Unstable wifi (BCM4352) if connected to bluetooth headphones

I have a very annoying problem with my Broadcom BCM4352 wifi & bl chip. If I connect my bluetooth headphones to the laptop (XPS 13 9350) the wifi is very very unstable and drops out every few seconds. I installed the Winterheart Broadcom BT firmware (GitHub - winterheart/broadcom-bt-firmware: Repository for various Broadcom Bluetooth firmware) to get the bluetooth working in the first place (before that scanning was possible, but refused to connect).
I also switched NetworkManager to use iwd instead of wpa_supplicant to make reconnection after standby much faster.

If I “force” iwd to connect to the 5Ghz band of my wifi, then it works fine so I’m guessing the 2.4Ghz band is (because of the Bluetooth connection) is being interfered with. This makes the use of the laptop very much limited though and I would love to fix this. Any help is greatly appreciated.

inxi -Fza
System:    Kernel: 5.9.11-3-MANJARO x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 10.2.0 
           parameters: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-5.9-x86_64 root=UUID=331f33b6-7e2c-43a9-844e-7b2032f10c39 rw quiet apparmor=1 
           security=apparmor resume=UUID=1450892a-65ea-43ce-af55-8cf0b4d931c5 udev.log_priority=3 i915.enable_psr=1 
           i915.disable_power_well=0 i915.enable_rc6=1 i915.enable_fbc=1 i915.enable_guc_loading=1 
           i915.enable_guc_submission=1 
           Desktop: KDE Plasma 5.20.4 tk: Qt 5.15.2 wm: kwin_x11 dm: SDDM Distro: Manjaro Linux 
Machine:   Type: Laptop System: Dell product: XPS 13 9350 v: N/A serial: <filter> Chassis: type: 9 serial: <filter> 
           Mobo: Dell model: 0V33HM v: A02 serial: <filter> UEFI: Dell v: 1.9.0 date: 08/31/2018 
Battery:   ID-1: BAT0 charge: 11.1 Wh condition: 11.1/56.0 Wh (20%) volts: 8.5/7.6 model: LGC-LGC7.3 DELL 5K9CP59 type: Li-ion 
           serial: <filter> status: Full 
CPU:       Info: Dual Core model: Intel Core i7-6500U bits: 64 type: MT MCP arch: Skylake family: 6 model-id: 4E (78) 
           stepping: 3 microcode: E2 L2 cache: 4096 KiB 
           flags: avx avx2 lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx bogomips: 20810 
           Speed: 3093 MHz min/max: 400/3100 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 3040 2: 3010 3: 3082 4: 3003 
           Vulnerabilities: Type: itlb_multihit status: KVM: VMX disabled 
           Type: l1tf mitigation: PTE Inversion; VMX: conditional cache flushes, SMT vulnerable 
           Type: mds mitigation: Clear CPU buffers; SMT vulnerable 
           Type: meltdown mitigation: PTI 
           Type: spec_store_bypass mitigation: Speculative Store Bypass disabled via prctl and seccomp 
           Type: spectre_v1 mitigation: usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization 
           Type: spectre_v2 mitigation: Full generic retpoline, IBPB: conditional, IBRS_FW, STIBP: conditional, RSB filling 
           Type: srbds mitigation: Microcode 
           Type: tsx_async_abort status: Not affected 
Graphics:  Device-1: Intel Skylake GT2 [HD Graphics 520] vendor: Dell driver: i915 v: kernel bus ID: 00:02.0 
           chip ID: 8086:1916 
           Device-2: Microdia Integrated Webcam HD type: USB driver: uvcvideo bus ID: 1-5:3 chip ID: 0c45:670c 
           Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.10 compositor: kwin_x11 driver: intel unloaded: modesetting alternate: fbdev,vesa 
           display ID: :0 screens: 1 
           Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1920x1080 s-dpi: 96 s-size: 508x285mm (20.0x11.2") s-diag: 582mm (22.9") 
           Monitor-1: eDP1 res: 1920x1080 dpi: 168 size: 290x170mm (11.4x6.7") diag: 336mm (13.2") 
           OpenGL: renderer: Mesa Intel HD Graphics 520 (SKL GT2) v: 4.6 Mesa 20.2.3 direct render: Yes 
Audio:     Device-1: Intel Sunrise Point-LP HD Audio vendor: Dell driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel alternate: snd_soc_skl 
           bus ID: 00:1f.3 chip ID: 8086:9d70 
           Sound Server: ALSA v: k5.9.11-3-MANJARO 
Network:   Device-1: Broadcom and subsidiaries BCM4352 802.11ac Wireless Network Adapter vendor: Dell driver: wl v: kernel 
           modules: bcma port: f040 bus ID: 3a:00.0 chip ID: 14e4:43b1 
           IF: wlan0 state: up mac: <filter> 
Drives:    Local Storage: total: 238.47 GiB used: 13.80 GiB (5.8%) 
           SMART Message: Unable to run smartctl. Root privileges required. 
           ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 vendor: Samsung model: PM951 NVMe 256GB size: 238.47 GiB block size: physical: 512 B 
           logical: 512 B speed: 31.6 Gb/s lanes: 4 serial: <filter> rev: BXV76D0Q scheme: GPT 
Partition: ID-1: / raw size: 229.37 GiB size: 224.77 GiB (97.99%) used: 13.80 GiB (6.1%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/nvme0n1p2 
Swap:      Kernel: swappiness: 60 (default) cache pressure: 100 (default) 
           ID-1: swap-1 type: partition size: 8.80 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) priority: -2 dev: /dev/nvme0n1p3 
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 37.0 C mobo: 30.0 C sodimm: 31.0 C 
           Fan Speeds (RPM): cpu: 0 
Info:      Processes: 188 Uptime: 2d 3h 17m Memory: 7.64 GiB used: 1.61 GiB (21.1%) Init: systemd v: 246 Compilers: 
           gcc: 10.2.0 Packages: pacman: 1264 lib: 371 flatpak: 0 Shell: Bash v: 5.0.18 running in: konsole inxi: 3.1.08

Hi and welcome to the forum :+1:

Did you try with the driver via mhwd instead of that github one?
I use the mhwd recognized driver on my desktop for the BT functionality with same chip…

Thanks for the warm welcome.

I tried uninstalling the broadcom-bt-firmware-git package using yay and instead installing the manjaro-firmware package. After a restart and some testing I have to conclude that nothing changed. The wifi is still extremely unstable.

Instead of manually installing that package, try to do with the hardware configuration GUI of Manjaro…
Mine is listed as network-broadcom-wl in that GUI.
I didn’t need anything else to have my BT working in combination with the onboard Wifi (same chip as yours)

Just reinstalled the network-broadcom-wl package using the GUI, rebooted and sadly no change.
I might try to boot Windows from a USB and check if everything works there as expected, just so we can rule out a hardware issue.
If this doesn’t pan out I have the original wifi chip (DW 1820A) around, is that one supported? If so I could switch to that one.

No idea about that other chip.
I just chimed-in because you used the same chip as me. (me on a desktop machine vs you on a laptop)
Just check if all is working without issues in M$ just in case :wink:

But at least you are now using official Manjaro supported drivers instead of git one, which is always better for upgrades.

Hi TriMoon,

I am having the same annoying problem as you. I have no idea on how to solve it, but I have a kind of “work-around”: If you have the Wi-Fi settings tab open from Settings application, then the reconnection goes smoothly and you won’t have that problem again.
Is it annoying to have Wi-Fi settings tab open all the time? yes. Is it less annoying than having unstable Wi-Fi? absolutely yes.
I hope this thing I do, could help a more technical user to understand better the issue and to know how to fix it, :wink: And also, to help people having this problem to know a silly way of avoiding it.

Hi @anon53656609 , @angel_chiclana
Could you post the output of the following terminal command:
rfkill list all
In order to view whether the wifi adapter is hard blocked or soft blocked, although it is up based on your inxi output.

There is another solution that is either disable mac address randomization or IPV6 in your wifi settings.
Please, read this post in order to solve your problem:
https://forum.manjaro.org/t/bcm4360-connection-stops-working-but-is-not-dropped-randomly/43592´

Hope this help, regards

Regards,

I’ve just fixed the link you put, the last ’ mess it up :stuck_out_tongue:

And this is the output from rfkill list all when it is not failing and when the wifi gets stuck. It is the same, and it is not blocked on both cases, so, sadly, it doesn’t seem to be connected to this:

0: ideapad_wlan: Wireless LAN
	Soft blocked: no
	Hard blocked: no
1: ideapad_bluetooth: Bluetooth
	Soft blocked: no
	Hard blocked: no
3: phy0: Wireless LAN
	Soft blocked: no
	Hard blocked: no
4: hci0: Bluetooth
	Soft blocked: no
	Hard blocked: no