I’m trying to install and configure the Broadcom WiFi driver on my MacBook Pro 12 running Fedora 40. After installing and running sudo dnf upgrade, I’ve noticed that my WiFi is no longer functioning. I’ve tried installing the broadcom-wl package using dnf, but I’m still unable to connect to any networks.
Can anyone provide guidance on how to troubleshoot and resolve this issue? I can provide any system details or provide any other information you need.
For example:
lspci | grep Network
03:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Inc. and subsidiaries BCM43602 802.11ac Wireless LAN SoC (rev 01)
As a new user to Fedora (I’m used to Debian-based systems), I’d appreciate any detailed instructions or references to relevant documentation that can help me get my MacBook Pro 12’s WiFi up and running again.
The new version (2.11-1 I think) of package wpa_supplicant apparently introduced an issue in relation to broadcom-wl drivers. Temporary fix is to downgrade the package:
sudo dnf downgrade wpa_supplicant
Until a new version appears, this package should be excluded from dnf upgrade.
Thank you for this. I’ve installed broadcom-wl, kmod-wl, and akmod-wl. I’ve downgraded wpa_supplicant and added excludepkgs=wpa_supplicant to /etc/dnf/dnf.conf. I’ve rebooted after all these and it still doesn’t work
It is not clear to me from your post is if this is a fresh Fedora install, or at least it is the first time you are trying to set up WiFi, or is it actually that WiFi did work on a Fedora installation in the past, but not after the recent dnf upgrade?
I checked the list of wireless network controllers covered by the broadcom-wl drivers:
Description : This package contains the license, README.txt and configuration
: files for the Broadcom 802.11 Linux STA Driver for WiFi, a Linux
: device driver for use with Broadcom's BCM4311-, BCM4312-, BCM4313-,
: BCM4321-, BCM4322-, BCM43142-, BCM43224-, BCM43225-, BCM43227-,
: BCM43228-, BCM4331-, BCM4360 and -BCM4352- based hardware.
I am wondering if BCM4360 covers also BCM43602, which is your adapter, given that the only BCM4360 is missing a dash afterwards.
We might get an answer by running dnf list installed \*-wl\*. Please post the output of this command. If the driver covers your adapter, then the built kernel modules should be there in the format kmod-wl-6.9.12-200.fc40.x86_64.x86_64 for each of the installed kernels.
Please also post the output of dnf list installed wpa_supplicant.
This is a fresh Fedora 40 install. The WiFi worked after install, but it stopped working after sudo dnf update; sudo dnf upgrade. I actually have my history handy . Here are the first 10 commands (you can tell when I started experiencing issues when I installed broadcom-wl):
Could you also provide the full output from dnf history and post it here as preformatted text (using the </> button instead of blockquote), given that it also provides timestamps, and please indicate the last command when wireless did work. You can remove any line you consider sensitive information.
The reason I am asking this is because it is still not clear to me when did Wi-Fi work and when did it start not working, and what did you do to try to make it work again. My guess (based on my short research, more on that below), and on your comments above, is that:
Wi-Fi did work for you OOTB, without broadcom-wl being installed.
After a recent dnf upgrade, your Wi-Fi didn’t work anymore (possibly because the wpa_supplicant issue affects Broadcom adapters/drivers in general). The Wi-Fi button is available in the Quick Settings menu, but doesn’t scan for available networks.
As a fix, you tried installing broadcom-wl drivers from RPM Fusion. Wi-Fi still not working, possibly Wi-Fi button in Quick Settings menu not available.
You donwgraded wpa_suplicant, but it didn’t help.
If the above is true, then the reason of the issue is that the driver for BCM43602 is included in the kernel, given that Broadcom released in 2010 a fully open-source driver (brcm80211) which also works for your chip. Then you installed broadcom-wl, which doesn’t suport your wireless card (BCM43602 is not the same as BCM4360), hence Wi-Fi is not working anymore.
If my assumptions are true, then the following should provide a fix:
Remove the broadcom-wl driver: sudo dnf remove broadcom-wl.
Verify that corresponding kernel modules were removed: sudo dnf list installed kmod-wl\*. There should be no matching packages.
I have performed the test by upgrading wpa_supplicant to the newer version 1:2.11-2.fc40, but with no success. Whatever fix was brought in by release -2, it doesn’t seem to have solved our Broadcom-related issue.
Thankyou for putting the information about downgrading the wpa_supplicant - I was trying to figure out why my broadcom 4360 wasn’t working and this fixed it for me. My question is how do we know when a fix has been put out?
