Broadcom brcm80211 driver hangs Lenovo S10-3s

[J.A. Watson]

Ubuntu 11.04 Beta 2 (2.6.38-8 x86_64)

On a Lenovo Ideapad S10-3s which includes a Broadcom 4313 WiFi adapter, should use the brcm80211 driver. On first boot after installation the Wireless Networking is disabled in Network Manager and can not be enabled. If the acer_wmi module is blacklisted or removed with "modprobe -r acer_wmi" it is then possible to enable Wireless Networking in Network Manager, however the Broadcom 4313 still does not work. Checking with "rfkill list" shows that two devices are soft-blocked, ideadpad_wlan and phy0. If these are enabled using "rfkill unblock all", the operating system hangs, completely blocked from everything short of a power cycle. This does NOT occur on other Linux distributions using the brcm80211 driver, such as Debian Squeeze and openSuSE 11.4.

Other symptoms of this problem: removing the "ideapad_laptop" kernel module with "modprobe -r" causes the ideadpad_wlan device to disappear from "rfkill list". However, attempting to enable Wireless with "rfkill unblock phy0" still hangs the system. Likewise, blacklisting ideapad_laptop in /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf causes the S10 to hang on boot.

[Lion58 (gektorgrom)]

And I have this bug - my wifi Broadcom 4313 doesnt work((( Wireless Networking is disabled in Network Manager

[J.A. Watson (j-a-watson)]

It is unfortunate that this bug report is being ignored. I do not understand the significance of changing "affects" from ubuntu to linux. If this is an attempt to say that this is a general linux bug, rather than an Ubuntu specific bug, I would point out that this bug does NOT exist on the latest version of: Debian (6.0.1), openSuSE (11.4) or SimplyMEPIS (11). I have personally loaded and configured all three of those on the exact same system where Ubuntu has this problem, and they do not have the problem.

This is one of the reasons that I very seldom report bugs to Ubuntu - they are invariably ignored, until they can either be flagged as "duplicate of xxxxxx", or several years have passed and out of the blue an email comes along asking for additional information.

[Joshua Lückers (joshualuckers)]

Thanks for taking time to report this bug to help make Ubuntu better. I forgot to mention what I have changed and why I did so.

This bug did not have a package associated with it, which is important for ensuring that it gets looked at by the proper developers. You can learn more about finding the right package at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/FindRightPackage . That is why I have classified this bug as a bug in linux (meaning it is a bug in the Ubuntu kernel package).

If you could also please test the latest upstream kernel available that would be great. It will allow additional upstream developers to examine the issue. Refer to https://wiki.ubuntu.com/KernelMainlineBuilds . Once you've tested the upstream kernel, please remove the 'needs-upstream-testing' tag. This can be done by clicking on the yellow pencil icon next to the tag located at the bottom of the bug description and deleting the 'needs-upstream-testing' text. Please let us know your results.

Bug reports are handled by humans, the majority of whom are volunteers, so please bear this in mind.
You can always try to contact a Ubuntu Bug Squad member at IRC ( irc.freenode.net #ubuntu-bugs ) or the mailing-list ( https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/Ubuntu-bugsquad ) to triage your bug report(s).

[J.A. Watson (j-a-watson)]

This bug also exists with the upstream kernels, at least as far as v2.6.38-7-natty (02063807). There seems to be no upstream kernel for 2.6.38-8, and although I tried the 2.6.39.rc4 kernel, it did not recognize the Broadcom adapter at all, obviously because it is missing the necessary modules on my system.

[Dmitriy (wormad)]

/etc/rc.local >>
sudo rfkill unblock all
sudo modprobe -r acer_wmi

so in order not to carry out these commands after each run. (if they helped)
P.S. helped me, thank you.

[J.A. Watson (j-a-watson)]

First, for the above commands, /etc/rc.local is exectued as root, so there is no need to use "sudo". Second, although these commands avoid the problem sometimes, at other times they cause the system to hang while booting, so they are not an acceptable work-around for this problem. However, manually executing these commands after booting and logging in will usually get the Broadcom 4313 working - usually, but still not always, about 10% of the time the system still hangs after the second command is entered.

Also, I have confirmed that this problem still exists in the Oneiric Alpha, and in the Oneiric daily build up to and including 7 June.

[J.A. Watson (j-a-watson)]

Thanks EVER SO MUCH to the Ubuntu developers for taking the time to investigate and fix this bug. NOT! It continues to be ignored, just like every other bug I have ever reported to Ubuntu. I'm sure this is very inspiring to the ever-increasing number of users who are buying laptops and netbooks with this wireless adapter in them. I can only assume that the Ubuntu developers are too busy breaking/removing/changing things in the next release to alienate even more users to take the time to actually look at this.

[Brad Figg (brad-figg)]

This bug is missing log files that will aid in dianosing the problem. From a terminal window please run:

apport-collect 764591

and then change the status of the bug back to 'New'.

If, due to the nature of the issue you have encountered, you are unable to run this command, please add a comment stating that fact and change the bug status to 'Confirmed'.

This change has been made by an automated script, maintained by the Ubuntu Kernel Team.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for linux (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]