[Solved] Macbook Pro 9.2 Wireless issues

blankwall · 2013-08-11 20:16:18

I have been going through old posts trying to get my wireless installed. I downloaded compat-wireless and the b43 firmware. Any ideas or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[blankwall@blankwall Downloads]$ iwconfig
enp1s0f0 no wireless extensions.

lo no wireless extensions.

02:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4331 802.11a/b/g/n (rev 02)
Subsystem: Apple Inc. AirPort Extreme
Kernel driver in use: bcma-pci-bridge
Kernel modules: bcma

If any thing else is needed please let me know. Thanks for any help.

Last edited by blankwall (2013-08-12 15:23:22)

blankwall · 2013-08-11 21:53:02

Ok so I am able to get wifi-menu to come up but it never suceeds to connect. Any suggestions or ideas?

WonderWoofy · 2013-08-11 21:57:42

Please post the output of lspci -vnn. (Or at least the resulting section relating to this wireless card)

You may have to use the broadcom-wl package for this one... but I am not sure because it is not entirely clear what card you actually have there. According the the b43 wireless page, the card you have should be a b/g card, when clearly from the output in your first post, this is not the case.

blankwall · 2013-08-11 22:04:42

02:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4331 802.11a/b/g/n [14e4:4331] (rev 02)
Subsystem: Broadcom Corporation BCM4331 802.11a/b/g/n [14e4:4331]
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 17
Memory at a0600000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
Capabilities: <access denied>
Kernel driver in use: bcma-pci-bridge
Kernel modules: bcma

I can now see all the possible networks but still no connection.

WonderWoofy · 2013-08-11 22:09:09

Can you try using the broadcom-wl package? It requires a compilation against the kernel headers, but you should already have the sources if you have the b43-firmware package (that is, if yuo save the sources).

The proprietary wl module is typically the last option you should try, but in this case it seems that you have a revision of a wireless card that is beyond what the b43 module can provide. So it might be time to move on to that.

blankwall · 2013-08-12 00:47:01

Tried the broadcom-wl and also the newer version. Neither seemed to work and I have yet to even be able to see available wireless access points. I am a little lost at this point.

Trilby · 2013-08-12 01:02:56

?? B43 should work fine with that card. Have you followed the wiki instructons for setting it up?

You have to blacklist bcma - in your current output it says it is using (trying to use) bcma, which is likely the problem.

blankwall · 2013-08-12 01:23:53

Ok didnt even realize that was an issue. I am retiring tonight but will give that a go in the morning.

blankwall · 2013-08-12 14:22:43

Ok so I restarted from the beginning this morning. I reinstalled backports for the b43 and also reinstalled the firmware both were succesful and the inerface shows up when ip link is run.

2: wlp2s0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST> mtu 1500 qdisc mq state DOWN mode DEFAULT qlen 1000

When i run

sudo wifi-menu

networks show up but are never able to connect.

Also when lspci -vnn is run it still says the bcma kernel is the one in use even though rmmod says no such kernel is loaded.

lspci -vnn

02:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4331 802.11a/b/g/n [14e4:4331] (rev 02)
	Subsystem: Broadcom Corporation BCM4331 802.11a/b/g/n [14e4:4331]
	Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 17
	Memory at a0600000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
	Capabilities: <access denied>
	Kernel driver in use: bcma-pci-bridge
	Kernel modules: bcma

Any further suggestions or ideas?

*Update:
I realized that it is modprobe -r to unload a module and the bcma module is in use. I am in the process of attempting to blacklist it and reboot to see if it will work. * Ok so that did not work. Bcma is still loaded. I am blacklisting by going in modules.d and editing backports.conf to put a blacklist on bcma. Any other ideas on how to unload it?

Last edited by blankwall (2013-08-12 14:36:58)

Trilby · 2013-08-12 14:35:33

If you can scan and detect networks, then the interface is working. I don't use wifi-menu, so I don't know what it means that that doesn't work - does it give any error messages, or have any logs?

In general, when troubleshooting wireless connections, it will be most helpful to use the manual connection steps so you can indentify exactly which step failed and see the error messages from it. Many connection tools will mask all that information from you.

WonderWoofy · 2013-08-12 14:50:35

Trilby wrote:

In general, when troubleshooting wireless connections, it will be most helpful to use the manual connection steps so you can indentify exactly which step failed and see the error messages from it. Many connection tools will mask all that information from you.

^^^This.

Also, can you explain in a bit more detail the steps you have taken to install the b32-firmware, and blacklist the bmca module?

Oh, and a further investigation into the b43 module, it would seem that the b43 module depends on the bcma module. So if you are blacklisting it correctly, it is still going to be loading it as a dependency to the b43 module. This is normal. Did you read the wiki page, because the only thing it tells you to do there is to blacklist the b43legacy module.

Maybe you should specify the b43 module to be explicitly loaded in /etc/modules-load.d. The pkgbuild of b43-firmware used to give a message telling you to add the b43 module to the modules array in the rc.conf. So maybe it would help to ensure that it is loaded.

Also, Trilby is doubly right that if you are able to scan networks then the interface is indeed working. So I am just giving you the above advice in the event that the module is actually not loading. But it sounds like there is *something* that is driving the hardware. If in doubt, use lsmod to see if the b43 module shows up there.

Oh, and one more thing. The output of lspci -vnn gives you the "Kernel drivers in use" but also the "Kernel modules". That last line with "kernel modules: bcma" is not the module that is actually in use there. That line simply lists the modules that are potentially usable by that hardware.

Trilby · 2013-08-12 14:56:05

WonderWoofy wrote:

Oh, and a further investigation into the b43 module, it would seem that the b43 module depends on the bcma module. So if you are blacklisting it correctly, it is still going to be loading it as a dependency to the b43 module.

I may have mislead the OP there. The "NOTE" in the wiki suggests blacklisting bcma may be necessary, but the additional note linked there specifies that this is only the case with older kernels - in short, bcma should not need to be blacklisted, sorry about the misinformation.

blankwall · 2013-08-12 15:21:08

Ok so I have it working. WonderWoofy was right in that only b43Legacy module needs to be blacklisted. Also thanks to Trilby because for some reason wifi-menu can scan but only a netctl profile is actually able to connect. So I had to go in and adjust the DHCP timeout to allow enough time to make the connection. It is still acting a little funny so I will continue to work on it but at least I am on the web!

Also another weird thing is the device name changes every reboot. It goes from wlan0 to wlp2s0 so I have two profiles to combat that. Very strange.

Last edited by blankwall (2013-08-12 15:24:28)

Arch Linux

#1 2013-08-11 20:16:18

[Solved] Macbook Pro 9.2 Wireless issues

#2 2013-08-11 21:53:02

Re: [Solved] Macbook Pro 9.2 Wireless issues

#3 2013-08-11 21:57:42

Re: [Solved] Macbook Pro 9.2 Wireless issues

#4 2013-08-11 22:04:42

Re: [Solved] Macbook Pro 9.2 Wireless issues

#5 2013-08-11 22:09:09

Re: [Solved] Macbook Pro 9.2 Wireless issues

#6 2013-08-12 00:47:01

Re: [Solved] Macbook Pro 9.2 Wireless issues

#7 2013-08-12 01:02:56

Re: [Solved] Macbook Pro 9.2 Wireless issues

#8 2013-08-12 01:23:53

Re: [Solved] Macbook Pro 9.2 Wireless issues

#9 2013-08-12 14:22:43

Re: [Solved] Macbook Pro 9.2 Wireless issues

#10 2013-08-12 14:35:33

Re: [Solved] Macbook Pro 9.2 Wireless issues

#11 2013-08-12 14:50:35

Re: [Solved] Macbook Pro 9.2 Wireless issues

#12 2013-08-12 14:56:05

Re: [Solved] Macbook Pro 9.2 Wireless issues

#13 2013-08-12 15:21:08

Re: [Solved] Macbook Pro 9.2 Wireless issues

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