Broadcom 43225 issues

[pchristy]

System: Mageia 4 (64-bit) Computer: Acer Aspire 5332 Network card: Broadcom 43225

This is my wife's laptop, and to her, a computer is a tool. She switches it on and expects it to work! After a week of aggravation when Windows decided it no longer wanted to play ball, I've installed Mageia 4. So far so good - everything works as it should except the Broadcom wifi card. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't!

With a standard install, the network configuration shows three network devices (there are only two!): 1) and Atheros ethernet card (which is not connected to anything) 2) a Broadcom 43225 and 3) wlp4s0, another wireless card.

lspci confirms that the card is a Broadcom 43225.

There is no wired ethernet connection, but the network manager applet in the panel keeps telling me that the ethernet port is not connected, even when I'm trying to connect wirelessly! The Broadcom 43225 shows no wireless networks, cannot be configured, and appears to be a "ghost". WLP4S0 DOES show networks, and sometimes connects, but only erratically. Once it has failed to connect, no amount of telling it to connect or reconfiguring will coax it into life. It will either work on its own on boot, or not at all - ever!

If I blacklist the bcma module, the "ghost" device vanishes, but the bcma module still loads, presumably called by one of the other modules. Sometimes wlp4s0 will connect on boot, sometimes it won't. If it doesn't, no amount of cajoling will persuade it to connect! However, if the machine is re-booted, it nearly always loads and works correctly!

My wife is very impatient, and even though Mageia loads quicker than Windoze, she still complains its slow ("I thought computers were meant to be fast!!!") Asking her to re-boot it to get the network up is NOT an option!

Anyone have any ideas? (Aside from divorce!)

--
Pete

[doktor5000]

Which media did you use to install Mageia, and which desktop environment are you using? Do you use net_applet or NetworkManager?
And please provide the output of the following commands:

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lspcidrake -v | grep -i net
ps -ef | grep -v grep | grep -ie net -e wpa


and, as root:

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journalctl -b -u network --no-pager -a
systemctl status network.service -a
journalctl -b | grep -i firmware

[pchristy]

Media: SD card copy of Mageia-4-x86_64-DVD.iso.
Desktop: KDE
Manager: Net_applet
(Confession: I thought I was using Network Manager, as the icon is in the same place and similar in appearance to Network Manager on my own Slackware laptop! However, on checking, I see that Network Manager is not installed, so it must be net_applet!)

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lspcidrake -v | grep -i net
atl1c           : Qualcomm Atheros|AR8132 Fast Ethernet [NETWORK_ETHERNET] (vendor:1969 device:1062 subv:1025 subd:0212) (rev: c0)
bcma            : Broadcom Corporation|BCM43225 802.11b/g/n [NETWORK_OTHER] (vendor:14e4 device:4357 subv:105b subd:e021) (rev: 01)


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ps -ef | grep -v grep | grep -ie net -e wpa
root        16     2  0 19:05 ?        00:00:00 [netns]
root      1087     1  0 19:05 ?        00:00:00 /usr/sbin/wpa_supplicant -B -i wlp4s0 -c /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -D wext
ichristy  2645  1994  6 19:06 ?        00:00:01 /usr/bin/perl /usr/bin/net_applet


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journalctl -b -u network --no-pager -a
-- Logs begin at Sat 2014-05-03 14:32:20 BST, end at Wed 2014-05-07 09:18:52 BST. --
May 07 09:18:12 Ivy_laptop ifplugd(enp5s0)[1034]: ifplugd 0.28 initializing.
May 07 09:18:12 Ivy_laptop ifplugd(enp5s0)[1034]: Using interface enp5s0/70:5A:B6:2A:F1:01 with driver <atl1c> (version: 1.0.1.1-NAPI)
May 07 09:18:12 Ivy_laptop ifplugd(enp5s0)[1034]: Using detection mode: SIOCETHTOOL
May 07 09:18:12 Ivy_laptop ifplugd(enp5s0)[1034]: Initialization complete, link beat not detected.
May 07 09:18:12 Ivy_laptop ifplugd(wlp4s0)[1093]: ifplugd 0.28 initializing.
May 07 09:18:12 Ivy_laptop ifplugd(wlp4s0)[1093]: Using interface wlp4s0/C4:17:FE:55:C2:53 with driver <brcmsmac> (version: 3.12.13-desktop-2.mga4)
May 07 09:18:12 Ivy_laptop ifplugd(wlp4s0)[1093]: Using detection mode: SIOCETHTOOL
May 07 09:18:12 Ivy_laptop ifplugd(wlp4s0)[1093]: Initialization complete, link beat not detected.
May 07 09:18:12 Ivy_laptop systemd[1]: Started LSB: Bring up/down networking.
May 07 09:18:13 Ivy_laptop network[762]: Bringing up loopback interface:  [  OK  ]
May 07 09:18:13 Ivy_laptop network[762]: Configuring wireless regulatory domain  [  OK  ]
May 07 09:18:13 Ivy_laptop network[762]: Bringing up interface enp5s0:  [  OK  ]
May 07 09:18:13 Ivy_laptop network[762]: Bringing up interface wlp4s0:  Error for wireless request "Set Encode" (8B2A) :
May 07 09:18:13 Ivy_laptop network[762]: SET failed on device wlp4s0 ; Invalid argument.
May 07 09:18:13 Ivy_laptop network[762]: ioctl[SIOCSIWENCODEEXT]: Invalid argument
May 07 09:18:13 Ivy_laptop network[762]: ioctl[SIOCSIWENCODEEXT]: Invalid argument
May 07 09:18:13 Ivy_laptop network[762]: [  OK  ]


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systemctl status network.service -a
network.service - LSB: Bring up/down networking                                                                                                     
   Loaded: loaded (/etc/rc.d/init.d/network)                                                                                                         
   Active: active (running) since Wed 2014-05-07 09:18:12 BST; 1min 33s ago                                                                         
  Process: 762 ExecStart=/etc/rc.d/init.d/network start (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)                                                             
   CGroup: /system.slice/network.service                                                                                                             
           â”œâ”€1034 /sbin/ifplugd -I -b -i enp5s0                                                                                                     
           â”œâ”€1091 /usr/sbin/wpa_supplicant -B -i wlp4s0 -c /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf -D wext                                                         
           â””─1093 /sbin/ifplugd -I -b -i wlp4s0                                                                                                     
                                                                                                                                                     
May 07 09:18:12 Ivy_laptop ifplugd(wlp4s0)[1093]: Initialization complete, link beat not detected.                                     
May 07 09:18:12 Ivy_laptop systemd[1]: Started LSB: Bring up/down networking.                                                           
May 07 09:18:13 Ivy_laptop network[762]: Bringing up loopback interface:  [  OK  ]                                                     
May 07 09:18:13 Ivy_laptop network[762]: Configuring wireless regulatory domain  [  OK  ]                                               
May 07 09:18:13 Ivy_laptop network[762]: Bringing up interface enp5s0:  [  OK  ]                                                       
May 07 09:18:13 Ivy_laptop network[762]: Bringing up interface wlp4s0:  Error for wireless request "Set Encode" (8B2A) :
May 07 09:18:13 Ivy_laptop network[762]: SET failed on device wlp4s0 ; Invalid argument.
May 07 09:18:13 Ivy_laptop network[762]: ioctl[SIOCSIWENCODEEXT]: Invalid argument
May 07 09:18:13 Ivy_laptop network[762]: ioctl[SIOCSIWENCODEEXT]: Invalid argument
May 07 09:18:13 Ivy_laptop network[762]: [  OK  ]


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journalctl -b | grep -i firmware
May 07 09:17:45 Ivy_laptop kernel: [Firmware Bug]: ACPI: BIOS _OSI(Linux) query ignored
May 07 09:17:45 Ivy_laptop kernel: acpi PNP0A08:00: [Firmware Info]: MMCONFIG for domain 0000 [bus 00-3f] only partially covers this bridge


I see a number of error messages in there, but why does it work sometimes and not others?

Thanks for your assistance!

--
Pete