Wifi/Driver problem with RTL8723BE in Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS

Question

I've recently installed Ubuntu 20.04 LTS on a laptop. Everything was working seemingly fine except for a couple of freezes from time to time. They were due to many acpi errors, so I changed the grub config file to have acpi=off. After this the wifi stopped working, by which I mean that it is unable to find any wireless network.

I tried the old solution that I knew, which is to type sudo modprobe rtl8723be ant_sel=1, but it didn't work.

Looking trough the internet I found several post pointing at the drivers with all the instructions to install them and run them. I tried all of them without any luck.

Here are some specs (hopefully relevant ones):

$ sudo lshw -c network
  *-network
       description: Wireless interface
       product: RTL8723BE PCIe Wireless Network Adapter
       vendor: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:03:00.0
       logical name: wlo1
       version: 00
       serial: 54:8c:a0:c0:4a:57
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless
       configuration: broadcast=yes driver=rtl8723be driverversion=5.4.0-47-generic firmware=N/A latency=0 link=no multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11
       resources: irq:11 ioport:3000(size=256) memory:b1400000-b1403fff

$ lspci -knn | grep -A 2 -i net
03:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8723BE PCIe Wireless Network Adapter [10ec:b723]
    DeviceName: WLAN Realtek RTL8723BE b/g/n 1x1 + BT 4 LE PCIe+USB M.2 WW
    Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company RTL8723BE PCIe Wireless Network Adapter [103c:81c1]
    Kernel driver in use: rtl8723be
    Kernel modules: rtl8723be, wl

$ sudo modprobe rtl8723be && dmesg | grep -i rtl
[    0.490322] r8169 0000:02:00.0 eth0: RTL8106e, ec:8e:b5:31:2a:c0, XID 449, IRQ 21
[    3.249380] Bluetooth: hci0: RTL: examining hci_ver=06 hci_rev=000b lmp_ver=06 lmp_subver=8723
[    3.250236] Bluetooth: hci0: RTL: rom_version status=0 version=1
[    3.250237] Bluetooth: hci0: RTL: loading rtl_bt/rtl8723b_fw.bin
[    3.259315] Bluetooth: hci0: RTL: loading rtl_bt/rtl8723b_config.bin
[    3.259336] bluetooth hci0: Direct firmware load for rtl_bt/rtl8723b_config.bin failed with error -2
[    3.259341] Bluetooth: hci0: RTL: cfg_sz -2, total sz 22496
[    3.921969] rtl8723be: Using firmware rtlwifi/rtl8723befw_36.bin
[    3.925410] ieee80211 phy0: Selected rate control algorithm 'rtl_rc'
[    3.927407] rtlwifi: rtlwifi: wireless switch is on
[    4.062246] Bluetooth: hci0: RTL: fw version 0x0e2f9f73
[    4.276854] rtl8723be 0000:03:00.0 wlo1: renamed from wlan0
[    7.523502] RTL8208 Fast Ethernet r8169-200:00: attached PHY driver [RTL8208 Fast Ethernet] (mii_bus:phy_addr=r8169-200:00, irq=IGNORE)

$ rfkill list all
0: hci0: Bluetooth
    Soft blocked: yes
    Hard blocked: no
1: phy0: Wireless LAN
    Soft blocked: no
    Hard blocked: no

If anybody could provide some help or point un the right direction I'd be glad, because right now I'm at a loss, and my only solution would be to try and reinstall an older version of Ubuntu (maybe 18.04 LTS).

Please start by removing the incorrect driver: `sudo apt purge bcmwl-kernel-source` Reboot. Does the problem remain? Welcome to Ask Ubutnu. — chili555, Sep 27 '20 at 15:13
Please edit your question to show the result of the terminal commands: `sudo modprobe rtl8723be && dmesg | grep -i rtl` and also: `rfkill list all` — chili555, Sep 27 '20 at 16:35
It looks perfectly normal. What about: `nmcli device wifi list` Please don't list everything, just tell us if it sees any networks. — chili555, Sep 28 '20 at 13:31
I think we are at a point where we need a full diagnostic report: https://askubuntu.com/questions/425155/my-wireless-wifi-connection-does-not-work-what-information-is-needed-to-diagnos/425180#425180 Please give us the paste link. — chili555, Sep 28 '20 at 14:54
[Here it is](https://paste.ubuntu.com/p/7Z9BwMQBTs/). Btw thx for your help and time — Voxeldoodle, Sep 28 '20 at 14:59
Please try: `sudo modprobe -r rtl8723be` followed by: `sudo modprobe rtl8723be ant_sel=2` Now does it see networks? `nmcli device wifi list` If not, repeat the sequence with =1 and check again. — chili555, Sep 28 '20 at 15:31
I still see nothing wrong and therefore fixable. Studying... — chili555, Sep 29 '20 at 01:09

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 30 '20 at 11:19

2

I finally solved it. I needed to add pcie=nomsi in the grub config, because apparently I had more pcie errors, and that was the solution.

answered Sep 30 '20 at 11:19

Voxeldoodle

31
6

Wifi/Driver problem with RTL8723BE in Ubuntu 20.04.1 LTS

1 Answers1