Unable to connect to wifi (Macbook 2015, Broadcom)

[japtar]

I’ve been trying to follow through the instructions written here on Arch Linux wiki on setting up Broadcom wifi: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Broadcom_wireless

I’ve ironically uninstalled broadcom-wl-dkms, and that helped the wifi driver detect my home wifi router. When I try to connect to it, though, Plasma’s network management app struggles. What can I do to troubleshoot this issue a little better? Here’s the hardware info. I don’t know how to verify whether it’s brcm80211 driver that’s running or not.

lspci -vnn -d 14e4:                                                                                                                                                                 ⏎

03:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Inc. and subsidiaries BCM43602 802.11ac Wireless LAN SoC [14e4:43ba] (rev 01)
        Subsystem: Apple Inc. Device [106b:0152]
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 65
        Memory at a0800000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=32K]
        Memory at a0400000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4M]
        Capabilities: <access denied>
        Kernel driver in use: brcmfmac
        Kernel modules: brcmfmac

04:00.0 Multimedia controller [0480]: Broadcom Inc. and subsidiaries 720p FaceTime HD Camera [14e4:1570]
        Subsystem: Broadcom Inc. and subsidiaries 720p FaceTime HD Camera [14e4:1570]
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0
        Memory at a0a00000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
        Memory at 80000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
        Memory at a0900000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=1M]
        Capabilities: <access denied>

0a:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Broadcom Inc. and subsidiaries NetXtreme BCM57762 Gigabit Ethernet PCIe [14e4:1682]
        Subsystem: Apple Inc. Thunderbolt to Gigabit Ethernet Adapter [106b:00f6]
        Physical Slot: 9
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 16
        Memory at ace00000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=64K]
        Memory at ace10000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=64K]
        Expansion ROM at a0e00000 [disabled] [size=64K]
        Capabilities: <access denied>
        Kernel driver in use: tg3
        Kernel modules: tg3

[linuxtom]

Hey there - I had a lot of issues with the broadcom drivers recently. Are you able to try installing the LTS kernel, booting into that, and installing the broadcom-wl-dkms drivers (with appropriate module unloading/loading)? Might be a useful test as apparently there were some bugs on recent broadcom versions that stopped them loading properly in recent kernel versions. Using older kernel did work on the old laptop I was working on.

That may or may not be helpful, but something to consider?

[tbg]

Some broadcom adapters including the bcm4360 work better using IWD.

NetworkManager - ArchWiki

NetworkManager with `iwd` backend doesn't autoconnect to some WiFi

I have enabled iwd as a backend for NetworkManager, and it’s mostly working fine. But, it doesn’t autoconnect to 8021x networks. I have AutoConnect=true in my /etc/iwd/main.conf. I can see the network by running nmcli device wifi list, and can connect using nmcli connnection up, but autoconnect doesn’t work. It works perfectly for normal WPA2/WPA3 networks.

[ricklinux]

@japtar

03:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Inc. and subsidiaries BCM43602 802.11ac Wireless LAN SoC [14e4:43ba] (rev 01)
        Subsystem: Apple Inc. Device [106b:0152]
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 65
        Memory at a0800000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=32K]
        Memory at a0400000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4M]
        Capabilities: <access denied>
        Kernel driver in use: brcmfmac
        Kernel modules: brcmfmac

It shows that it is using brcmfmac which is a kernel module. It does seem to be the correct module for the broadcom BCM43601 chip.

@japtar

Plasma’s network management app struggles.

Not sure what you mean here. Is it having difficulty connecting? Doesn’t connect? Or works but has issues?

[japtar]

To answer the latter question, it doesn’t connect at all.

[ricklinux]

Hmm? It didn’t work with broadcom-wl-dkms? Sometimes you have to blacklist some of the other broadcom modules. Not sure if you tried that?

Edit: I am using a broadcom chip but it’s the BCM4360 and it does work with broadcom-wl-dkms. Yours is a different chip and also on a Mac.

Also have you tried

sudo rmmod brcmfmac
sudo modprobe brcmfmac

[ricklinux]

@japtar
I see there is an update for NetworkManager just now.

[japtar]

Hmm, I can’t seem to remove the module.

~ sudo rmmod brcmfmac   
rmmod: ERROR: Module brcmfmac is in use by:rmmod: ERROR:  brcmfmac_wccrmmod: ERROR: 

Also, I did try running eos-update --yay, then restarted the computer. I’m still unable to connect to my wifi router.

I haven’t looked into IWD, yet, though. Will give that a shot.

ETA: Yup, enabling IWD worked! Process was fairly simple:

0. Make sure IWD is installed. It already was in my case.

$ pacman -Ss iwd
extra/iwd 3.4-1 [installed]
    Internet Wireless Daemon
$ # If you *don't* have it installed, then type in:
$ sudo pacman -S iwd

2. Enter the following command to create a new file:

sudo nano /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/wifi_backend.conf

3. With Nano text editor open, type in the following content:

[device]
wifi.backend=iwd

4. Tap Ctrl+X to close Nano, and when prompted, enter the Y key for confirming to save the file.
5. Restart the OS. I actually think just logging out and logging back in will just work, but I restarted anyway, just to make sure.

[ricklinux]

Does enabling this mean you’re still using NetworkManager and it just now works?

[japtar]

Yes, interestingly enough. No changes to UI needed.

[ricklinux]

Glad it’s working for you now. Hope you enjoy EOS on your MAC!