Broadcom BCM43228 - disappears after reboot

    Hi,

    I use HP t620 computer to run Libreelec and I have some problems with my WiFi PCI-e card.

    When I first time started Libreelec 12.0.2 I had no internet. System did not see any wlan card. So I used some other old USB WiFi adapter I had (it works very bad, but at least I was able to connect). I added drivers downloaded from Broadcom website to firmware folder (according wiki tutorial). I rebooted Libreelec (additional WiFi adapter was still plugged in). And I managed to see wlan0 and wlan1.

    The Broadcom WiFi card work well. However if I reboot Libreelec without other connection (either wired or USB WiFi) then Broadcom card disappears. This is frustrating as I want to use only internal pci-e card. When I reboot and Libreelec is connected through ethernet then, there is no problem.

    I am actually not sure if the drivers I put to the firmware folder has anything to do with that. Or the main factor is the additional connection during startup?

    If the Broadcom Pci-e is not the best card, then what other I should buy to have WiFi and BT?

    Quote from emelsky

    However if I reboot LibreELEC without other connection (either wired or USB WiFi) then Broadcom card disappears.

    Please run "journalctl | paste" and share the URL generated for three states:

    a) Boot with Ethernet connected, USB wifi disconnected

    b) Boot with USB wifi connected, Ethernet disconnected

    c) Boot with neither USB or Ethernet connected (then wait 60 secs, connect Ethernet to pastebin the log)

    a)Ethernet - no USB

    b)no Ethernet - USB yes

    c) No ehternet - No USB

    Actually in all three cases above I did not see wlan0 from internal Wifi card


    Then I did a trick with removing tar.gz file with drivers from firmware folder. Then I copied it again, I had USB wlan1 Wifi connected. Boot it again and wlan0 is visible in side of wlan1 (see both USB and Internal):

    No ethernet - USB yes - drivers added again to firmware

    After above, I took out USB card, rebooted and now again I do not see any wlan.

    In all three logs "wlan0" is probed and appears to be present, and in the USB logs I also see wlan1 (and confusingly, wlan2) and those are then associating successfully to the network. I don't see any attempts from the wlan0 interface (the Broadcom card) to associate to a network.

    Note that ConnMan stores SSID/pass data against a specific card, so even if you have connected successfully on wlan1/2 and then remove the USB card, it will not auto-connect to the network using wlan0. You would need to specifically connect without the USB device connected and (re)enter the passphrase. I'm wondering if you've done that?

    That said, I'm also just realising that wlan0 is using the 'wl' driver:

    Code
    Aug 06 08:25:54 LibreELEC kernel: wl: loading out-of-tree module taints kernel.

    This driver is vendor/out-of-tree and has been unmaintained by Broadcom for more than a decade. It has been dropped from LE13 as it no longer compiles and I wouldn't be even slightly surprised if (even when it did compile) it didn't work properly on modern kernels due to long-term bit-rot. Some wl using cards are also supported by 'b43' which although in-kernel, is equally unmaintained for about a decade, and for that reason we haven't enabled it in LE13 kernels after dropping wl. TL/DR; even if this did work on LE12 it will have a short lifespan.

    For that reason I'd recommend you get an alternative PCIe card. Look for something with an Intel chip as those are generally well maintained and with the drivers/firmware upstream.

    I established connection through wlan0 (Broadcam) but even though it disappears.

    I found some cheap cars with intel 7265AC chip. Is this something what will be suitable for LE?

    Intel chipsets are all supported via the same "iwlwifi" driver which is enabled in our kernels. I have no knowledge of the individual chipsets because we rarely see issues reported against them, and when things just work we don't learn about them.