[SOLVED] Ethernet not working in live boot environment

thebrownmamba · 2024-09-25 16:54:59

I'm trying to install Arch on my PC, but ethernet is not working. I can't really copy and paste the output from my PC, so I can only describe the output. ip a shows that my ethernet interface is up but it's not connected to the internet. Restarting systemd-networkd and systemd-resolved does nothing. I have the r8169 Realtek module, and from a few quick online searches it seems like this module is problematic to some, but I'm not sure if this is what's happening to me.

dmesg | grep enp3s0

... r8169 ... enp3s0: renamed from eth0
... r8169 ... enp3s0: Link is Down

ip link set enp3s0 up
dhcpcd enp3s0

dhcpcd-10.0.10 starting
Dropped protocol specifier '.link' from 'enp3s0.link'. Using 'enp3s0' (ifindex=2).
enp3s0: waiting for carrier
timed out

The full result of ip link show dev enp3s0 is:

enp3s0: <NO-CARRIER,BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP> mtu 1500 qdisc fq_code state DOWN mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000

(Which I interpret the UP in the <> to be the actual UP interface)

networkctl

...
enp3s0 ether no-carrier configuring
...

It's weirdly seems to be stuck at configuring. I've never seen this behavior before.

I further tried networkctl -a status following https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=220961 and the output was something like:

...
... archiso systemd-networkd[768]: enp3s0: Configuring with /etc/systemd/network/20-ethernet.network.
... archiso systemd-networkd[768]: enp3s0: Link UP
...

and then nothing else surrounding enp3s0. There's obviously some info about enp3s0 but it's just too much to type. If these values are needed I'll provide them.

I find that my problem closely resembles https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Networ … OL_problem, since I don't have any link light, and my ethernet works fine from my Windows 11. However, my link light is on in POST. It instantly turns off when Linux boots. I've tried the first proposed fix, doesn't work (as shown from above), the second fix I absolutely have no idea where or which driver am I supposed to install, the third fix is extremely ambiguous to me because I have no idea if it proposes to set Shutdown Wake-on-LAN to Enable or Disable, nevertheless it was enabled and it didn't fix the issue, and the fourth fix is not a valid option in my BIOS.

I do want to note that I have successfully installed Arch on the same machine that I'm currently having issues with in the past; just a month ago in fact. I was also dual booting Windows at the time. Only difference now is that I'm using the September ISO instead of August. I have no WiFi adapter installed on my PC so WiFi is not an option for me.

Last edited by thebrownmamba (2024-10-06 07:16:37)

pgoetz · 2024-09-25 18:23:17

First, run

ip link set dev enp3s0 up

You should see a link light after this. If this resolves the issue, you're done. Otherwise post the contents of /etc/systemd/network/20-ethernet.network

I have not been able to get the systemd built in DHCP server to work properly. Do you have another DHCP server on your network which can assign an IP address? If not, are you able to assign a static IP address?

thebrownmamba · 2024-09-25 18:46:24

ip link set dev enp3s0 up

No luck with that one.

I can't copy and paste the file, so I'm manually writing the content of 20-ethernet.network with omitting the comments.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Match]
# ...
# ...
# ...
Name=en*
Name=eth*

[Link]
RequiredForOnline=routable

[Network]
DHCP=yes
MulticastDNS=yes

# ...
# ...
# ...
# ...
# ...
[DHCPv4]
RouteMetric=100

[IPv6AcceptRA]
RouteMetric=100
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Assigning a static IP address with the following config:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Match]
# ...
# ...
# ...
Name=enp3s0
Name=eth*

[Link]
RequiredForOnline=routable

[Network]
Address=192.168.1.19/24
Gateway=192.168.1.1
DNS=1.1.1.1
MulticastDNS=yes

# ...
# ...
# ...
# ...
# ...
[DHCPv4]
RouteMetric=100

[IPv6AcceptRA]
RouteMetric=100
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And then restarting systemd-networkd does not work either.

I have no idea if I have another DHCP server nor do I know how to check it.

Besides, I don't think it's a DHCP issue or an IP assignment issue, seeing that the link lights are turned off. I suspect it's a driver issue or incompatibility of some sort, combined with me having a Windows system installed at the time of the installation. Again, Ethernet works perfectly fine on the Windows system I have installed at the moment and the link lights are still on in GRUB, but as soon as Linux itself loads the lights turn off.

pgoetz · 2024-09-25 19:08:52

Yeah, if you can't get the link to come up, nothing is going to work. I haven't seen linux driver issues with ethernet cards in a very long time, but I suppose it's possible. What output do you see when you run

lspci -v | grep -i -A 10 eth

I have a Realtek card in one of my machines that's working flawlessly:

toad:~~$ lspci -v | grep -i -A 10 eth
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8211/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 15)
	DeviceName: Onboard LAN Brodcom
	Subsystem: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. Device 0123
	Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 24, IOMMU group 12
	I/O ports at f000 [size=256]
	Memory at fce04000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
	Memory at fce00000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
	Capabilities: <access denied>
	Kernel driver in use: r8169
	Kernel modules: r8169

thebrownmamba · 2024-09-25 19:30:34

I'm not on my PC right now so I can't give you the exact output for the time being, but I have an RTL8125 (Realtek 2.5GB) card. The kernel driver in use is r8169.

Curiously enough like I said in my post, I had Arch installed about a month ago and etherner worked perfectly fine. I then, for one reason and another, switched back to Windows, and then now I want to switch back to Arch. One detail that's a bit weird is at one point I had my Arch system and a new freshly installed Windows system on 2 different SSDs. I remember that on my Arch system, after I installed Windows, my internet stopped working. I was a bit frustated at the time and just decided to wipe Arch without delving into it, but I think that issue leads me to believe that Windows somehow overwrites/overrides the driver on Linux? I have no idea how that would work but that's the only thing that makes sense to me at the moment.

To test that I'm thinking that I can try downgrading my Windows Realtek driver to an older version, but I have no idea where to find it. Alternatively, I can try wiping my Windows installation, but I want to avoid that scenario since if it doesn't work, now I'm stuck with no system and with an unkown etherner issue.

pgoetz · 2024-09-25 19:44:48

When you're booted in to Windows, can you see the partition/disk with Arch linux installed on it? If not, there just isn't any way that Windows could do this. This will be heresy on this forum, but just for testing purposes I would live boot something like the EndeavorOS ISO and see if this results in a link light on your realtek card.

V1del · 2024-09-25 19:44:58

Thats relatively easily explained. Windows defaults to not actually turning the system off normally but enabling a hibernation mode. While hibernated the hardware is in a state to be woken up by that same OS in the state it got frozen in. When you launch an entirely different OS that can lead to all sorts of weird behaviour. The fact that Windows is on a different disk is completely irrelevant to this condition. Disable Windows fast boot: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Dual_b … ibernation

thebrownmamba · 2024-09-25 20:11:15

@V1del, ran

powercfg /H off

but nope, no luck. Still no link lights.
@pgoetz, Are you talking about my Arch installation before I wiped it? If so no, I couldn't see my Arch partition from Windows back then. I might just try Endeavor/Arco and see if it works, and maybe one try with a Debian.

thebrownmamba · 2024-09-25 21:07:05

Tried Endeavour, same issue. As soon as Linux runs its hooks, the link lights turn off. Same issue even with a Debian distro (Mint)... Endeavour had NetworkManager prepackaged, and nmcli listed enp3s0 as unavailable. Meanwhile, Mint's network menu listed the wired connection as "cable unplugged". So not a specific Arch issue, but where do I go from here?

pgoetz · 2024-09-25 21:21:28

Maybe a last thing to try in keeping with the WIndows put the machine in hibernation mode hypothesis: try unplugging the machine from power (if a laptop, remove the battery) and leave it unplugged for about 10 minutes (just to be on the safe side). Then try booting linux again.

thebrownmamba · 2024-09-25 21:41:41

I'll try that, but honestly I doubt it would be any different from my previous attempt without waiting 10 minutes. I still have some options, like wiping Windows or even flash and update my mobo, and at the end of the day I can just buy a dirt cheap WiFi dongle so it's not really the end of the world. Still, a very weird and intriguing issue and I hope there's an explanation to this issue from the Linux wizards

thebrownmamba · 2024-09-26 11:55:50

So update, I ended up buying a cheap Wifi dongle and installed Arch with wifi. Installed Arch on the drive I had my Windows on, Did my regular setup, rebooted a few times, and now suddenly Ethernet works again after a few reboots. No idea what fixed it, didn't do anything special to adress it, but oh well at least it's fixed. Sadly probably won't ever figure out what actually happened or what the problem was...

Lone_Wolf · 2024-09-26 12:45:25

There are some network cards where the properietary windows driver enables some setting on hardware level that may cause this .
It can not be changed by bios/efi, linux or even windows generic network driver.

It's been a while since I encountered it, but the only way to solve it was
open windows device manager
select the network adapter
goto advanced tab
Carefully look at the listed properties and try to find the one that causes this.

seth · 2024-09-26 13:40:55

Did my regular setup, rebooted a few times, and now suddenly Ethernet works again after a few reboots. No idea what fixed it

This is my textblock (w/ extra highlight) reg. the windows fast-start situation

v3rd link below. Mandatory.
Disable it (it's NOT the BIOS setting!) and reboot windows and linux twice for voodo reasons.

This is kinda normal and just the other day it actually took a cmos reset to get out of the hibernation crisis (reproducible by enabling windows fast-start, booting linux and having to reset the cmos again because even the reboot voodoo dance didn't help)
I bet your right arm you can trigger the problem by re-enabling fast-start, but would not suggest to waste time with that. It /is/ going to cause problems one way or another.

tl;dr: make sure to never hibernate windows and then booting another OS and also pay attention to the fast-start configuration because windows updates have a tendency to silently re-activate that.

pgoetz · 2024-09-26 15:41:40

These days I never set up dual boot. Windows runs very nicely under QEMU/KVM, and if you give Windows its own disk and pass through a GPU, you basically get bare metal speeds suitable for gaming. Glad you got it solved though.

thebrownmamba · 2024-10-06 07:15:50

Further update, I went and reinstalled Windows 11 and dual booting it with Arch, and this issue instantly came back. Previously proposed fixes such as making sure Windows doesn't use fast start doesn't solve the issue for me, instead the proposed solution by @Lone_Wolf, which is to find the responsible driver on device manager in Windows 11, is the solution that worked for me. In my case, the issue is fixed by completely uninstalling my ethernet driver in Windows 11.

Which is a bit of a bummer that I basically could only choose between having ethernet on Windows or Linux and not both, but because I'm more familiar with Windows it's a bit easier for me to reinstall the driver on Windows and get it working than on Linux and I'm primarily using Arch anyway. I'm marking this as solved, thank you for the help everyone!

seth · 2024-10-06 11:08:00

You could try whether https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/r8168-dkms handles the chip any better.

Arch Linux

#1 2024-09-25 16:54:59

[SOLVED] Ethernet not working in live boot environment

#2 2024-09-25 18:23:17

Re: [SOLVED] Ethernet not working in live boot environment

#3 2024-09-25 18:46:24

Re: [SOLVED] Ethernet not working in live boot environment

#4 2024-09-25 19:08:52

Re: [SOLVED] Ethernet not working in live boot environment

#5 2024-09-25 19:30:34

Re: [SOLVED] Ethernet not working in live boot environment

#6 2024-09-25 19:44:48

Re: [SOLVED] Ethernet not working in live boot environment

#7 2024-09-25 19:44:58

Re: [SOLVED] Ethernet not working in live boot environment

#8 2024-09-25 20:11:15

Re: [SOLVED] Ethernet not working in live boot environment

#9 2024-09-25 21:07:05

Re: [SOLVED] Ethernet not working in live boot environment

#10 2024-09-25 21:21:28

Re: [SOLVED] Ethernet not working in live boot environment

#11 2024-09-25 21:41:41

Re: [SOLVED] Ethernet not working in live boot environment

#12 2024-09-26 11:55:50

Re: [SOLVED] Ethernet not working in live boot environment

#13 2024-09-26 12:45:25

Re: [SOLVED] Ethernet not working in live boot environment

#14 2024-09-26 13:40:55

Re: [SOLVED] Ethernet not working in live boot environment

#15 2024-09-26 15:41:40

Re: [SOLVED] Ethernet not working in live boot environment

#16 2024-10-06 07:15:50

Re: [SOLVED] Ethernet not working in live boot environment

#17 2024-10-06 11:08:00

Re: [SOLVED] Ethernet not working in live boot environment

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