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Fixed

Member

Registered: 2005-08-09

Posts: 219

wifi-menu not working

Hello,

After last upgrade, wifi-menu stopped to work:

@honor ~]$ sudo wifi-menu
[sudo] password for andy: 
Invalid interface specification
Usage: wifi-menu [-h | --help] [-o | --obscure] [INTERFACE]

Interactively connect to a wireless network on INTERFACE using netctl.
If only one wireless interface is available, INTERFACE can be omi

Last edited by Fixed (2025-06-24 13:10:27)

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WorMzy

Administrator

From: Scotland

Registered: 2010-06-16

Posts: 12,907

Website

Re: wifi-menu not working

Mod note: moving to Networking.

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Scimmia

Fellow

Registered: 2012-09-01

Posts: 12,908

Re: wifi-menu not working

Do you have a wireless interface? What does `ip l` show?

Fixed

Member

Registered: 2005-08-09

Posts: 219

Re: wifi-menu not working

yes, I have wifi interface.

ip l
1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000
    link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
4: enp3s0f3u3: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc fq_codel state UP mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000
    link/ether d8:eb:97:b0:ea:55 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
    altname enxd8eb97b0ea55

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Scimmia

Fellow

Registered: 2012-09-01

Posts: 12,908

Re: wifi-menu not working

There is no wireless interface there, so no, you don't. What adapter do you have?

Fixed

Member

Registered: 2005-08-09

Posts: 219

Re: wifi-menu not working

lspci

02:00.0 Network controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8822CE 802.11ac PCIe Wireless Network Adapter

it's strange since it worked OK for years

Last edited by Fixed (2025-06-24 17:38:07)

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-thc

Member

Registered: 2017-03-15

Posts: 936

Re: wifi-menu not working

Is "linux-firmware-realtek" installed?

$ pacman -Q linux-firmware-realtek
linux-firmware-realtek 20250613.12fe085f-6

seth

Member

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 66,327

Re: wifi-menu not working

Do you have https://archlinux.org/packages/core/any … e-realtek/ ?

Edit: hey, not fair!

Last edited by seth (2025-06-24 17:47:18)

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-thc

Member

Registered: 2017-03-15

Posts: 936

Re: wifi-menu not working

Fixed

Member

Registered: 2005-08-09

Posts: 219

Re: wifi-menu not working

lspci -k

02:00.0 Network controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8822CE 802.11ac PCIe Wireless Network Adapter
	Subsystem: Electronics & Telecommunications RSH Device 1e25
	Kernel modules: rtw88_8822ce

Does it mean that kernel module is loaded?

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seth

Member

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 66,327

Re: wifi-menu not working

No.
You'd be looking for "Kernel driver in use" - if you want to know why it failed, check the system journal.

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Fixed

Member

Registered: 2005-08-09

Posts: 219

Re: wifi-menu not working

lspci -k

02:00.0 Network controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8822CE 802.11ac PCIe Wireless Network Adapter
	Subsystem: Electronics & Telecommunications RSH Device 1e25
	Kernel modules: rtw88_8822ce

Does it mean that kernel module is loaded?

pacman -Q realtek

$ pacman -Q linux-firmware-realtek
error: package 'linux-firmware-realtek' was not found

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seth

Member

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 66,327

Re: wifi-menu not working

Still "no" and the reason might be the missing firmware.

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Fixed

Member

Registered: 2005-08-09

Posts: 219

Re: wifi-menu not working

I loaded  firmware:

sudo pacman -S linux-firmware-realtek
resolving dependencies...
looking for conflicting packages...

Packages (1) linux-firmware-realtek-20250613.12fe085f-6

Total Download Size:   5.32 MiB
Total Installed Size:  5.42 MiB

Still no luck:

sudo wifi-menu
[sudo] password for andrei: 
Invalid interface specification
Usage: wifi-menu [-h | --help] [-o | --obscure] [INTERFACE]

Interactively connect to a wireless network on INTERFACE using netctl.
If only one wireless interface is available, INTERFACE can be omitted.

Arguments:
  -h, --help     Show this help
  -o, --obscure  Show asterisks for the characters of the password
                 and store the password as a hexadecimal string

Last edited by Fixed (2025-06-24 19:10:32)

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seth

Member

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 66,327

Re: wifi-menu not working

Just installing the package won't to shit - have you rebooted?
If the kernel module stll doesn't load, please post your complete system journal for the boot:

sudo journalctl -b | curl -F 'file=@-' 0x0.st

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Fixed

Member

Registered: 2005-08-09

Posts: 219

Re: wifi-menu not working

Dear  Seth,

I re-booted and, OMG, wifi-menu started to work!

Thank you so much, everyone, for  all your help.

And before I mark the thread as "Solved", may I ask you the question: How come that wifi-menu, which worked flawlessly for years, broke after the uodate?

Cheers!

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seth

Member

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 66,327

Re: wifi-menu not working

Not wifi-menu broke, your wifi chip did.
Or rather, it could not properly function without its firmware which wasn't present because you (likely) completely removed linux-firmware but did not install the required linux-firmware-realtek
Check your journal, chances are you're missing on some other FW (intel or amdgpu?)

Installing the firmware and then reloading the kernel module (via reboot)  allowed the FW to be loaded. Profit.

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GameCodingNinja2

Member

Registered: 2017-12-29

Posts: 20

Re: wifi-menu not working

This thread helped me solve my wi-fi issue. After an upgrade, my wi-fi was not working. Just had to install linux-firmware-intel. Not sure why I needed to install it now, was working fine before. Something must have changed. The wi-fi that stopped working was the same wi-fi that installed the upgrade.
Network controller: Intel Corporation Wi-Fi 6 AX200 (rev 1a)

Last edited by GameCodingNinja2 (2025-07-26 17:28:46)

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 24,593

Re: wifi-menu not working

The why was announced on the news page https://archlinux.org/news/linux-firmwa … ervention/

Note that if you happened to see that but only copy pasted the command from the front page you will likely accidentally have removed linux-firmware without installing it back (as that would have pulled the "commons" like intel and realtek in implicitly)

GameCodingNinja2

Member

Registered: 2017-12-29

Posts: 20

Re: wifi-menu not working

I always check the home page before I upgrade and even though I did see that, didn't make the connection with the linux-firmware part. Now I know. I've never had to include these before so it was a lack of experience. Since I did notice the nvidia because I have an nvidia card, made that change.