And as this is a troublesome realtek nic … i see users having issues like this it helps to do the following:
sudo su
sed -i /usr/lib/modprobe.d/r8168.conf -e 's|r8169|r8168|'
rmmod r8169
modprobe r8169
Seems that it is try using the blacklisted r8169 module but then fails on that because it is blacklisted.
reference:
https://discovery.endeavouros.com/network/r8168-workaround/2021/03/