Wifi Adapter Issue

Ask Fedora
1

After the recent upgrade, my wifi adapter stopped working. Not showing any networks. Can someone please help.

2

We can’t help without details. What Fedora “spin” and version are you using?

More people will find this topic if the details of your wifi hardware are available in text format. In a terminal, please run inxi -Nzxx and past the output into a post as pre-formatted text (use the </> button from the top line of the text entry panel).

It is not unusual to have problems with WiFi after an upgrade. Linux devs don’t have access to every WiFi model, and vendors often provide their own “customizations” of WiFi hardware, so it can take some time to get WiFi back. I keep a USB WiFi “dongle” that support linux for use when built-in WiFi fails. See https://github.com/morrownr/USB-WiFi for models that have “in-kernel” support.

3

Below is the result for the command “inxi -Nzxx”

Network:
  Device-1: Intel Ethernet I219-V vendor: ASUSTeK driver: e1000e v: kernel
    port: N/A bus-ID: 00:1f.6 chip-ID: 8086:15fa
  Device-2: Realtek 802.11ac NIC driver: N/A type: USB rev: 2.0
    speed: 480 Mb/s lanes: 1 bus-ID: 1-14:3 chip-ID: 0bda:c811
4

You probably need to install a 3rd party driver from https://github.com/morrownr/8821cu-20210916 or one the links in the LHDB probes for systems with your WiFi chip. Note that some drivers may only work with hardware from specific vendors, e.g., what the developer uses.

5

Tried installing the drivers from above link, didn’t work. Also i am new to Linux, kindly help me on this issue. I may be doing it wrong.

6

Please be more specific:

  • there were two URL’s, one with multiple links to different drivers for your hardware
  • “didn’t work” is not helpful. Was there an error that prevented installing the driver, or was the driver installed but fails to load, or installed and loads but fails to work?
1 Like
7

Actually, I think the driver should be included in the current kernel: Making sure you're not a bot!.

It might be useful to check some of the logs using journalctl.

That being said, USB Wi-Fi cards are generally quite poor. If there is any possibility of replacing it with a PCIe or M.2 card, I would highly recommend doing so.

1 Like
8

Yes:

% modinfo rtw88_8821cu
filename:       /lib/modules/6.15.3-200.fc42.x86_64/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw88/rtw88_8821cu.ko.xz
license:        Dual BSD/GPL
description:    Realtek 802.11ac wireless 8821cu driver
author:         Hans Ulli Kroll <linux@ulli-kroll.de>
alias:          usb:v7392pD811d*dc*dsc*dp*icFFiscFFipFFin*
alias:          usb:v7392pC811d*dc*dsc*dp*icFFiscFFipFFin*
alias:          usb:v2001p331Dd*dc*dsc*dp*icFFiscFFipFFin*
alias:          usb:v0BDApC82Bd*dc*dsc*dp*icFFiscFFipFFin*
alias:          usb:v0BDApC82Ad*dc*dsc*dp*icFFiscFFipFFin*
alias:          usb:v0BDApC821d*dc*dsc*dp*icFFiscFFipFFin*
alias:          usb:v0BDApC820d*dc*dsc*dp*icFFiscFFipFFin*
alias:          usb:v0BDApC811d*dc*dsc*dp*icFFiscFFipFFin*
alias:          usb:v0BDApC80Cd*dc*dsc*dp*icFFiscFFipFFin*
alias:          usb:v0BDApB82Bd*dc*dsc*dp*icFFiscFFipFFin*
alias:          usb:v0BDApB820d*dc*dsc*dp*icFFiscFFipFFin*
alias:          usb:v0BDAp8811d*dc*dsc*dp*icFFiscFFipFFin*
alias:          usb:v0BDAp8731d*dc*dsc*dp*icFFiscFFipFFin*
alias:          usb:v0BDAp2006d*dc*dsc*dp*icFFiscFFipFFin*
depends:        rtw88_8821c,rtw88_usb
intree:         Y
name:           rtw88_8821cu
retpoline:      Y
vermagic:       6.15.3-200.fc42.x86_64 SMP preempt mod_unload 
[...]

So either the card is disabled or there is a vendor-dependent “feature” conflict. The LHDB link shows failure for many systems and a few that found success with one of the 3rd party drivers.

1 Like
9

Please provide the logs from when the Wi-Fi does not work using the command journalctl -b, the status of rfkill with rfkill, and the output of nmcli dev status.