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This is a strange one, just like the title says one day I woke up, turned on my computer(Dell Inspiron 3521, Ubuntu 20.04) everything was as usual, except the computer didn't connect to the internet. When I clicked on the little network-manager icon (usually at the top right corner) I was left baffled, there seems to be every other wifi network available except mine. The first thing I tried, of course, was restarting. I restarted the card itself, then the Network Manager, then the computer, then naturally the modem, but all in vain, the problem still persisted. In the meantime, I checked my cell phone, and that added to the confusion because my phone had no problem seeing or connecting to my home network, nor my girlfriend's cell, nor her laptop. After that, I've tried plugging in an external wifi card (D-link 11 ac) and it was able to see and connect to my network. So here I am trying to figure out what the hell is going on. What I know for a fact the network is on 2.4Ghz this is the result of sudo iwlist external_card scan (showing only my network):

                    ESSID:"sprat"
                    Protocol:IEEE 802.11bgn
                    Mode:Master
                    Frequency:2.467 GHz (Channel 12)
                    Encryption key:on
                    Bit Rates:144 Mb/s
                    Extra:rsn_ie=30140100000fac040100000fac040100000fac020000
                    IE: IEEE 802.11i/WPA2 Version 1
                        Group Cipher : CCMP
                        Pairwise Ciphers (1) : CCMP
                        Authentication Suites (1) : PSK
                    Quality=99/100  Signal level=-45 dBm  
                    Extra:fm=0003

what I've noticed that the results are quite different because, for example, this is some random neighbors network scanned with an internal wifi card:

          Cell 08 - Address: 10:05:01:4D:A2:8E
                    Channel:1
                    Frequency:2.412 GHz (Channel 1)
                    Quality=46/70  Signal level=-64 dBm  
                    Encryption key:on
                    ESSID:"7f3d3e"
                    Bit Rates:1 Mb/s; 2 Mb/s; 5.5 Mb/s; 11 Mb/s; 18 Mb/s
                              24 Mb/s; 36 Mb/s; 54 Mb/s
                    Bit Rates:6 Mb/s; 9 Mb/s; 12 Mb/s; 48 Mb/s
                    Mode:Master
                    Extra:tsf=0000000000000000
                    Extra: Last beacon: 56ms ago
                    IE: Unknown: 0006376633643365
                    IE: Unknown: 010882848B962430486C
                    IE: Unknown: 030101
                    IE: Unknown: 2A0100
                    IE: Unknown: 2F0100
                    IE: IEEE 802.11i/WPA2 Version 1
                        Group Cipher : CCMP
                        Pairwise Ciphers (1) : CCMP
                        Authentication Suites (1) : PSK
                    IE: Unknown: 32040C121860
                    IE: Unknown: 0B050000360000
                    IE: Unknown: 2D1ABC191BFFFF000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
                    IE: Unknown: 3D1601081100000000000000000000000000000000000000
                    IE: Unknown: 7F080400080000000040
                    IE: Unknown: DD090010180200000C0000
                    IE: WPA Version 1
                        Group Cipher : CCMP
                        Pairwise Ciphers (1) : CCMP
                        Authentication Suites (1) : PSK
                    IE: Unknown: DD180050F2020101840003A4000027A4000042435E0062322F00
                    IE: Unknown: 46057208010000

I tried reinstalling the drivers

sudo apt remove broadcom-sta-dkms bcmwl-kernel-source

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install bcmwl-kernel-source broadcom-sta-dkms reboot

But that didn't help either. this is the result from nmcli dev wifi

which is intact to what is shown in the network manager drop-down

oh, and the internal card is working normally when connected to any other network.

This is driving me nuts, would really appreciate some help, I'm starting to think that the universe is playing a joke on me. Thanks in advance :)

P.s. Maybe it is worth mentioning that my setup is somewhat unusual, I'm using powerline ethernet to connect from the main modem to Asus wireless n router(RT-N12+ B1), all devices in the network have been restarted since the first occurrence of the problem.

Ostoja
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  • Installing two drivers at the same time is a bad idea. Remove both and see https://askubuntu.com/questions/1305699/bcmwl-kernel-source-broken-on-kernel-5-8-0-34-generic/1305819#1305819 – Pilot6 Jan 21 '21 at 10:12
  • Force the wifi router to be on a fixed channel 1-11 as the Broadcom Linux drivers don't usually work above channel 11 on 2.4GHz – Jeremy31 Jan 21 '21 at 11:01

1 Answers1

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I've managed to fix it. The first step was, as @Jeremy31 suggested, to set the wifi channel to some number between 1-11. After that BCM43142 started seeing the network again but was still unable to connect. Attempt produced error Could not activate connection: Activation failed: Secrets were required, but not provided. To resolve it I had to run nmcli con delete [my_wifi_name], and after that card successfully connected with a command nmcli dev wifi connect [my_wifi_name] password [my_password].

Ostoja
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