Arch Linux

ArchStranger

Member

Registered: 2026-02-11

Posts: 1

r8169 not booting automatically after start

Hello everyone! I have encountered problems with r8169 module on my laptop and there I want to tell you how I solved it for newbies like me.

Recently my Ethernet port broke down and at first I thought that Ethernet stopped working because of r8169 module, so I installed r8168 via AUR but it didn't help. I brought it to laptop repair service and it was fixed(there was port indications). But when I came home and tried to use Ethernet - there was no internet and even no Ethernet interface in 'ip a'. I typed 'sudo modprobe r8169' and Ethernet started working.

Sadly, after rebooting I had to type that command again and again every time after boot. I checked /etc/modprobe.d directory but there was nothing suspicious. After searching I found a https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Kernel_module that said i should check /usr/lib/modprobe.d for blacklists where I found 'r8168-lts.conf' and it contained 'blacklist r8169' string. After deleting this config I rebooted and everything started working!

V1del

Forum Moderator

Registered: 2012-10-16

Posts: 25,051

Re: r8169 not booting automatically after start

These blacklist files will have been there because you installed an unnecessary driver from the AUR/the repos prior, like  r8168-lts, the proper fix to this would be to just make sure you uninstalled all out of tree modules in relation to that.