18 memory:d0200000-d0203fff
  *-network UNCLAIMED
       description: Ethernet controller
       product: BCM4401-B0 100Base-TX
       vendor: Broadcom Corporation
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:08:00.0
       version: 02
       width: 32 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm cap_list
       configuration: latency=64
       resources: memory:d0300000-d0301fff
  *-network DISABLED
       description: Wireless interface
       physical id: 1
       logical name: wlan0
       serial: 00:19:7d:35:be:19
       capabilities: ethernet physical wireless
       configuration: broadcast=yes driver=b43 driverversion=3.5.0-18-generic firmware=666.2 link=no multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11bg

Note that the last

DISABLED

block disappears if b43 is not enabled. The first block mentions b43-pci-bridge which is not recognised by modprobe. Interestingly, the last block has a serial that looks like a MAC address (of the Broadcom BCM4311 card?), the first one does not. Perhaps some combination of these blocks would be enough to get it working, but I've had no success so far with this.

I have noticed the wifi indicator light on the laptop case flash on briefly (< 1 second) when the laptop boots up.

I should mention the laptop has an F2 hotkey, which in its past Windows XP life, caused wifi to toggle on/off, but lubuntu does not seem to recognise it.

If I could get it to boot with wifi enabled, that would be great. As administrator, I am happy to enable a wired connection if necessary, but for obvious reasons I would prefer not to give extra privileges (e.g., to run modprobe) to my daughter.

I would be very grateful for any advice on how to resolve the issue- I have spent several fruitless hours trying various 'fixes' suggested in this and other forums

[HunkirDowne]

Before either of us get too excited, I have not yet upgraded from Precise and have a different network card. That said, here is a bit of (somewhat) useful information that I've found so far today.

Impatient Executive version:
Try installing the Broadcom-STA driver (wl) via these instructions:

<a href="http://wiki.debian.org/wl"> Debian Wiki on WiFi using Broadcom driver </a>

OK, let's hope you're not too impatient just in case I'm wrong about the above.

More Detailed version:

Reference 1:

<a href="https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/Driver/bcm43xx#Installing%20STA%20drivers"> Reference 1 </a>

Reference 2:

<a href="https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/b43-fwcutter/+bug/651010"> Reference 2 </a>

According to the Ubuntu Docs (Reference 1) you (BCM4311) and I (BCM4312) should be using the 'wl' driver which *does* instruct the blacklisting of ssb and others, as I recall. I say this because I'm currently using a different driver but I've used the 'wl' (broadcom-sta) driver in the past with great success. But somewhere I got steered away from it on this card because it is one of the 'low power' cards.

Care to share your lspci information? Here's mine:

$ lspci -vvnn|grep 14e4

yields:

0b:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.11b/g LP-PHY [14e4:4315] (rev 01)

For me, the "LP-PHY" means (from some source) that I should use the following (from dpkg):
b43-fwcutter install
firmware-b43-lpphy-installer install

This is in agreement with what I found earlier in the thread (actually, the original post):
"Had the same problem, then I noticed that instead of firmware-b43-installer I had to install (manually, via synaptic) firmware-b43-lpphy-installer." --Kontza in LaunchPad.

<a href="https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/b43-fwcutter/+bug/651010" Ref 2 </a>

(Reference 2)

But also see (again, from the original post):

<a href="https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/Driver/bcm43xx#Installing%20STA%20drivers" Ref 1 </a>

(Reference 1)

I think our situations are sufficiently different that what I'm currently using is not your solution despite Mr. Konza's expert advice (which applies to me). I am much more familiar with the Debian advice as that is what I've used in the past for some really old hardware using a PCMCIA wifi card (Linksys, I think, but a Broadcom chipset nonetheless).

Care to share what you've tried that hasn't worked?

General comment: This thread started over two years ago. 62 pages is quite a lot and I won't read all of them unless I'm stuck on an elevator and the rest of the Internet is down. :^)

Hi,

I recently updated my 11 year old daughter's laptop (a hand-me-down Dell Inspiron 1501 she uses to help with her schoolwork) from lubuntu 12.04 to lubuntu 12.10.

Everything seemed to go OK except wifi no longer works.

Previously, I believe I needed to blacklist the ssb and b44 drivers and to enable the b43 driver, to match her wifi-only usage pattern. I recall seeing a post somewhere that said there was some sort of incompatibility between the b43 and (ssb+b44) combination - they should not be loaded in the same session. In any case, it worked in lubuntu 12.04

After the lubuntu upgrade, there seems to be a link now between b43 and ssb. See example session below, where you can see that there is a new ssb_hcd driver that seems to be needed for b43, but it also brings the full ssb along too

$ lsmod | grep ssb
ssb_hcd                12749  0 
ssb                    50087  1 ssb_hcd

$ sudo modprobe -r ssb_hcd

$ lsmod | grep ssb

$ sudo modprobe b43

$ lsmod | grep ssb
ssb_hcd                12749  0 
ssb                    50087  2 ssb_hcd,b43

$ sudo modprobe -r b43
$ lsmod | grep ssb
ssb_hcd                12749  0 
ssb                    50087  1 ssb_hcd

$ sudo modprobe -r ssb_hcd
$ sudo modprobe -r ssb
$ sudo modprobe b43

$ lsmod | grep ssb
ssb_hcd                12749  0 
ssb                    50087  2 ssb_hcd,b43

Here is the output of sudo lsh -C network (with b43 and b44 enabled)

$ sudo lshw -C network
  *-network               
       description: Network controller
       product: BCM4311 802.11b/g WLAN
       vendor: Broadcom Corporation
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:05:00.0
       version: 01
       width: 32 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list
       configuration: driver=b43-pci-bridge latency=0
       resources: irq:18 memory:d0200000-d0203fff
  *-network UNCLAIMED
       description: Ethernet controller
       product: BCM4401-B0 100Base-TX
       vendor: Broadcom Corporation
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:08:00.0
       version: 02
       width: 32 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm cap_list
       configuration: latency=64
       resources: memory:d0300000-d0301fff
  *-network DISABLED
       description: Wireless interface
       physical id: 1
       logical name: wlan0
       serial: 00:19:7d:35:be:19
       capabilities: ethernet physical wireless
       configuration: broadcast=yes driver=b43 driverversion=3.5.0-18-generic firmware=666.2 link=no multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11bg

Note that the last block disappears if b43 is not enabled. The first block mentions b43-pci-bridge which is not recognised by modprobe. Interestingly, the last block has a serial that looks like a MAC address (of the Broadcom BCM4311 card?), the first one does not. Perhaps some combination of these blocks would be enough to get it working, but I've had no success so far with this.

I have noticed the wifi indicator light on the laptop case flash on briefly (< 1 second) when the laptop boots up.

I should mention the laptop has an F2 hotkey, which in its past Windows XP life, caused wifi to toggle on/off, but lubuntu does not seem to recognise it.

If I could get it to boot with wifi enabled, that would be great. As administrator, I am happy to enable a wired connection if necessary, but for obvious reasons I would prefer not to give extra privileges (e.g., to run modprobe) to my daughter.

I would be very grateful for any advice on how to resolve the issue- I have spent several fruitless hours trying various 'fixes' suggested in this and other forums

[dm_research]

Thanks @HunkirDowne!

I will take a look again at those references and will report back.

I did look at them before (when I installed 12.04) but I think I reverted to the b43 driver at the time (can't remember the reason why...).

However, it is possible that the Broadcom wl driver would work with 12.10 - definitely worth a try

Thank you.

[dm_research]

Unfortunately, the problem is still there...

Firstly, here is the output of lspci, as requested by @HunkirDowne:

$ sudo lspci -vvnn | grep 14e4
05:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4311 802.11b/g WLAN [14e4:4311] (rev 01)
08:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4401-B0 100Base-TX [14e4:170c] (rev 02)

As you can see, there is no reference to LPPHY (so I did not follow the rest of @HunkirDowne's suggestions).

I followed the advice in one of the suggested references

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Wi...0STA%20drivers

in particular the "STA - Internet Access" > "11.10 (Oneiric Ocelot) - 12.10 (Quantal Quetzal)".

Because b44 depends on ssb, I needed to add that to the modprobe -r line.

When wl is enabled, it seems to bring in ssb and b44

$ sudo modprobe -r b43 b44 ssb wl
$ sudo lsmod | grep ssb
$ sudo modprobe wl
$ sudo lsmod | grep ssb
ssb                    50087  1 b44

I found the webpage that suggested that the ssb driver is not compatible with wl:

http://www.broadcom.com/docs/linux_sta/README.txt

On that page, there is a section "Remove any other drivers for the Broadcom wireless device." which mentions b43, ssb, etc. The recommended approach is to rmmod the incompatible drivers. I tried this, ran modprobe wl again and, you guessed it, they were back in the list of modules returned by lsmod!

The other thing I tried was to add the problematic drivers (b43 b44 ssb, etc) to /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf and rebooted. Again, the b44, ssb and wl modules were loaded.

Then I thought that maybe there is an explicit reload of these modules that happens after processing the blacklist file. I checked /etc/modules and the only uncommented line was

lp

which I assume enables printing, but seems to be "safe".

At the moment, I am beginning to suspect there is a bug somewhere in the wifi setup in 12.10 - it probably does not help that both cards are Broadcom and may share driver features. I would have given up long ago if I did not know that wifi was working in 12.04 and I am reasonably certain that the "fix" involved 'disabling' b44 and ssb.

Lastly, if it helps understanding, to access the internet when both Broadcom cards are inoperable, I use a tethered 3G connection (to check advice pages), but that's not a practical solution in the long term given the intended use of the laptop.

Thanks @HunkirDowne!

I will take a look again at those references and will report back.

I did look at them before (when I installed 12.04) but I think I reverted to the b43 driver at the time (can't remember the reason why...).

However, it is possible that the Broadcom wl driver would work with 12.10 - definitely worth a try

Thank you.

[Simm2]

I have got the same problem with 12.10.
To note : during installation of 12.10, and for some time after installation, Wifi worked nicely. It seems to me that it stopped working after a kernel update (3.5.0-18, a second update 3.5.0-19 did not improve anything wrt this problem).

[rsavage]

When wl is enabled, it seems to bring in ssb and b44

$ sudo modprobe -r b43 b44 ssb wl
$ sudo lsmod | grep ssb
$ sudo modprobe wl
$ sudo lsmod | grep ssb
ssb                    50087  1 b44

.....

At the moment, I am beginning to suspect there is a bug somewhere in the wifi setup in 12.10 - it probably does not help that both cards are Broadcom and may share driver features. I would have given up long ago if I did not know that wifi was working in 12.04 and I am reasonably certain that the "fix" involved 'disabling' b44 and ssb.

If you have a b44 ethernet card then you have these lines in /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-bcm43.conf

blacklist b44
install wl modprobe -r b43 b44 b43legacy ssb; modprobe --ignore-install wl $CMDLINE_OPTS; modprobe --ignore-install b44

So when you modprobe wl, it automatically modprobes b44 too. Play around with this line and see if removing the "modprobe --ignore-install b44" fixes the problem. If it does then you need to raise a bug.

P.S. It is easy to miss new posts in sticky threads and this is why they sometimes don't get replies. It is much better to create a new thread with your problem. Then people with the same problem can easily find it, rather than wading through a 63 page thread (and if you want to be super helpful, update the community wiki page!).

[zafar142003]

Before either of us get too excited, I have not yet upgraded from Precise and have a different network card. That said, here is a bit of (somewhat) useful information that I've found so far today.

Impatient Executive version:
Try installing the Broadcom-STA driver (wl) via these instructions:

<a href="http://wiki.debian.org/wl"> Debian Wiki on WiFi using Broadcom driver </a>

OK, let's hope you're not too impatient just in case I'm wrong about the above.

More Detailed version:

Reference 1:

<a href="https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/Driver/bcm43xx#Installing%20STA%20drivers"> Reference 1 </a>

Reference 2:

<a href="https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/b43-fwcutter/+bug/651010"> Reference 2 </a>

According to the Ubuntu Docs (Reference 1) you (BCM4311) and I (BCM4312) should be using the 'wl' driver which *does* instruct the blacklisting of ssb and others, as I recall. I say this because I'm currently using a different driver but I've used the 'wl' (broadcom-sta) driver in the past with great success. But somewhere I got steered away from it on this card because it is one of the 'low power' cards.

Care to share your lspci information? Here's mine:

$ lspci -vvnn|grep 14e4

yields:

0b:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.11b/g LP-PHY [14e4:4315] (rev 01)

For me, the "LP-PHY" means (from some source) that I should use the following (from dpkg):
b43-fwcutter install
firmware-b43-lpphy-installer install

This is in agreement with what I found earlier in the thread (actually, the original post):
"Had the same problem, then I noticed that instead of firmware-b43-installer I had to install (manually, via synaptic) firmware-b43-lpphy-installer." --Kontza in LaunchPad.

<a href="https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/b43-fwcutter/+bug/651010" Ref 2 </a>

(Reference 2)

But also see (again, from the original post):

<a href="https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/Driver/bcm43xx#Installing%20STA%20drivers" Ref 1 </a>

(Reference 1)

I think our situations are sufficiently different that what I'm currently using is not your solution despite Mr. Konza's expert advice (which applies to me). I am much more familiar with the Debian advice as that is what I've used in the past for some really old hardware using a PCMCIA wifi card (Linksys, I think, but a Broadcom chipset nonetheless).

Care to share what you've tried that hasn't worked?

General comment: This thread started over two years ago. 62 pages is quite a lot and I won't read all of them unless I'm stuck on an elevator and the rest of the Internet is down. :^)

I agree with HunkirDowne. I had Ubuntu 12.04 and Broadcom STA driver (with BC4312 lp-phy card) installed. After a kernel update the Wifi refused to connect to scanned networks. After reading his advice, I unistalled the STA driver (from the 'additional drivers' section) and installed firmware-b43-lpphy-installer from synaptic. This solved the problem and wifi works as before. Thanks HukirDowne.

[ATW136]

Linux Newbie

Xubuntu Desktop 12.10 via downloaded ISO.

This morning's software updates (3/19/13) included an update for the Linux Kernel to 3.5.0-26. After installing, my WPA2-PSK Wifi no longer worked.

I fixed the problem using the steps below and am posting since it might help others. Because the problem is likely to happen again (see the reason why below), I have asked a question at the end about whether or not there is an even better way to fix the problem.

What I Discovered
As I went through each step of Gnusci's guidelines for information needed to provide answers, I discovered that there were
no differences in the requested information for the installations for the two kernels. The details are:

PC
Dell Mini 1011

$ lspci -nn | grep '14e4'
03:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.11b/g LP-PHY [14e4:4315] (rev 01)

ifconfig
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:24:e8:c4:3b:88
inet addr:192.168.100.9 Bcast:192.168.100.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::224:e8ff:fec4:3b88/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:213 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:100 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:40291 (40.2 KB) TX bytes:12398 (12.3 KB)

eth1 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:26:5e:10:ee:74
inet addr:192.168.100.7 Bcast:192.168.100.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::226:5eff:fe10:ee74/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:99 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:99
TX packets:68 errors:27 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:19684 (19.6 KB) TX bytes:15009 (15.0 KB)
Interrupt:17

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:105 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:105 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:8296 (8.2 KB) TX bytes:8296 (8.2 KB)

iwconfig
lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

eth1 IEEE 802.11 Access Point: Not-Associated
Link Quality:5 Signal level:223 Noise level:199
Rx invalid nwid:0 invalid crypt:0 invalid misc:0

$ lsmod | grep "wl"
wl 2442880 0
lib80211 14041 2 lib80211_crypt_tkip,wl

$ dmesg | grep "wl"
[ 23.790688] wl: module license 'MIXED/Proprietary' taints kernel.

$ dmesg | grep "Broadcom"
[ 23.803618] eth1: Broadcom BCM4315 802.11 Hybrid Wireless Controller 5.100.82.112

$ sudo lshw -C network
*-network
description: Wireless interface
product: BCM4312 802.11b/g LP-PHY
vendor: Broadcom Corporation
physical id: 0
bus info: pci@0000:03:00.0
logical name: eth1
version: 01
serial: 00:26:5e:10:ee:74
width: 64 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless
configuration: broadcast=yes driver=wl0 driverversion=5.100.82.112 ip=192.168.100.7 latency=0 multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11bg
resources: irq:17 memory:f0100000-f0103fff
*-network
description: Ethernet interface
product: RTL8101E/RTL8102E PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller
vendor: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.
physical id: 0
bus info: pci@0000:04:00.0
logical name: eth0
version: 02
serial: 00:24:e8:c4:3b:88
size: 100Mbit/s
capacity: 100Mbit/s
width: 64 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm msi pciexpress msix vpd bus_master cap_list rom ethernet physical tp mii 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd autonegotiation
configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=r8169 driverversion=2.3LK-NAPI duplex=full ip=192.168.100.9 latency=0 link=yes multicast=yes port=MII speed=100Mbit/s
resources: irq:43 ioport:2000(size=256) memory:f0510000-f0510fff memory:f0500000-f050ffff memory:f0520000-f053ffff

$ iwlist scan
lo Interface doesn't support scanning.

eth0 Interface doesn't support scanning.

eth1 Interface doesn't support scanning.

$ lsb_release -d
Description: Ubuntu 12.10

$ uname -mr
3.5.0-26-generic i686 (32 bit) Previous kernel was 3.5.0-25-generic i686

$ sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart
I got error messages with this and after googling replaced with "sudo service networking restart". It didn't do anything and later discovered that a working wifi would stop working after running the command.

What I Did
I had gotten this network card to work previously following the WifiDocs/Driver/bcm43xx wiki instructions for the wl module by installing the bcmwl-kernel-source as described for 12.10. I decided to repeat the steps to try to resolve the problem. The dialog said that it recompiled against the new kernel... and it worked!! The previous kernel, 3.5.0-25, no longer works but I can live with that.

Now, my question:
The .../bcm43xx instructions also indicate that a 4312 LP-PHY controller should be updated using these instructions:
" or, if you need a LP-PHY version (e.g BCM4312), use:
sudo apt-get install firmware-b43-lpphy-installer"

That sounds like a permanent solution (I am assuming that it means no more reinstalls as updated kernels are released.). But, if I do that update, will I still be able to dual-boot this machine with Windows and Wifi or will the update restrict me to Ubuntu only?

Thanks.

[Silverflyer]

Do any of the fixes listed here work on 12.04?