Wifi adapter not found after upgrade from 40 to 41

Ask Fedora
1

Hi everyone,

After upgrading from Fedora 40 to Fedora 41, my Wifi adapter is no longer recognized. How can I fix this?

I’ve seen previous posts about this and have tried several solutions, but nothing has worked. A couple of months ago, I faced this issue when I first installed Fedora, but I don’t remember how I solved it back then.

System Information:

  • Fedora version: Fedora 41
  • Kernel version: 6.12.4-200.fc41.x86_64
  • Wireless adapter: Broadcom BCM43228

Things I’ve tried:

  1. Rebooting and refreshing system upgrades

    sudo dnf --refresh upgrade

  2. Verifying the hardware:

    lspci | grep Net
02:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Inc. and subsidiaries BCM43228 802.11a/b/g/n

  3. Checking driver in use:

    lspci -nnk -s 02:00.0
02:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Broadcom Inc. and subsidiaries BCM43228 802.11a/b/g/n [14e4:4359]
    DeviceName: WLAN
    Subsystem: Broadcom Inc. and subsidiaries Device [14e4:05e2]
    Kernel driver in use: bcma-pci-bridge
    Kernel modules: bcma

  4. Checking rfkill:

    rfkill
ID TYPE      DEVICE      SOFT      HARD
  0 bluetooth hci0   unblocked unblocked

  5. Various other troubleshooting steps I found online.

Additional info:

  • I have a physical key for wireless mode, but it now stays red, and pressing it only toggles airplane mode.

I’ve been stuck on this for a while. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

1 Like
2

I assume you are using the broadcom-wl driver from RPM Fusion?

If so, there is currently a problem with akmod (Fedora’s Kernel Mod Builder) and kernel 6.12:

2024/12/16 09:26:35 akmodsbuild: /tmp/akmodsbuild.ohdthyNt/BUILD/wl-kmod-6.30.223.271-build/wl-kmod-6.30.223.271/_kmod_build_6.12.4-200.fc41.x86_64/src/wl/sys/wl_linux.c:59:10: fatal error: asm/unaligned.h: No such file or directory
2024/12/16 09:26:35 akmodsbuild:    59 | #include <asm/unaligned.h>
2024/12/16 09:26:35 akmodsbuild:       |          ^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
2024/12/16 09:26:35 akmodsbuild: compilation terminated.

akmod attempts to include a kernel header file that was replaced in kernel 6.12 to linux/unaligned.h.

Until a hotfix is ​​available, quick solutions are to boot into a previous kernel version or to install an LTS (long-term) kernel such as 6.6 from @kwizart .

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3

Thank you so much for your help! I followed your suggestion and booted into a previous kernel version, and that immediately solved the issue with my Wi-Fi adapter not being recognized.

I really appreciate your guidance and taking the time to provide such a clear solution. It saved me a lot of frustration!

Thanks again!

1 Like
4

No problem, you’re welcome. I ran into the same problem this morning. Since I’m also dependent on rpm fusion for hardware, I always have an LTS kernel installed. Just in case.

The maintainers of rpm fusion are doing a very good job of completing Fedora for us, don’t get me wrong. The patch for broadcom-wl and kernel 6.12 is already available in the testing repo. And whether you boot with kernel 6.6. or 6.12… personally, I don’t care because of “older” hardware. The main thing is that you can work with it, and Fedora is one of the free OS that is stable as f*** if you know the difference between official repos and not so official repos because of idiotic country or copyright laws.

5

lol nice
really agree with you on the older hardware, and good to know I chose good with Fedora, not super familiar with it though :sweat_smile: