Can't get wifi to work : Broadcom BCM4360

Hi,

Since yesterday I’m experiencing troubles with wifi. I am unable to detect any wifi networks and running ip link shows the interface is down.

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
2: enp3s0f0: <NO-CARRIER,BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP> mtu 1500 qdisc mq state DOWN mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000
link/ether 38:c9:86:28:9f:25 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
3: wlp2s0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST> mtu 1500 qdisc noop state DOWN mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000
link/ether 76:63:99:5b:78:fe brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff`

I’m using a Mac mini 2014

uname -a gives me:
Linux jaeger 5.4.85-1-MANJARO #1 SMP PREEMPT Mon Dec 21 21:38:53 UTC 2020 x86_64 GNU/Linux

inxi -N gives me:
Network: Device-1: Broadcom BCM4360 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter driver: wl
Device-2: Broadcom NetXtreme BCM57766 Gigabit Ethernet PCIe driver: tg3
Device-3: Samsung GT-I9070 (network tethering USB debugging enabled) type: USB driver: rndis_host

rfkill list all gives me:

0: phy0: Wireless LAN
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: no
1: hci0: Bluetooth
Soft blocked: no
Hard blocked: no

I tried check the logs of NetworkManager and I got the following error:

Jan 03 15:44:11 jaeger NetworkManager[664]: [1609674251.7184] device (wlp2s0): Couldn’t initialize supplicant interface: GDBus.Error:fi.w1.wpa_supplicant1.UnknownError: wpa_supplicant couldn’t grab this interface.
Jan 03 15:44:21 jaeger NetworkManager[664]: [1609674261.7183] device (wlp2s0): re-acquiring supplicant interface (#2).
Jan 03 15:44:21 jaeger NetworkManager[664]: [1609674261.7222] device (wlp2s0): Couldn’t initialize supplicant interface: GDBus.Error:fi.w1.wpa_supplicant1.UnknownError: wpa_supplicant couldn’t grab this interface.
Jan 03 15:44:31 jaeger NetworkManager[664]: [1609674271.7151] device (wlp2s0): re-acquiring supplicant interface (#3).
Jan 03 15:44:31 jaeger NetworkManager[664]: [1609674271.7193] device (wlp2s0): Couldn’t initialize supplicant interface: GDBus.Error:fi.w1.wpa_supplicant1.UnknownError: wpa_supplicant couldn’t grab this interface.
Jan 03 15:44:41 jaeger NetworkManager[664]: [1609674281.7140] device (wlp2s0): re-acquiring supplicant interface (#4).
Jan 03 15:44:41 jaeger NetworkManager[664]: [1609674281.7186] device (wlp2s0): Couldn’t initialize supplicant interface: GDBus.Error:fi.w1.wpa_supplicant1.UnknownError: wpa_supplicant couldn’t grab this interface.
Jan 03 15:44:51 jaeger NetworkManager[664]: [1609674291.7146] device (wlp2s0): re-acquiring supplicant interface (#5).
Jan 03 15:44:51 jaeger NetworkManager[664]: [1609674291.7185] device (wlp2s0): Couldn’t initialize supplicant interface: GDBus.Error:fi.w1.wpa_supplicant1.UnknownError: wpa_supplicant couldn’t grab this interface.
Jan 03 15:44:51 jaeger NetworkManager[664]: [1609674291.7186] device (wlp2s0): supplicant interface keeps failing, giving up

Checking the logs of the wpa_supplicant service gives me the following error logs:

Jan 03 15:44:41 jaeger wpa_supplicant[862]: nl80211: deinit ifname=wlp2s0 disabled_11b_rates=0
Jan 03 15:44:41 jaeger wpa_supplicant[862]: Could not set interface wlp2s0 flags (UP): Operation not permitted
Jan 03 15:44:41 jaeger wpa_supplicant[862]: WEXT: Could not set interface ‘wlp2s0’ UP
Jan 03 15:44:41 jaeger wpa_supplicant[862]: wlp2s0: Failed to initialize driver interface
Jan 03 15:44:51 jaeger wpa_supplicant[862]: Could not set interface wlp2s0 flags (UP): Operation not permitted
Jan 03 15:44:51 jaeger wpa_supplicant[862]: nl80211: Could not set interface ‘wlp2s0’ UP
Jan 03 15:44:51 jaeger wpa_supplicant[862]: nl80211: deinit ifname=wlp2s0 disabled_11b_rates=0
Jan 03 15:44:51 jaeger wpa_supplicant[862]: Could not set interface wlp2s0 flags (UP): Operation not permitted
Jan 03 15:44:51 jaeger wpa_supplicant[862]: WEXT: Could not set interface ‘wlp2s0’ UP
Jan 03 15:44:51 jaeger wpa_supplicant[862]: wlp2s0: Failed to initialize driver interface

Does anyone know how to fix this issue?

Please encapsulate terminal output with the </> button or within three backticks.

There seems to be a lot of wifi issues happening with manjaro recently, its probably a bug.
My wifi adapter also wasnt able to detect linux but would work with windows. Using the previous kernel did solve the issue for a while but the same problem has reoccured. I am not sure what the best solution to this would be but we may have to wait for this to be fixed

I had this problem for a long time and found a solution. The problem is with me was that, by default, Linux uses the BCMA driver. Even if you install the broadcom-wl driver, it doesn’t use it by default. Therefore you need to do the following:

Short version:

  1. Install the correct broadcom-wl driver. broadcom-wl-dkms did not work for me but you could try it. broadcom-wl is kernel dependent so make sure you install the correct one.

  2. Blacklist the BCMA driver in /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf adding the text “blacklist bcma”.

  3. Install the broadcom-wl. To do this, type sudo pacman -S broadcom-wl in the terminal. It will show a few options. The numbers you see before broadcom-wl are kernel versions. Find your kernel version using uname -srm and use the version for your kernel (e.g kernel 5.10.x uses 510…).
    2.Blacklist the BCMA driver. You can do this by first entering sudo nano /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf and then adding blacklist bcma to it (save the file using ctrl+s and exit using ctrl+x).

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