Hardy : 2.6.24-12 to 2.6.24-14 : no wifi any more (B4311)

[Wolfgang]

Hi,

When i updated my Hardy heron to the 2.6.24-14-generic kernel, my B4311 wifi driver is not working any more (before it worked, only while using network-admin instead of network manager, but it worked). And it doesn't appear in the hardware driver menu any more, nor in network-admin menu.

[Leann Ogasawara (leannogasawara)]

Hi Wolfgang,

I imagine this is related to bug 184600. The patch there was reverted because it caused a regression in BCM4312 (see bug 197959). Can you comment on the most recent kernel where this was not an issue? Also, per the kernel team policy, can you also attach the following for the kernel you are seeing errors. Please be sure to attach each file as a separate attachment.

* cat /proc/version_signature > version.log
* dmesg > dmesg.log
* sudo lspci -vvnn > lspci-vvnn.log

For more information regarding the kernel team bug policy, please refer to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelTeamBugPolicies . Thanks again and we appreciate your help and feedback.

[Wolfgang (this-ece)]

I updated to 2.6.24.15 : same problem. Here are the files asked with the 2.6.24.15

[Wolfgang (this-ece)]

Network-manager updates since 3-4 days have also quite bugged the wifi, so it can be a multiple problem. Excuse my poor english btw :)

[linuxaz (linuxaz)]

Wolfgang,
I had a similar issue with the same card. A forum post suggested that it was a "bad install" from the CD of the BCM module. I removed and reinstalled with synaptic. After that, it worked perfect. As of the 2.6.24-15 kernel yesterday, it's still working fine. linuxaz

[Wolfgang (this-ece)]

thank you for your reply.
I tested your method, but it doesn't work, my card is still not detected in the new kernels, and the led is orange.
I will test it again tomorrow.

[Wolfgang (this-ece)]

I removed totally b43-fwcutter and bcm43-fwcutter and reinstalled them after : still not working, and no mention of my card in the dmesg. And the led is still red.

[Wolfgang (this-ece)]

still not working / detected on 2.6.24-16.

"Soeurette, ne vois tu rien venir ?
-Juste les mises à jours qui pleuvoient et la led qui rougeoit" :D

[linuxaz (linuxaz)]

Wolf,
This may be a rash suggestion, but have you tried just reinstalling? Perhaps something just got borked up?

[Wolfgang (this-ece)]

Tested with released. An idea ?

[Eric (ewtesterman-gmail)]

I have a 4312 and am having the same problem, I even tried a fresh install from a new disk. I remember that in the beginning of beta 5 it worked fine. However now the Hardware Drive dialog does not seem to see the card. I tried to manually setup the b4 driver, still a no go.

[Wolfgang (this-ece)]

It's since the kernel changed. I looked forward on the internet, it tells that the kernel must have a patch.

[Eric (ewtesterman-gmail)]

Thank you Wolfgang I am going to post a link to the patch I found that worked. As you would expect the drawback to this patch is it looks like it will require a recompile each time you upgrade your kernel. http://linuxwireless.org/download/compat-wireless-2.6/compat-wireless-2.6.tar.bz2 for any new people reading this. Just download the patch extract the archive, cd into that directory and issue sudo make then sudo make install and then sudo make load.

[Wolfgang (this-ece)]

with this patch, on the latest beta / on the release, i can see networks, but not connect to them. Either with network manager or network admin.

But this is already an improvement :)

[Leann Ogasawara (leannogasawara)]

I'm marking this as a duplicate of bug 184600. Please have any follow up discussions there. Wolfgang's dmesg output has the same errors as noted in bug 184600. However, please note the comment by Colin King (ubuntu kernel developer) https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/184600/comments/22 . Thanks.