[SOLVED] Lost wifi after update and restart

[GS8764]

Hello hardball45,

do any of these solutions help?


Hello GS8764,

have you tried this ?

I did read it, but when I tried to run rfkill, it hadn't been installed and the suggested install failed, presumably because I no longer had internet. This problem turns my laptop into a boat anchor, since the wired connection is upstairs on the other side of the house, but I'll go ahead and try Install Updates, then try this solution. I'll let you know if it works. I did run lshw and rfkill just now, so I'll be able to give you better documentation next time if it doesn't work.

[ohjrson]

So to back up bitsnpcs what you should do is to check to see what drivers are loaded in your system. You can check this several ways. 1 is to go to synaptic and in the search field type in broadcom. If you see more than one broadcom driver labeled green then you have more than one driver in your system. b43-fwcutter is the only driver you should have. All the rest need to be removed.

If you need to, post what you see in here.

Thanks
ohjrson

[bitsnpcs]

my issue is not that there is a workaround for the problem, my issue is why it works after you do the update but not after the restart. How can that be a Broadcom issue when it works just fine until reboot AFTER the update process? There are many other distributions that work seamlessly with the Broadcom card with no issues what so ever, LXLE, MINT, even Puppy and Simplicity(which is based on puppy) to name a few, I had an issue with a Debian release, Robolinux, but that was the only other one that I tried that had an issue with the Broadcom card. So again I reiterate, how can it be a Broadcom issue?

Hello hardball45,
some of the reasons why a driver may work, then after making an update and rebooting it doesn't are -
1/ because the correct driver is not being told to load on boot. (may be related to #2)
or
2/ the incorrect driver is being told to load on boot/hasn't been uninstalled/removed.
or
3/ more than one are being told to load on boot, and causing an issue.

Re; #1, #2 this shows clearly a cycle such as you are experiencing whereby rebooting reproduces the problem that was "already solved" << that was not in fact fully solved and needs work doing to complete its solution.
Providing information relating to these changes will enable more experienced members to work with you toward a more full and complete solution to the issue.

Broadcom blameless not so, they do not support legacy card, for example, very well, and the Open Source community is where the work to create drivers to support Broadcom products has occurred, because Broadcom followed the M$haft business model of taking consumers money and running, then attempting to force the consumer to replace perfectly functional hardware due to their lack of support.
It may be worth looking at which drivers are installed and which driver is in use, in the seamlessly working instances as this may well provide a solution for the same in LL for you, and others.

[hardball45]

my issue is not that there is a workaround for the problem, my issue is why it works after you do the update but not after the restart. How can that be a Broadcom issue when it works just fine until reboot AFTER the update process? There are many other distributions that work seamlessly with the Broadcom card with no issues what so ever, LXLE, MINT, even Puppy and Simplicity(which is based on puppy) to name a few, I had an issue with a Debian release, Robolinux, but that was the only other one that I tried that had an issue with the Broadcom card. So again I reiterate, how can it be a Broadcom issue?

[ohjrson]

Hey hardball45
   Might I suggest that you click on the Broadcom Wireless issue that I had in the forum here. (should be the one just below your here)

Go ahead and click on some of the links provided. In there you should see some information pertaining to your card. If you follow some of those thing you will get the card to work again. I think that one of the links will give you descriptions of the card you have and the driver you need, and how to get it to work again.

It is unfortunately a Broadcom Wireless thing not a LL 2.0 problem. At least thats what I found. Once I got mine all squared away, everything works ok.

Good luck.
Ohjrson

[bitsnpcs]

Hello hardball45,

do any of these solutions help?


Hello GS8764,

have you tried this ?

[GS8764]

I have also had this problem (at least twice). I installed Linux Lite 2.0 on my Dell Vostro 1000 laptop. When it installs, it asked me if I wanted to connect to my WiFi with the "Broadcom 1390 WLAN MiniCard" and I did. Everything went well and I did quite a bit of work and rebooted several times with no problems. Then I found out about the Menue>Favorites>Update Software" and clicked it. The update seemed to go OK and it was fine until I rebooted. Then I had no Wifi. I didn't know whether the problem was the update or something I had done, so I re-installed from the CD and everything was fine again. I rebooted a couple of times to make sure the WiFi would come back and it did. Then I re-applied the update. It was fine, but when I rebooted the Wifi was gone. It certainly looks to me like something in the update crashed the driver.

I did try "Install Drivers" from the Settings and I saw a screen saying that the hardware was broken and a radio button was checked saying "don't use this hardware". There was another button that had a Broadcom driver listed (it was a Broadcom 1443 or something like that) with an unchecked radio button. I tried checking that and clicking "Apply", but when the screen refreshed it was unchecked again.

[hardball45]

It was a Broadcom 4312 wireless modem in a Dell Lattitude. I have already removed Linux lite from the laptop as I need something that works all the time not part of the time, I am therefore unable to answer the second part of this about the drivers and which radio buttons are ticked, I am using grub to dual boot and both Win7 and Linux are on the same hdd in different partitions.

It is just frustrating that it works after the update completes but not after a reboot.

[bitsnpcs]

Hello hardball45,

can you specify which wifi card you are using please ?

Also can you go to,  Menu>Settings>Install drivers
and state which drivers are listed and which have their radio buttons ticked ?

Also some info about which method you are using for dual boot may be helpful for members.

This will allow members to begin to work with you to solve it.

[hardball45]

I had this issue twice already, I did the updates and the system worked fine, I shutdown the laptop as I was traveling, when I restarted the laptop it did not recognize the wireless card, and yes I know it works since I dual boot this laptop and it worked just fine in Windows 7 and prior to the restart, so I looked in here and found that someone else had the same issue and reinstalled and did update and it worked fine after that, so I reinstalled lite 2.0, did the update and it now recognizes the wireless, used it for the day then shut down and when I restarted I again had no wireless connectivity, and it still worked for the Win7 boot, there has to be something in the updates that is breaking the boot or load of the wireless drivers. other than this issue I am happy with this distro, but if I have to reinstall after every time I update then I will not be using or recommending this ditro to other people.