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roepi

Member

From: Germany

Registered: 2012-01-24

Posts: 36

[SOLVED] Broadcom wireless BCM4322 with b43 no connection (recently)

Hi there,

recently (not sure when exactly, as my Notebook is mostly docked with ethernet LAN) my wireless stopped connecting to different routers. This came to my attention about 3 weeks ago.
My wireless card is a Broadcom, see

$ lspci -vnn | grep 14e4
0c:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Corporation BCM4322 802.11a/b/g/n Wireless LAN Controller [14e4:432b] (rev 01)

and used to run just fine using the b43 driver blacklisting the b43legacy. Now wireless stopped working, and I am not able to connect to networks either protected by WPA/2 or even WEP, somehow the authentication fails.
I am using NetworkManager with Gnome 3.4.2 and re-installed the b43-firmware from AUR today

$ uname -a
Linux Spiff 3.5.3-1-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT Sun Aug 26 09:14:51 CEST 2012 x86_64 GNU/Linux

$ pacman -Qi networkmanager
Name           : networkmanager
Version        : 0.9.6.0-1

$ pacman -Qi b43-firmware
Name           : b43-firmware
Version        : 5.100.138-2
URL            : http://linuxwireless.org/en/users/Drivers/b43
Depends On     : linux>=3.2
Installed Size : 1052,00 KiB
Architecture   : any
Build Date     : Mi 12 Sep 2012 13:27:09 CEST
Install Date   : Mi 12 Sep 2012 13:27:13 CEST
Install Reason : Explicitly installed
Description    : Firmware for Broadcom B43 wireless networking chips

I switched from initscripts to systemd somewhere in July, but not sure if it is coincidence, as all modules still load fine, and I can see SSIDs as before.

$ dmesg | grep b43
[ 1672.938354] b43-phy1: Broadcom 4322 WLAN found (core revision 16)
[ 1673.004863] Registered led device: b43-phy1::tx
[ 1673.004881] Registered led device: b43-phy1::rx
[ 1673.004901] Registered led device: b43-phy1::radio
[ 1700.930077] b43-phy1: Loading firmware version 666.2 (2011-02-23 01:15:07)

$ lsmod | grep b43
b43                   353762  0 
ssb                    49827  1 b43
pcmcia                 35785  2 b43,ssb
bcma                   25146  1 b43
mac80211              416391  1 b43
mmc_core               81526  4 b43,ssb,sdhci,sdhci_pci
cfg80211              173210  2 b43,mac80211

I started the NetworkManager from the console and attached the log (excerpt, see full debug log with link below)

NetworkManager[2572]: <info> Config: set interface ap_scan to 1
NetworkManager[2572]: <info> (wlan0): supplicant interface state: disconnected -> scanning
NetworkManager[2572]: <info> (wlan0): supplicant interface state: scanning -> authenticating
NetworkManager[2572]: <info> (wlan0): supplicant interface state: authenticating -> disconnected
NetworkManager[2572]: <info> (wlan0): supplicant interface state: disconnected -> scanning
NetworkManager[2572]: <info> (wlan0): supplicant interface state: scanning -> authenticating
NetworkManager[2572]: <info> (wlan0): supplicant interface state: authenticating -> disconnected
NetworkManager[2572]: <info> (wlan0): supplicant interface state: disconnected -> scanning
NetworkManager[2572]: <info> (wlan0): supplicant interface state: scanning -> authenticating
NetworkManager[2572]: <info> (wlan0): supplicant interface state: authenticating -> disconnected
NetworkManager[2572]: <info> (wlan0): supplicant interface state: disconnected -> scanning
NetworkManager[2572]: <warn> Activation (wlan0/wireless): association took too long.
NetworkManager[2572]: <info> (wlan0): device state change: config -> need-auth (reason 'none') [50 60 0]
NetworkManager[2572]: <warn> Activation (wlan0/wireless): asking for new secrets
NetworkManager[2572]: <info> (wlan0): supplicant interface state: scanning -> disconnected
NetworkManager[2572]: <warn> Couldn't disconnect supplicant interface: This interface is not connected.
NetworkManager[2572]: <warn> No agents were available for this request.
NetworkManager[2572]: <info> (wlan0): device state change: need-auth -> failed (reason 'no-secrets') [60 120 7]

NetworkManager debug log

Google resp. searching the forums did not give me a clue. However I switched to the broadcom-wl driver, and now wireless is working again. Nevertheless I would like to use the b43 driver, mainly for the reason that my neighborhood is quite busy with WLAN, and I like to run my router on channel 13, but the broadcom-wl driver only seems to support channel 1-11 in contrast to the b43 driver; also b43 is the OpenSource recommended one, according to the wiki.
Any help or ideas is appreciated. Thanks in advance, best regards,

christoph

Last edited by roepi (2013-11-24 18:43:55)

Koven

Member

Registered: 2006-06-13

Posts: 154

Re: [SOLVED] Broadcom wireless BCM4322 with b43 no connection (recently)

Hi I have same chipset BCM4322, and I've used always broadcom-wl forever. My only limitation right now is that I can't connect to any hidden ESSID network

Wiki says b43 is supported for BCM4322 but if you go to the link they give you it says it's not supported.

BR

nomorewindows

Member

Registered: 2010-04-03

Posts: 3,362

Re: [SOLVED] Broadcom wireless BCM4322 with b43 no connection (recently)

I have BCM4311/12 and using b43-firmware and have gotten some flaky disconnects without association with routers with kernels 3.5.
Rolling back to 3.4.9, everything returns to normal.

---

I may have to CONSOLE you about your usage of ridiculously easy graphical interfaces...
Look ma, no mouse.

roepi

Member

From: Germany

Registered: 2012-01-24

Posts: 36

Re: [SOLVED] Broadcom wireless BCM4322 with b43 no connection (recently)

My only limitation right now is that I can't connect to any hidden ESSID network

Hmmm, my limitation with the wl driver is, that channel 12/13 is not supported. As far as I found out there is no way to make it work, as the driver itself does not support it.

Wiki says b43 is supported for BCM4322 but if you go to the link they give you it says it's not supported.

On the b43 Linux Wireless site as well as in the wiki the BCM4322 [14e4:432b] is listed as "Not in kernel26-lts" and "partially in 2.6.39+". Where did you find it is not supported at all?
However it used to work on my machine month ago flawlessly with the b43 driver, but somehow stopped working. That's why.

roepi

Member

From: Germany

Registered: 2012-01-24

Posts: 36

Re: [SOLVED] Broadcom wireless BCM4322 with b43 no connection (recently)

I have BCM4311/12 and using b43-firmware and have gotten some flaky disconnects without association with routers with kernels 3.5.
Rolling back to 3.4.9, everything returns to normal.

I rolled back to kernel 3.4.9 and also to 3.3.8, but I cannot confirm that in my case. Started NetworkManager --no-daemon respectively and got the same error when connecting to a wireless network.

roepi

Member

From: Germany

Registered: 2012-01-24

Posts: 36

Re: [SOLVED] Broadcom wireless BCM4322 with b43 no connection (recently)

I did not test this regularly, but some update between the initial thread date and now fixed the problem, as b43 is working again. I mark the post as solved.