I’m sorry to hear that 
Leaving the specialised firmware in /usr/lib/firmware/updates or keeping a symlink seems like the best option for now.
https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/driver-api/firmware/fw_search_path.html
fw_path_para paremeter or /sys/module/firmware_class/parameters/path might be of interest to have a clean separation maybe ?
It appears that /lib/firmware/updates/ is supposed to be searched before /lib/firmware/. The bluetooth certainly gets picked up so it looks like for the wifi firmware it is hard coded to use /lib/firmware/brcm by the RPi folks or some one upstream.
For now until I decide on a course of action I guess I will rebuild the packages and put them back where they were until I figure something out.
What started this was some one on the forum found that if he installed the arch-arm version of the firmware his problems ceased with the pi4 but that package had not been updated since last July.
Well the patchram.sh script forcibly loads from /lib/firmware/bcm/brcm/
/usr/bin/brcm_patchram_plus --patchram /lib/firmware/bcm/brcm/BCM4345C5.hcd --baudrate 3000000 --enable_hci --use_baudrate_for_download --no2bytes --tosleep=1000000 /dev/ttyAMA0
so if I’m not mistaken the bluetooth firmware could just as well be stored at /mnt/some/random/place/ it doesn’t matter that it is under /usr/lib/firmware.
It’s important though for the normal kernel firmware loading, so I personally think that it is not the best idea to put the non free firmware in an invented subfolder bcm.
Packages rebuilt back to original paths (with the latest firmware) and pushed to all branches when the mirrors sync. You might want to remove /usr/lib/firmware/updates directory before updating to prevent a possible install issue.
brcm-patchram-plus r3.bee0942-5
firmware-raspberrypi 6-1.6
Thanks for your help!
Hi, new forum member here.
I came here because I lost wifi after installing firmware-raspberrypi 6-1.5. I’ve done as Darksky said and installed brcm-patchram-plus r3.bee0942-5 & firmware-raspberrypi 6-1.6 after removing /usr/lib/firmware/updates directory. Now my wifi is back again, but bluetooth is gone.
Pamac has removed pi-bluetooth because it conflicts with brcm-patchram-plus r3.bee0942-5.
Any help would be appreciated.
Regards.
Are you sure brcm-patchram-plus r3.bee0942-5 got installed.
Sorry, I didn’t said which device. It’s a Raspberry PI 400.
Are you sure brcm-patchram-plus r3.bee0942- 5 got installed.
I’ve checked twice. brcm-patchram-plus r3.bee0942-5.
BTW, how do I quote another message?
Highlight what you want to quote and then click Quote. My mirrors have not synced yet here.
community/brcm-patchram-plus r3.bee0942-4 [installed: r3.bee0942-5]
Chromium OS Broadcom patchram utility RPi pi3b+/pi4b specific
[ray@pi4 ~]$ sudo pacman -Ss firmware-raspberrypi
community/firmware-raspberrypi 6-1.5 [installed: 6-1.6]
Additional firmware for Raspberry PiI see, thanks 
I changed to U.S. mirrors when I came here looking for a solution.
Edit: wife is calling me. Thanks for your assistance.
And you double checked that firmware-raspberrypi 6-1.6 is installed? They depend on each other being installed.
My mirrors just synced here. I am on US mirrors also.
pacman -Qs firmware-rasp*
local/firmware-raspberrypi 6-1.6
Specific firmware for Raspberry Pi
pacman -Qs brcm-patch*
local/brcm-patchram-plus r3.bee0942-5
Chromium OS Broadcom patchram utility RPi pi3b+/pi4b specific
This is what I have right now. When I first tried Manjaro on my PI 400 (last week) I had no wifi, but after connecting through Ethernet & updating everything worked. I’ve been reading this forum ever since.
Did you forget to enable the new bluetooth service?
sudo systemctl enable attach-bluetooth.service
sudo rebootWell, it seems as I forgot to enable the service. My bad.
I didn’t know I had to enable it. Was it written somewhere?
Anyway, everything is up and running. Thanks a lot for your support. You’re doing a great job with Manjaro on ARM. I’ll spread the word, for sure.
Thumbs up to you Darksky and regards to everyone.
noob question but I assume ‘brcm-patchram-plus’ will be merged at some point into the standard pi-bluetooth package or no?
Nope. It is not really standard either. It was created after the pi4 came out here and it has issues with with scratchy sound with bluetooth headphones and I do not know why other that it does things different initializing than what the brcm-patchram-plus package does.
does that mean you are without bluetooth if you’re just using the standard packages and haven’t downloaded brcm-patchram-plus yourself?
If it works for you fine but we are moving away from it.
ah okay, I guess what I was just trying to get at is, as long as I’m following along with the system updates one can expect that these updates maintain support for wifi and bluetooth. Ultimately, searching for solutions can be a little difficult and ideally everything gets patched sooner or later through standard system upgrades.