Network (WiFi) Problems on MacBook from 2015

General system Newbie
1

Hi there,

as the title says I’m experiencing a massive struggle with my WiFi connection on my old MacBook. At first EndeavourOS didn’t recognize the card at all (Device-1: Broadcom BCM43602 802.11ac Wireless LAN SoC driver: brcmfmac) because the kernel module was not loaded. I tried following this article over here (https://discovery.endeavouros.com/installation/get-broadcom-working-on-an-installed-system-and-on-live-usb/2021/03/) which didn’t work at all. Long story short I remembered that on manjaro (which i had installed previously) the kernel had automatically used the brcmfmac kernel module and that also did the trick here. But now the problems started to get really weird:
I could see every WLAN but only connect to open ones with NetworkManager. So i read through the ArchWiki and after a lot of experimenting it seems I’m only able to use wpa_supplicant to connect to networks with a passphrase. All others end in a TLS-Loop, despite using the exact same credentials. Here an exemplary one from iwd:

EAP completed with eapSuccess
Okt 08 19:26:48 markus-mbp2015 iwd[6123]: TTLS: tls_reset_handshake:204 New state TLS_HANDSHAKE_WAIT_START
Okt 08 19:26:51 markus-mbp2015 iwd[6123]: Received Deauthentication event, reason: 3, from_ap: true
Okt 08 19:26:51 markus-mbp2015 iwd[6123]: TTLS: tls_reset_handshake:204 New state TLS_HANDSHAKE_WAIT_START
Okt 08 19:26:51 markus-mbp2015 iwd[6123]: TTLS: tls_reset_handshake:204 New state TLS_HANDSHAKE_WAIT_START
Okt 08 19:26:52 markus-mbp2015 iwd[6123]: TTLS: tls_tx_handshake:890 Sending a TLS_CLIENT_HELLO of 135 bytes
Okt 08 19:26:52 markus-mbp2015 iwd[6123]: TTLS: l_tls_start:2876 New state TLS_HANDSHAKE_WAIT_HELLO
Okt 08 19:26:52 markus-mbp2015 iwd[6123]: TTLS: tls_handle_handshake:2381 Handling a TLS_SERVER_HELLO of 38 bytes
Okt 08 19:26:52 markus-mbp2015 iwd[6123]: TTLS: tls_handle_server_hello:1843 Negotiated TLS 1.2
Okt 08 19:26:52 markus-mbp2015 iwd[6123]: TTLS: tls_handle_server_hello:1879 Negotiated TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA
Okt 08 19:26:52 markus-mbp2015 iwd[6123]: TTLS: tls_handle_server_hello:1890 Negotiated CompressionMethod.null
Okt 08 19:26:52 markus-mbp2015 iwd[6123]: TTLS: tls_handle_server_hello:1893 New state TLS_HANDSHAKE_WAIT_CERTIFICATE
Okt 08 19:26:52 markus-mbp2015 iwd[6123]: TTLS: tls_handle_handshake:2381 Handling a TLS_CERTIFICATE of 5981 bytes
Okt 08 19:26:52 markus-mbp2015 iwd[6123]: TTLS: tls_handle_certificate:1963 Peer certchain written to /tmp/iwd-tls-debug-server-cert.pem
Okt 08 19:26:52 markus-mbp2015 iwd[6123]: TTLS: tls_handle_certificate:2067 New state TLS_HANDSHAKE_WAIT_KEY_EXCHANGE
Okt 08 19:26:52 markus-mbp2015 iwd[6123]: TTLS: tls_handle_handshake:2381 Handling a TLS_SERVER_KEY_EXCHANGE of 585 bytes
Okt 08 19:26:52 markus-mbp2015 iwd[6123]: TTLS: tls_handle_handshake:2470 New state TLS_HANDSHAKE_WAIT_HELLO_DONE
Okt 08 19:26:52 markus-mbp2015 iwd[6123]: TTLS: tls_handle_ecdhe_server_key_xchg:621 Negotiated secp256r1
Okt 08 19:26:52 markus-mbp2015 iwd[6123]: TTLS: tls_rsa_verify:253 Peer signature verified
Okt 08 19:26:52 markus-mbp2015 iwd[6123]: TTLS: tls_handle_ecdhe_server_key_xchg:675 New state TLS_HANDSHAKE_WAIT_HELLO_DONE
Okt 08 19:26:52 markus-mbp2015 iwd[6123]: TTLS: tls_handle_handshake:2381 Handling a TLS_SERVER_HELLO_DONE of 0 bytes
Okt 08 19:26:52 markus-mbp2015 iwd[6123]: TTLS: tls_tx_handshake:890 Sending a TLS_CLIENT_KEY_EXCHANGE of 66 bytes
Okt 08 19:26:52 markus-mbp2015 iwd[6123]: TTLS: tls_tx_handshake:890 Sending a TLS_FINISHED of 12 bytes
Okt 08 19:26:52 markus-mbp2015 iwd[6123]: TTLS: tls_handle_server_hello_done:2182 New state TLS_HANDSHAKE_WAIT_CHANGE_CIPHER_SPEC
Okt 08 19:26:52 markus-mbp2015 iwd[6123]: TTLS: tls_handle_message:2736 New state TLS_HANDSHAKE_WAIT_FINISHED
Okt 08 19:26:52 markus-mbp2015 iwd[6123]: TTLS: tls_handle_handshake:2381 Handling a TLS_FINISHED of 12 bytes
Okt 08 19:26:52 markus-mbp2015 iwd[6123]: TTLS: tls_reset_handshake:204 New state TLS_HANDSHAKE_WAIT_START
Okt 08 19:26:52 markus-mbp2015 iwd[6123]: TTLS: tls_finished:2367 New state TLS_HANDSHAKE_DONE
Okt 08 19:26:52 markus-mbp2015 iwd[6123]: EAP completed with eapSuccess
Okt 08 19:26:52 markus-mbp2015 iwd[6123]: TTLS: tls_reset_handshake:204 New state TLS_HANDSHAKE_WAIT_START

I’m honestly at wits end. I hope someone has an idea whats going wrong here. I spent over 12h already trying to figure it out with all kinds of forums and wiki entries but no luck. For some reason wpa_supplicant works without any problems so I have a way to use networks but i still would love to comprehend what the hell is going on here.

Here the inxi -FAZ --no-host | eos-sendlog:

https://clbin.com/ArdKN

Cheers,
Markus

2

Use phone tethering to connect to internet, then run

sudo pacman -S broadcom-wl-dkms

and reboot.

1 Like
3

As written in my post:

I tried following this article over here (https://discovery.endeavouros.com/installation/get-broadcom-working-on-an-installed-system-and-on-live-usb/2021/03/) which didn’t work at all.

They also say to use that there but then the card just doesn’t work at all. To be precise I even worked through the troubleshooting steps of https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Broadcom_wireless and it just didn’t work with dkms package.

4

The Broadcom BCM43602 should work with the kernel modules but you need the firmware. Make sure broadcom-wl or dkms is not installed.

Edit: This is the relevant section regarding this chip.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Broadcom_wireless#brcm80211

Edit2: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=207475

5

I am unsure what you mean by that. Firmware = Driver = brcmfmac? At least that’s what the articles both tell me. If yes then that’s already installed and enabled as kernel module. If I search with yay -Ss brcmfmac there are no packages that fit.
On another note:

I could see every WLAN but only connect to open ones with NetworkManager. So i read through the ArchWiki and after a lot of experimenting it seems I’m only able to use wpa_supplicant to connect to networks with a passphrase. All others end in a TLS-Loop, despite using the exact same credentials. Here an exemplary one from iwd:

As I already wrote the card itself reports well and shows every network, but I can not connect to any network that has a passphrase, unless I use wpa_supplicant.

So I think I am being misunderstood here. The card itself is working properly I’m pretty sure about that, since there are no kernel errors or something that indicate it otherwise.

But thanks for your help :slight_smile:

6

Welcome to the forum! :smile:

Have you read the Broadcom wireless article linked above?

Did you see this?

By the way, command inxi -Faz gives more details.

7

I pointed you to the relevant information. I think you are misunderstanding what i was referring to. brcmfmac is a kernel module there is nothing to install. It should automatically work. But firmware is another factor and i just wanted you to be aware as Arch doesn’t always install firmware for all hardware. They have many firmware packages separated now. You may or may not need it? I normally use network manager and i am familiar with iwd. I am not that versed with wpa_supplicant.

Your problem is probably similar to this maybe?

8

So IDK if it works on endeavourOS aswell as I am using pure Arch on my 2015 MacBook Pro now, but I thought I would share the solution that I found working. Reason being: I recently installed for testing endeavourOS on a 2019 MacBook Pro and had the same issue again. Endeavour automatically installed the broadcom-wl-dkms package which just doesn’t work. IDK why. But if you uninstall it and use the brcmfmac kernel module that is already installed it shows the wireless card flawlessly. The issue with NetworkManager / WPA is resolved by using iwd as backend. I found that solution to be working flawlessly on both my old 2015 MacBook Pro and now the newer 2019 MacBook Pro. I got onto that because of https://wiki.t2linux.org/guides/wifi-bluetooth/#fixing-unstable-wpa2-using-iwd. Note: I didn’t have to install any additional firmware on my MacBook Pro 2015, just uninstall the mentioned package and use iwd as backend for NetworkManager.

9

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