Hello there.
I am having a very annoying issue on my partner’s laptop. It is a openSUSE Tumbleweed installation on a Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 15D laptop.
The WiFi worked just totally fine until at an update it broke it completely, with the laptop starting connected and disconnecting from WiFi every 30 secs/1 minute or so and then reconnecting and disconnecting after the same amount of time. So I had to rollback to my working snapshot but that is getting very out of date now and I am unable to upgrade Tumbleweed. I thought I’d wait, and perhaps this issue would be soon enough fixed especially with newer kernel versions but it’s been months now and still no fix!
Could someone please help me?
Post
inxi -anz
I was seeing this with an Ethernet connection on a few months old AMD B850 chip set mainboard – the NetworkManager link down/up sequences were happening at the rate of about once per second …
The trouble seemed to have began after a recent Leap 16.0 Kernel upgrade – I’m currently using a 2.5 Gbit/s USB 3.0/Ethernet adaptor to work around this issue.
When I have some spare time, I’ll download the Ethernet interface specific driver (with patents) from the device’s manufacturer and after building it on this system, «after I’ve upgraded to Tumbleweed for other reasons», and see if that’s the cause of the problem …
Panic off – my Mainboard now has a new UEFI/BIOS firmware – published yesterday, timestamped the 5th of February, by the manufacturer –
- For the moment, I’ve switched the Ethernet back to the mainboard’s Ethernet device and, it’s quiet –
No more link down/up indications in the systemd Journal – for now …
If it’s really a semiconductor device thermal issue then, the UEFI/BIOS update didn’t fix the issue …
Before the upgrade
Network:
Device-1: Qualcomm Atheros QCA9565 / AR9565 Wireless Network
Adapter vendor: Lenovo driver: ath9k v: kernel pcie: gen: 1
speed: 2.5 GT/s lanes: 1 bus-ID: 01:00.0 chip-ID: 168c:0036
class-ID: 0280
IF: wlp1s0 state: up mac: <filter>
Device-2: Realtek RTL810xE PCI Express Fast Ethernet
vendor: Lenovo driver: N/A modules: r8169 pcie: gen: 1
speed: 2.5 GT/s lanes: 1 port: 2000 bus-ID: 05:00.0
chip-ID: 10ec:8136 class-ID: 0200
IF-ID-1: DE-FRA-440 state: unknown speed: N/A duplex: N/A
mac: N/A
Info: services: NetworkManager, sshd, wpa_supplicant
After upgrade
Network:
Device-1: Qualcomm Atheros QCA9565 / AR9565 Wireless Network
Adapter vendor: Lenovo driver: ath9k v: kernel pcie: gen: 1
speed: 2.5 GT/s lanes: 1 bus-ID: 01:00.0 chip-ID: 168c:0036
class-ID: 0280
IF: wlp1s0 state: down mac: <filter>
Device-2: Realtek RTL810xE PCI Express Fast Ethernet
vendor: Lenovo driver: N/A modules: r8169 pcie: gen: 1
speed: 2.5 GT/s lanes: 1 port: 2000 bus-ID: 05:00.0
chip-ID: 10ec:8136 class-ID: 0200
IF-ID-1: DE-FRA-440 state: unknown speed: N/A duplex: N/A
mac: N/A
Info: services: NetworkManager, sshd, wpa_supplicant
For WiFi create bug report. As a workaround you can use USB WiFi module - not with Atheros chip.
For
Realtek RTL810xE PCI Express Fast Ethernet
you can use this:
https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?p=2261309#p2261309
https://software.opensuse.org/package/r8101
https://software.opensuse.org/package/r8101-blacklist-r8169
Ask user Sauerland for details.
You could use r8168 and r8169 driver.
I would try the r8169 from the kernel, if that fails you can use ther three r8168 packages from my hardware Repo:
https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/Sauerland:/hardware/openSUSE_Tumbleweed/
The r8168 driver from Packman is versions behind my driver and is not build to enable the 8136 chip in this driver.
Excuse my ignorance but how do I go about installing the r8169 driver (or how do I use the r8168 from the kernel)?? Can I search it with opi?
Anyway I will try to submit a bug report for WiFi later…
The r8169 will be loaded automatically.
Post:
grep -i 'blacklist r8169' /lib/modprobe.d/*
and
grep -i 'blacklist r8169' /etc/modprobe.d/*
Also post:
zypper se -si r8168
r8168:
I have posted the URL for the Repo.
You can add and enable it with:
zypper ar -f https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/Sauerland:/hardware/openSUSE_Tumbleweed/ Sauerland-Hardware
Now install all needed packages:
zypper in -f --from Sauerland-Hardware r8168-blacklist-r8169 r8168-kmp-default r8168-ueficert
The first is to get the r8169 driver not loaded, the second is the new driver, the third is to get the cert of the Repo into the Mok Database on reboot, if you use secure boot.
1 Like
Doesn’t give me any output when I run those commands 
. Mind you I am doing it on the state before the upgrade, do I need to run them after the upgrade? Or should I try the r8168 method instead?
Loading repository data...
Reading installed packages...
S | Name | Type | Version | Arch | Repository
---+-----------------------+---------+--------------------------+--------+-----------
i+ | r8168-blacklist-r8169 | package | 8.055.00-67.91 | x86_64 | home:Hoog
i+ | r8168-kmp-default | package | 8.055.00_k6.17.0_1-67.91 | x86_64 | home:Hoog
i+ | r8168-ueficert | package | 8.055.00-67.91 | x86_64 | home:Hoog
home:hoog uses a branch from my Repo so it can not give not output, see:
stephan@linux64:~> grep -i 'blacklist r8169' /lib/modprobe.d/*
/lib/modprobe.d/50-blacklist-r8169.conf:blacklist r8169
stephan@linux64:~> LANG=C zypper se -si r8168
Loading repository data...
Reading installed packages...
S | Name | Type | Version | Arch | Repository
---+-----------------------+---------+--------------------------------------+--------+------------------
i | r8168-blacklist-r8169 | package | 8.056.02-lp160.69.3 | x86_64 | Sauerland-OSS
i+ | r8168-kmp-default | package | 8.056.02_k6.12.0_160000.8-lp160.64.1 | x86_64 | (System Packages)
i+ | r8168-kmp-default | package | 8.056.02_k6.12.0_160000.9-lp160.69.3 | x86_64 | Sauerland-OSS
i+ | r8168-ueficert | package | 8.056.02-lp160.69.3 | x86_64 | Sauerland-OSS
Note: For an extended search including not yet activated remote resources please use 'zypper
search-packages'.
stephan@linux64:~>
The problem with home:hoog is:
He has disabled the build for Tumbleweed, you get an outdated driver build against an outed kernel in Tumbleweed.
Thats the problems with /home Repos…
So delete the Repo and add my hardware Repo as posted in my last post and install the packages from there.
Also:
Please don’t tell something, post all incl. the complete input line as I have done.
Mate I’m telling you now, those commands DO NOT give me ANY output whatsoever, I even ran them a few times all with no output, so I’m sorry but I don’t know what else to say or why it is not giving any output but that’s what it’s doing.
Ok, I will give that a go in a little bit, I will delete the home:hoog repo and use yours and try again. Will let you know how it goes, cheers.
I have no idea what I did but after running the upgrade (and before rebooting) I have tried running the command again and this is what I get:
/lib/modprobe.d/50-blacklist-r8169.conf:blacklist r8169
and
/etc/modprobe.d/60-blacklist-r8169.conf:blacklist r8169
Apologies for before but I really had nothing coming up…
Anyway, now I have rebooted and the WiFi is lovely and stable and it works great, perfectly like it did before, thank you so much! 
You must not post:
this command
command x
is giving me this:
xxxxxx
Post only the complete commandline incl. the complete output.
Now post:
inxi -anz
This is what I would post as answer:
linux64:/home/stephan # inxi -anz
Network:
Device-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8211/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet
vendor: ASRock driver: r8168 v: 8.056.02-NAPI modules: r8169 pcie: gen: 1
speed: 2.5 GT/s lanes: 1 port: f000 bus-ID: 05:00.0 chip-ID: 10ec:8168
class-ID: 0200
IF: eth0 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
Device-2: Realtek RTL8153 Gigabit Ethernet Adapter driver: r8152 type: USB
rev: 3.0 speed: 5 Gb/s lanes: 1 mode: 3.2 gen-1x1 bus-ID: 4-4.1.4:4
chip-ID: 0bda:8153 class-ID: 0000 serial: <filter>
IF: eth3 state: down mac: <filter>
IF-ID-1: br0 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: unknown mac: <filter>
IF-ID-2: tun0 state: unknown speed: 10000 Mbps duplex: full mac: N/A
IF-ID-3: tun1 state: unknown speed: 10000 Mbps duplex: full mac: N/A
IF-ID-4: virbr0 state: down mac: <filter>
IF-ID-5: virbr1 state: down mac: <filter>
Info: services: sshd
linux64:/home/stephan #
This tells me many things:
using the command as root
starting in the directory /home/stephan
and using the command as I wrote above, no typos etc.
I’m sorry, I don’t really know what you mean…
You asked me to post the output of those commands and so I did, I’m not sure what you’re saying here.
Fair enough about knowing if running the command as nornal user or as root and in which directory (didn’t think those details were necessarily relevant for the inxi command tbh). But I didn’t typo anything as I literally copied your command from here and pasted it straight into the terminal and ran it and I also posted the result in one of my very first responses for you guys to see.
Anyway, as I said, swapping out the home:Hoog repo for yours and then running the upgrade again and rebooting fixed the issue and now all the software is up-to-date and the WiFi and Bluetooth are working just fine.
bruno@LT-B:~> grep -i 'blacklist nouveau' /lib/modprobe.d/* <<< the complete command line**
/lib/modprobe.d/50-nvidia.conf:blacklist nouveau <<< the output
/lib/modprobe.d/50-nvidia.conf.rpmsave:blacklist nouveau <<<
bruno@LT-B:~> <<< the trailing prompt
That makes helping users much easier (and when you just copy/paste all of the above from the terminal output even saves typing on your side…).
1 Like
I have no idea why, but with your solution I thought this was fixed and it did work for a bit but now it has started to do the same thing again even with your suggestion 
Then, I suspect that, you’ll have to invest in a USB WLAN device – to prove if the issue is being caused by your Laptop’s integrated WLAN/WiFi device, or not.
- There are various devices available from manufacturers such as TP-Link, ASUS and MSI but, they seem to be mostly with a USB-A physical interface – if your Laptop only has USB-C interfaces, you’ll have to also invest in an adaptor.
It is not the wireless card’s fault. It was working perfectly fine before and every time I’d do the upgrade it would fail so it is a software level issue, not a hardware one. That I can tell you for absolute sure. I have a USB WiFi adapter from years ago, and while that does work stably I do not wish to use it as the laptop does have built-in WiFi and Bluetooth and I want to use that. It is simply stupid to me to have to occupy a USB slot for something you have built-in and that is not broken at a hardware level. I think I might have to reinstall Tumbleweed in the end, just wanted to see if there is anything else I can do before I have to go through the chore of having to reinstall everything again…