PINE A64-LTS v2 - Can't get WiFi to work

[Voidwatcher]

My WiFi/Bluetooth daughter board just arrived today for my PINE A64-LTS V2 that I've been integrating into a project.  I've been using the SBC with a wired Ethernet connection for weeks (although that had its own challenges, I eventually had to limit it to 10/100) and finally now I'm trying to get wireless going.  Unfortunately, I cannot get it to work after several hours of troubleshooting and I'm hoping someone out there has some ideas.

First, the basics... Issuing uname -a produces this:

Code:

Linux pine64so 5.15.80-sunxi64 #22.11.1 SMP Wed Nov 30 11:23:00 UTC 2022 aarch64 aarch64 aarch64 GNU/Linux

This is the only distro image that I was able to find that works on this specific hardware.  I guess the V2 board is based off of the SOPINE modules. The one I downloaded is "Armbian_22.11.1_Pine64so_jammy_current_5.15.80.img.xz" image up on https://armbian.hosthatch.com/archive/pine64so/archive/

ifconfig just shows eth0 and lo.  
iwconfig shows this:

Code:

lo        no wireless extensions.

eth0      no wireless extensions.

wlan0     IEEE 802.11  ESSID:off/any 
          Mode:Managed  Access Point: Not-Associated   Tx-Power=12 dBm  
          Retry short limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off
          Power Management:off

Snippit from /etc/network/interfaces:

Code:

# Interface wlan0
auto wlan0
iface wlan0 inet dhcp
wpa-conf /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf
iface default inet dhcp

Contents of wpa_supplicant.conf, although I originally started out with a more complex version, but I whittled it down to just this, as this bare minimum should still work I think.  (Please correct me on this.)

Code:

network={
    ssid="My home network SSID"
    psk="XXXXXXXXXXX"
}

If I issue the ifup wlan0 command it shows me that the daemon doesn't start:

Code:

wpa_supplicant: /sbin/wpa_supplicant daemon failed to start
run-parts: /etc/network/if-pre-up.d/wpasupplicant exited with return code 1
ifup: failed to bring up wlan0

I'm also using a GUI desktop environment and WiFi doesn't show up in Network Manager because of my manual definition in the interfaces file.

If I remove the wlan0 definition from interfaces, then WiFi does show up in the Network Manager, however even though it lets me turn off and on the WiFi connection itself, it doesn't enumerate any wireless networks.  The list is just blank.

I've tried both my 5G network and my 2.44Ghz network; neither work when specifying them manually in the wpa_supplicant.conf file.

So it seems to me that the wpa_supplicant daemon failing to start must be the direction I need to be troubleshooting, but at this point I'm out of ideas on how to go further.

Can anyone help?

[Voidwatcher]

Not quite sure how to interpret all of this yet but there might be something relevant in my /var/log/syslog here.  I'm looking at the "direct firmware load for rtlwifi/rtl8723bs_nic.bin error".  I'm wondering if that's actually correct for my Wifi module for the PINE64 A64-LTS V2.

Code:

Apr  1 11:23:09 pine64so wpa_supplicant[3945]: Successfully initialized wpa_supplicant
Apr  1 11:23:09 pine64so kernel: [  737.188022] rtl8723bs mmc1:0001:1 wlan0: rtw_ndev_notifier_call(wlan0) state:14
Apr  1 11:23:09 pine64so kernel: [  737.188743] rtl8723bs: acquire FW from file:rtlwifi/rtl8723bs_nic.bin
Apr  1 11:23:09 pine64so kernel: [  737.188837] rtl8723bs mmc1:0001:1: Direct firmware load for rtlwifi/rtl8723bs_nic.bin failed with error -2
Apr  1 11:23:09 pine64so kernel: [  737.188856] Request firmware failed with error 0xfffffffe
Apr  1 11:23:09 pine64so wpa_supplicant[3945]: Could not set interface wlan0 flags (UP): Operation not permitted
Apr  1 11:23:09 pine64so wpa_supplicant[3945]: nl80211: Could not set interface 'wlan0' UP
Apr  1 11:23:09 pine64so wpa_supplicant[3945]: nl80211: deinit ifname=wlan0 disabled_11b_rates=0
Apr  1 11:23:09 pine64so kernel: [  737.195905] rtl8723bs mmc1:0001:1 wlan0: rtw_ndev_notifier_call(wlan0) state:14
Apr  1 11:23:09 pine64so kernel: [  737.196665] rtl8723bs: acquire FW from file:rtlwifi/rtl8723bs_nic.bin
Apr  1 11:23:09 pine64so kernel: [  737.196770] rtl8723bs mmc1:0001:1: Direct firmware load for rtlwifi/rtl8723bs_nic.bin failed with error -2
Apr  1 11:23:09 pine64so kernel: [  737.196791] Request firmware failed with error 0xfffffffe
Apr  1 11:23:09 pine64so wpa_supplicant[3945]: Could not set interface wlan0 flags (UP): Operation not permitted
Apr  1 11:23:09 pine64so wpa_supplicant[3945]: WEXT: Could not set interface 'wlan0' UP
Apr  1 11:23:09 pine64so wpa_supplicant[3945]: wlan0: Failed to initialize driver interface
Apr  1 11:23:09 pine64so wpa_supplicant[3945]: wlan0: CTRL-EVENT-DSCP-POLICY clear_all
Apr  1 11:23:20 pine64so snapd[1088]: storehelpers.go:769: cannot refresh: snap has no updates available: "bare", "core20", "firefox", "gnome-3-38-2004", "gtk-common-themes", "snapd"
Apr  1 11:23:32 pine64so PackageKit: resolve transaction /797_eeaeaebe from uid 1000 finished with success after 17917ms
Apr  1 11:23:41 pine64so PackageKit: get-updates transaction /798_bbdbbdbb from uid 1000 finished with success after 8495ms
Apr  1 11:23:47 pine64so PackageKit: resolve transaction /799_caecddbc from uid 1000 finished with success after 6041ms
Apr  1 11:23:52 pine64so PackageKit: resolve transaction /800_addacacd from uid 1000 finished with success after 4815ms
Apr  1 11:24:00 pine64so PackageKit: search-file transaction /801_ebbadcda from uid 1000 finished with success after 7476ms
Apr  1 11:24:17 pine64so kernel: [  805.092783] logitech-hidpp-device 0003:046D:400A.0004: HID++ 2.0 device connected.
Apr  1 11:24:17 pine64so upowerd[2796]: treated changed event as add on /sys/devices/platform/soc/1c1a400.usb/usb3/3-1/3-1:1.2/0003:046D:C52B.0003/0003:046D:400A.0004/power_supply/hidpp_battery_0
Apr  1 11:25:01 pine64so CRON[4084]: (root) CMD (command -v debian-sa1 > /dev/null && debian-sa1 1 1)
Apr  1 11:25:18 pine64so PackageKit: get-update-detail transaction /802_dcdbdbca from uid 1000 finished with success after 78423ms
Apr  1 11:25:24 pine64so PackageKit: get-details transaction /803_bdabaebd from uid 1000 finished with success after 6078ms
Apr  1 11:26:01 pine64so systemd[1]: Starting Cleanup of Temporary Directories...
Apr  1 11:26:02 pine64so systemd[1]: systemd-tmpfiles-clean.service: Deactivated successfully.
Apr  1 11:26:02 pine64so systemd[1]: Finished Cleanup of Temporary Directories.

Is the driver for the RealTek chipset on the Wifi module not actually correct? I had "assumed" that this Armbian distro for "pine64so" would contain the correct driver for the very module that the PINE64 store sells but is that assumption incorrect?

Again I'm using Armbian_22.11.1_Pine64so_jammy_current_5.15.80.img.xz for my PINE A64-LTS V2. Is anyone using a different distro with more success? Am I the only one who's purchased this SBC so far and wants to use it with WiFi? (That would seem really strange to me.)

[Voidwatcher]

Follow-up: The wifi subsystem started to work after I forced Armbian to download the full set of firmware with a single command:

Code:

armbian-firmware-full

While I don't quite understand why the "pine64so" distro image for the PINE A64 v2 & SOPINE units would lack the firmware for WiFi, I'm happy to finally have this up and running, and decided to post this in case anyone else runs into this same issue.

Cheers all!

Gary