Beelink Pocket P1 - Wifi Problem

  • Hi everybody. I've tried to install LibreElec 10.0.4 in a Beelink Pocket P1 PC (thin version). Everything works fine, but no wifi at startup. These are the specs:

    CPU: Intel Atom Z3735F Bay Trail

    RAM: 2GB

    eMMC: 32GB

    Wifi chipset: Broadcom BCM4330

    USB ports: 2x2.0

    It has no Ethernet port, so i can't go to internet if wifi doesn't work. Any solution?

    Thank you very much.

  • Add "textmode" to boot params in syslinux.cfg and the OS is forced to boot to a local console instead of Kodi. This allows you to connect a USB keyboard to poke around a look at the system log with "dmesg" .. which will probably reveal the box can see the SDIO module but is missing a firmware and nvram config file to make it work.

    The missing files should be in this repo: https://github.com/LibreELEC/brcmfmac_sdio-firmware/ but you'll need to download it on another machine and copy it to the root folder of the USB stick, then boot the box into textmode and copy the files to the /storage/.config/firmware/brcm/ folder before rebooting. On reboot the firmware will appear in /usr/lib/firmware and the card should work.

    If you confirm that fixes it, we'll have a think about how to resolve things properly in the normal image.

  • After find a Ethernet USB adapter, i connect a pc with putty, and i find the syslinux.cfg file in /flash folder, but i can't modify it. It says the file is in only read mode. I can't use sudo because in libreelec i have already root access.

    What can i do now?

  • Thank you everybody for support. This is what i've done:

    1) from Putty mounted syslinuxfile.cfg with command mount -o remount,rw /flash

    2) go inside the file with nano /flash/syslinux.cfg

    3) This is what syslinux.cfg file contains:

    Code
    DEFAULT linux
    PROMPT 0
    
    LABEL linux
     KERNEL /KERNEL
     APPEND boot=UUID=9281-CF54 disk=UUID=510f233f-27d1-4251-925d-270c69e8a88c quiet

    4) I modified the file adding textmode like this:

    Code
    DEFAULT linux
    PROMPT 0
    
    LABEL linux
     KERNEL /KERNEL
     APPEND boot=UUID=9281-CF54 disk=UUID=510f233f-27d1-4251-925d-270c69e8a88c textmode quiet

    5) saved file with Ctrl+X and mounted again as ony read file with mount -o remount,ro /flash

    6) Reboot

    But no textmode. Libreelec reboot with kodi again. But if I go inside syslinux file it is modified like i do.

    So, what i'm doing wrong?

  • Usually a Z3735F Bay Trail is using a 32bit EFI BIOS. You have to edit grub.cfg in this case.

    Thank you mglae, this was the problem.

    So i finally go in textmode, i put USB stick in pc with two file inside (i tried to use brcmfmac4330-sdio.bin and brcmfmac4330-sdio.txt files), then i copy the files in the folder /storage/.config/firmware/brcm (the path /firmware/brcm didn't exist, so i created it). After put these files i reboot and check i file are in /usr/lib/firmware and they are here. Thene i reboot libreELEC in GUI mode.

    And... nothing happened, same problem, no WiFi in Connections Tab.

    Should i try other drivers?

  • In textmode make /flash writeable then dump the boot log to USB with "dmesg > /flash/dmesg.log" and shutdown and copy/share the log via pastebin so we can see if the WiFi card is probed or not.

  • This is what the command dmesg write:

    External Content pastebin.com
    Content embedded from external sources will not be displayed without your consent.
    Through the activation of external content, you agree that personal data may be transferred to third party platforms. We have provided more information on this in our privacy policy.

    Seems ther is an error in last lines. Could be the cause?

  • The log shows the WiFi card is probed and bin/txt files are loaded (there are errors for device-specific files but it then falls back to the generic ones which is normal). So there is a wlan0 device, but there are lots of reference to tethering. Have you enabled tethering in LE settings?

    NB: The "BCM4330B1.hcd" file needs to be in the same firmware/brcm/ directory for BT to work.

  • The log shows the WiFi card is probed and bin/txt files are loaded (there are errors for device-specific files but it then falls back to the generic ones which is normal). So there is a wlan0 device, but there are lots of reference to tethering. Have you enabled tethering in LE settings?

    NB: The "BCM4330B1.hcd" file needs to be in the same firmware/brcm/ directory for BT to work.

    Yes, i was trying random solution and i enabled tethering.

    Now i had some problem with ethernet adapter, so i reinstall again libreELEC ver. 11.0.0 and it works again, but still not wifi.

    This is what dmesg.log write in a clean libreelec installation:

    External Content pastebin.com
    Content embedded from external sources will not be displayed without your consent.
    Through the activation of external content, you agree that personal data may be transferred to third party platforms. We have provided more information on this in our privacy policy.

    EDIT: finally i solved it!

    The problem think was the missing "BCM4330B1.hcd" file, so i copy all three files in /storage/.config/firmware/brcm and reboot.

    And magic! The wifi now works!

    Thank you everybody for your support ^^ ^^ ^^

    Edited 2 times, last by DBoMS (March 12, 2023 at 9:36 PM).

  • BCM4330B1.hcd is the BT firmware file and assuming x86_64 driver code works the same as ARM boards this shoud have no impact on WiFi. If you rename the bin/txt files to follow "brcm/http://brcmfmac4330-sdio.V5-V5.bin/txt" there will be fewer error messages in the log.

    I think the original install was working fine once the bin/txt files were added but the card cannot host a tethered AP and join a WiFi network at the same time; they are mutually exclusive functions.