Ethernet only detected when disconnected at boot

Swapy97 · 2018-04-14 14:20:34

Hello Community,

I have a very awkward issue with ArchLinux not detecting my Ethernet Card.
I just installed ArchLinux using the Installation Guide in the wiki.
I also installed KDE Plasma 5 on top but the problem also occured before installing KDE

I also ran "pacman -Syu"

I got a laptop: Toshiba Satellite Pro C660

Scenario A:
Laptop is powered off and ethernet cable is NOT plugged in. I turn on the laptop, log in to the terminal and with "ip a" I can clearly see enp2s0 listed there.
When I plug in the Ethernet Cable, the NetworkManager automatically requests an IP address from the DHCP and I have access to the internet.
It's working as it should!

dmesg | grep r8169:

[    4.323473] r8169 Gigabit Ethernet driver 2.3LK-NAPI loaded
[    4.323483] r8169 0000:02:00.0: can't disable ASPM; OS doesn't have ASPM control
[    4.323947] r8169 0000:02:00.0 eth0: RTL8105e at 0x00000000b84b5ccc, dc:0e:a1:37:6d:84, XID 00a00000 IRQ 25
[    4.651701] r8169 0000:02:00.0 enp2s0: renamed from eth0
[    4.895494] r8169 0000:02:00.0 enp2s0: link down
[   97.636692] r8169 0000:02:00.0 enp2s0: link up

lspci:

...

02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8101/2/6E PCI Express Fast/Gigabit Ethernet controller (rev 05)
	Subsystem: Toshiba America Info Systems RTL810xE PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller
	Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 25
	I/O ports at e000 [size=256]
	Memory at f0004000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=4K]
	Memory at f0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=16K]
	Capabilities: <access denied>
	Kernel driver in use: r8169
	Kernel modules: r8169

...

Scenario B:
Laptop is powered off and ethernet cable is plugged in. I turn on the laptop, log in to the terminal and with "ip a" I only have "lo" and my wireless card
"wlp3s0" listed.

not mentioned in "ip a"
not mentioned in "dmesg"
not mentioned in "lspci"

I am not very familiar with drivers in linux but somehow I dont think this is a driver problem because it is working perfectly when the cable is unplugged during boot.

Greetings,
Swapy97

loqs · 2018-04-14 16:44:41

Symptoms are not exactly the same but have you tried the solution from Network_configuration#Realtek_no_link_.2F_WOL_problem?
Edit:
Oh and welcome to the arch linux forums Swapy97.

Last edited by loqs (2018-04-14 16:45:14)

R00KIE · 2018-04-14 17:52:56

You might want to inquire upstream either in the proper mailing list or bug tracker. This looks like a driver bug but it might be some setting the windows driver changes and then breaks things on the linux side.

Unless someone here already experienced the same problem and can provide some tips, I'd say upstream is the place to ask/search as they may already be aware of the problem and may be able to provide guidance.

loqs · 2018-04-14 18:15:51

perl scripts/get_maintainer.pl drivers/net/ethernet/realtek/r8169.c
Realtek linux nic maintainers <nic_swsd@realtek.com> (maintainer:8169 10/100/1000 GIGABIT ETHERNET DRIVER)
netdev@vger.kernel.org (open list:8169 10/100/1000 GIGABIT ETHERNET DRIVER)
linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org (open list)

Swapy97 · 2018-04-14 18:42:11

So, Linux drivers are only available for Kernel Version up to 4.7

Enabling WOL didn't fix the problem but I discovered that when going to the BIOS before booting,
then Linux will actually detect and recognize everything perfectly.

Obviously, this is not a permanent solution.

Do I have to upgrade the driver manually? I read that the driver is included in the kernel.
But some are installing things like r8168-dkms and I cant find out if I need it and how I can install it.

To which e-mail address should I write to, if not?
btw. never used mailing lists.

And thank you for your help so far!

loqs · 2018-04-14 20:36:20

Swapy97 wrote:

So, Linux drivers are only available for Kernel Version up to 4.7

No the r8169 module is still in 4.16 what lead you to believe it had been dropped with 4.7?

Swapy97 wrote:

Do I have to upgrade the driver manually? I read that the driver is included in the kernel.
But some are installing things like r8168-dkms and I cant find out if I need it and how I can install it.

r8168 is provided as a package in community for the kernel provided by the linux package. r8168-dkms in AUR is the dkms version that supports all kernels (within reason).
I do not know if r8168 would provide better results than r8169.

Swapy97 · 2018-04-14 21:12:08

loqs wrote:

Swapy97 wrote:
So, Linux drivers are only available for Kernel Version up to 4.7
No the r8169 module is still in 4.16 what lead you to believe it had been dropped with 4.7?
r8168 is provided as a package in community for the kernel provided by the linux package. r8168-dkms in AUR is the dkms version that supports all kernels (within reason).
I do not know if r8168 would provide better results than r8169.

I looked at the Realtek website. Is this wrong?

I dont know what I should do now.. Im at the end of my powers, literally.

loqs · 2018-04-14 23:45:10

Swapy97 wrote:

loqs wrote:
Swapy97 wrote:
So, Linux drivers are only available for Kernel Version up to 4.7
No the r8169 module is still in 4.16 what lead you to believe it had been dropped with 4.7?
r8168 is provided as a package in community for the kernel provided by the linux package. r8168-dkms in AUR is the dkms version that supports all kernels (within reason).
I do not know if r8168 would provide better results than r8169.
I looked at the Realtek website. Is this wrong?

It is accurate about the driver you could download from the the realtek website. That would be the r8168 module without updates for newer kernels that the r8168 package uses and it is not the r8169 module as supplied by the linux kernel developers.
Have you tried installing the r8168 package and seeing if the result is the same or install the linux-lts kernel to check an older version of the r8169 module?
Otherwise as ROOKIE suggested you should contact upstream probably the netdev list. You can research mailing list etiquette before posting and see the list archive for what is expected.

R00KIE · 2018-04-15 10:18:01

With linux you want to get your drivers with the kernel, but for new hardware when the kernel still does not have a driver some manufacturers do provide a linux driver, usually called an out-of-tree driver because the driver code is not in the kernel's code tree. If and when eventually a drivers gets included in the kernel the hardware manufacturer will stop investing time in their own driver and because of that the driver will only work with older kernel versions, which is what you are seeing in the manufacturer's page.

Personally I prefer to use the drivers that come with the kernel but in this case you could try to check the aur for drivers and see if they work, that would give you an idea if it is a bug/missing feature with the drivers in the kernel or something that the computer manufacturer screwed up somehow.

The suggestion to test the LTS kernel is also a good one, it will let you know if the problem you are seeing is a regression or not, in other words if it worked before and changes in the driver broke things. If it is a regression the chance of getting it fixed (quicker) increases because the kernel developers don't like regressions, but if it never worked then it might take longer.

Swapy97 · 2018-04-15 14:32:12

I installed some drivers from the AUR and blacklisted the r8169, but the Ethernet controller was not detected at all.

Also installing the LTS Kernel did not change anything. Problem still persisted.

loqs · 2018-04-15 15:29:40

Swapy97 wrote:

I installed some drivers from the AUR and blacklisted the r8169, but the Ethernet controller was not detected at all.

You are not going to name what you installed from AUR?

Swapy97 wrote:

Also installing the LTS Kernel did not change anything. Problem still persisted.

Was the unnamed driver still installed then and r8169 still blacklisted?
smart-questions

Swapy97 · 2018-04-15 19:24:08

loqs wrote:

Swapy97 wrote:
I installed some drivers from the AUR and blacklisted the r8169, but the Ethernet controller was not detected at all.
You are not going to name what you installed from AUR?

Ohh, that was pretty dumb.. I installed the r8168-dkms package.

loqs wrote:

Swapy97 wrote:
Also installing the LTS Kernel did not change anything. Problem still persisted.
Was the unnamed driver still installed then and r8169 still blacklisted?
smart-questions

The r8168-dkms package was still installed and r8169 was still blacklisted while the lts kernel was installed.

loqs · 2018-04-15 19:49:23

Did you check if the r8168 module was loading under both kernels? Did the r8168 module work if you booted with the network cable disconnected as the r8169 module did?
If you remove the r8168 dkms module for linux-lts and the blacklist for r8169 did r8169 module under linux-lts also have the issue?

Swapy97 · 2018-04-15 19:57:15

loqs wrote:

Did you check if the r8168 module was loading under both kernels? Did the r8168 module work if you booted with the network cable disconnected as the r8169 module did?
If you remove the r8168 dkms module for linux-lts and the blacklist for r8169 did r8169 module under linux-lts also have the issue?

Opps. Did not check that explicitly.
r8168 module did not work at all, even with network cable disconnected at boot.
r8168 loaded under both kernels.

r8169 also had the issue without linux-lts kernel

loqs · 2018-04-15 20:13:54

Swapy97 wrote:

r8169 also had the issue without linux-lts kernel

Do you not mean with linux-lts?
As there were some changes in 4.16 that might be related such as https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/ke … 9c9f2b9306
There are also changes for the next upstream release 4.17 such as https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/ke … 64322c3f72
Edit:
Forgot 4.16 is still in testing. If linux-lts does not function any worse than linux and you do not use any out of tree drivers such as nvidia you could try the linux package from testing.

Last edited by loqs (2018-04-15 20:30:00)

Swapy97 · 2018-04-18 08:45:40

loqs wrote:

Swapy97 wrote:
r8169 also had the issue without linux-lts kernel
Do you not mean with linux-lts?

loqs wrote:

As there were some changes in 4.16 that might be related such as https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/ke … 9c9f2b9306
There are also changes for the next upstream release 4.17 such as https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/ke … 64322c3f72
Edit:
Forgot 4.16 is still in testing. If linux-lts does not function any worse than linux and you do not use any out of tree drivers such as nvidia you could try the linux package from testing.

Still doesn't work sadly
I guess, I have to wait for kernel update and use wifi until the driver is fixed?

loqs · 2018-04-18 15:06:55

Swapy97 wrote:

Still doesn't work sadly

Which does not work r8169 under linux-lts (4.14) or r8169 under 4.16?

Swapy97 wrote:

I guess, I have to wait for kernel update and use wifi until the driver is fixed?

If the relevant developer is aware of the issue and has access to hardware then yes it should be fixed at some point in the future.

Arch Linux

#1 2018-04-14 14:20:34

Ethernet only detected when disconnected at boot

#2 2018-04-14 16:44:41

Re: Ethernet only detected when disconnected at boot

#3 2018-04-14 17:52:56

Re: Ethernet only detected when disconnected at boot

#4 2018-04-14 18:15:51

Re: Ethernet only detected when disconnected at boot

#5 2018-04-14 18:42:11

Re: Ethernet only detected when disconnected at boot

#6 2018-04-14 20:36:20

Re: Ethernet only detected when disconnected at boot

#7 2018-04-14 21:12:08

Re: Ethernet only detected when disconnected at boot

#8 2018-04-14 23:45:10

Re: Ethernet only detected when disconnected at boot

#9 2018-04-15 10:18:01

Re: Ethernet only detected when disconnected at boot

#10 2018-04-15 14:32:12

Re: Ethernet only detected when disconnected at boot

#11 2018-04-15 15:29:40

Re: Ethernet only detected when disconnected at boot

#12 2018-04-15 19:24:08

Re: Ethernet only detected when disconnected at boot

#13 2018-04-15 19:49:23

Re: Ethernet only detected when disconnected at boot

#14 2018-04-15 19:57:15

Re: Ethernet only detected when disconnected at boot

#15 2018-04-15 20:13:54

Re: Ethernet only detected when disconnected at boot

#16 2018-04-18 08:45:40

Re: Ethernet only detected when disconnected at boot

#17 2018-04-18 15:06:55

Re: Ethernet only detected when disconnected at boot

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