# RTL8723AE not detected

## anto418

Hello,

First, excuse me if I make some english mistakes : being French, it's not really my main language ^^

I've installed Gentoo some days ago on my MSI GE60-2OC-268XFR using the amd64 handbook, I've followed all the instructions, configured my kernel manually and everything works just fine...

But that wouldn't be funny without a little crash/bug/error/younameit.

Two of my network interfaces (enp3s0, ethernet, and wlp5s0, wireless) won't show up. lo works and I don't care about enp3s0 right now.

wlp5s0 is the interface of a Realtek RTL8723AE which seems to need a driver.

I tried to start wlp5s0 manually using /etc/init.d/net.wlp5s0 start and here's the output :

http://pastebin.com/tZGTNCW9 : tl;dr no driver found.

Here is my kernel config, where you can sse that the driver is built in the kernel (along with all the RTL family card drivers just to be sure), look for CONFIG_RTL8723* : http://pastebin.com/KZbeFZQD

I have tried the "genkernel all" method : same exact problem, and lsmod doesn't show any wifi/wireless related modules loaded. Isn't genkernel supposed to perform as well as the liveCD hardware detection ?

This driver is loaded as a module in the live CD kernel (where it works).

What am I doing wrong ? My adapter works on windows and with the live CD (never could get it to work with ubuntu though) so it's driver-related, but i've loaded the driver for this card...

Thanks in advance   :Very Happy: 

PS : Here is my dmesg output, if you need it : http://pastebin.com/ed9cZPbt

I forgot my lspci output, i'll post it in a couple minutes. EDIT : Nevermind, I haven't merged pciutils yet and I need sleep more than working wifi. I'll post it tomorrow, but i'm 100% sure that my card is a RTL8723AE (also checked on Windows)

PPS : For now, I intend to make a big kernel that can use all of my laptop functionalities without any module, i'll bother with them when my kernel will be fully functional.Last edited by anto418 on Tue Nov 11, 2014 2:24 am; edited 1 time in total

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## ShanaXXII

do you have wpa_supplicant installed?

and you can see if gentoo is detecting your wireless/ethernet hardware by doing $ ifconfig -a

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## charles17

 *anto418 wrote:*   

> I tried to start wlp5s0 manually using /etc/init.d/net.wlp5s0 start and here's the output :
> 
> http://pastebin.com/tZGTNCW9 : tl;dr no driver found.
> 
> Here is my kernel config, where you can sse that the driver is built in the kernel (along with all the RTL family card drivers just to be sure), look for CONFIG_RTL8723* : http://pastebin.com/KZbeFZQD

 Will you please also pastebin your output of 

```
# lspci -k
```

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## anto418

Sorry for the wait, I'm back !

 *ShanaXXII wrote:*   

> do you have wpa_supplicant installed?
> 
> and you can see if gentoo is detecting your wireless/ethernet hardware by doing $ ifconfig -a

 

wpa_supplicant is not installed yet.

Here is the output of ifconfig -a : http://pastebin.com/LHMFFka6

 *charles17 wrote:*   

> Will you please also pastebin your output of
> 
> ```
> lspci -k
> ```
> ...

 

pciutils isn't installed yet, and for some reason, I can't access the net even if i'm running the liveCD, connected to internet and chrooted in my real system.

I will try to download the sources from the liveCD environment, copy them to my real system and install them "locally", but it'll take some time (i'm quite new to portage  :Confused:  )

Here is the output of lspci with the live CD (not lspci -k) : http://pastebin.com/K0xaT1CD

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## ShanaXXII

Did you remember to copy the DNS info so your internet connection is not severes when you cheroot into ur system?

```
(The "-L" option is needed to make sure we don't copy a symbolic link)

# cp -L /etc/resolv.conf /mnt/gentoo/etc/
```

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## anto418

I did, but I guess it's not working properly as the original resolv.conf was generated using my wired connction on a different network (different interface, gateway and subnet mask). I'll investigate that.

Anyway, I've just installed pciutils...

http://pastebin.com/5WTGzctZ

And I see that my driver is installed and running. Yay. Still not being detected by the init scripts. Is there any possibility of a driver bug that should be reported ?

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## ShanaXXII

But you were using a wired connection to download the stage3 Tarball right?

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## anto418

I downloaded it prior to the installation, put it on an USB stick then decompressed and installed it while connected to a wired network (which worked with the liveCD).

(Context) I installed it during the week-end, and, being a student, I live with my parents during the week-end (home, wired network), and I move to my own flat during the week, near my university : public and unsecured wireless network.

Should I use my liveCD to generate another resolv.conf for the wireless network as I use it way more often ?

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## ShanaXXII

So your internet connection (wired) was working throughout the installation.

But when you rebooted, your internet connection was lost and when you tried to chroot into the system again, you did not get your connection back.

Is this correct?

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## anto418

Exactly.

The connection works outside of the chroot environment btw, both wired and wireless (I can ping/wget whatever I want)

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## ShanaXXII

 *anto418 wrote:*   

> Exactly.
> 
> The connection works outside of the chroot environment btw, both wired and wireless (I can ping/wget whatever I want)

 

:/

Your internet connection should still work if you boot from the livecd and chrooting into the system.

You can try to boot from the livecd, chroot into your system, do a # lspci -k to see what drivers in the kernel the livecd uses to get ur wired connection working (u should try to get wired connection working before wireless)

Then you can compile your kernel with those drivers. 

After this you should be able to see the interface by # ifconfig -a

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## anto418

I already did.

"net-setup wlp5s0" and "lspci -k" done from the liveCD tells me that the driver in use is rtl8723ae. 

See two posts above for the output of lspci -k : it's made from the real environment, with my real kernel, not the one from the CD. It clearly shows that rtl8723ae is in use.

EDIT : That's about the wireless connection, I haven't built the driver for the wired connction yet, but it's a matter of minutes : I already know it's alx.

I want to get the wireless connection working first because I only have access to a wired connection two days a week. 

"Lie down / try not to cry / cry a lot", right ?

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## ShanaXXII

 *anto418 wrote:*   

> I already did.
> 
> "net-setup wlp5s0" and "lspci -k" done from the liveCD tells me that the driver in use is rtl8723ae. 
> 
> See two posts above for the output of lspci -k : it's made from the real environment, with my real kernel, not the one from the CD. It clearly shows that rtl8723ae is in use.
> ...

 

But it looks like your # ifconfig -a and your #lspci -k shows that your Ethernet and wireless are not detected. :/

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## anto418

What is #lspci -k supposed to display then ? I was thinking that everything was OK based on the last 3 lines...

Also, I can't use my phone as an USB adapter... It's an android one (Xpera Z, v4.4.4 KitKat) and i followed these instructions : http://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Android_USB_Tethering

Didn't work either (driver in use, no network interface, just like with the internal adapter).

Could it be a problem about the init script ? I've done #ln -s net.lo net.wlp5s0 during the install, as written in the handbook.

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## ShanaXXII

 *anto418 wrote:*   

> What is #lspci -k supposed to display then ? I was thinking that everything was OK based on the last 3 lines...
> 
> Also, I can't use my phone as an USB adapter... It's an android one (Xpera Z, v4.4.4 KitKat) and i followed these instructions : http://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Android_USB_Tethering
> 
> Didn't work either (driver in use, no network interface, just like with the internal adapter).
> ...

 

# lspci -k should look something like this:

```
# lspci -k

...

03:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.11b/g LP-PHY (rev 01)

   Subsystem: Dell Wireless 1397 WLAN Mini-Card

   Kernel driver in use: b43-pci-bridge

04:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8101E/RTL8102E PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller (rev 02)

   Subsystem: Dell Device 0434

   Kernel driver in use: r8169

...
```

Notice the *Kernel driver in use:*

and ifconfig -a should look something like this

```
 $ ifconfig -a 

enp4s0: flags=4098<BROADCAST,MULTICAST>  mtu 1500

        ether b8:ac:6f:6d:c6:25  txqueuelen 1000  (Ethernet)

        RX packets 0  bytes 0 (0.0 B)

        RX errors 0  dropped 0  overruns 0  frame 0

        TX packets 0  bytes 0 (0.0 B)

        TX errors 0  dropped 0 overruns 0  carrier 0  collisions 0

lo: flags=73<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING>  mtu 65536

        inet 127.0.0.1  netmask 255.0.0.0

        inet6 ::1  prefixlen 128  scopeid 0x10<host>

        loop  txqueuelen 0  (Local Loopback)

        RX packets 0  bytes 0 (0.0 B)

        RX errors 0  dropped 0  overruns 0  frame 0

        TX packets 0  bytes 0 (0.0 B)

        TX errors 0  dropped 0 overruns 0  carrier 0  collisions 0

sit0: flags=128<NOARP>  mtu 1480

        sit  txqueuelen 0  (IPv6-in-IPv4)

        RX packets 0  bytes 0 (0.0 B)

        RX errors 0  dropped 0  overruns 0  frame 0

        TX packets 0  bytes 0 (0.0 B)

        TX errors 0  dropped 0 overruns 0  carrier 0  collisions 0

wlan0: flags=4163<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST>  mtu 1500

        inet 10.8.3.3  netmask 255.255.224.0  broadcast 10.8.31.255

        inet6 fe80::7ae4:ff:fe43:d35e  prefixlen 64  scopeid 0x20<link>

        ether 78:e4:00:43:d3:5e  txqueuelen 1000  (Ethernet)

        RX packets 936  bytes 601232 (587.1 KiB)

        RX errors 0  dropped 0  overruns 0  frame 0

        TX packets 1008  bytes 156259 (152.5 KiB)

        TX errors 0  dropped 0 overruns 0  carrier 0  collisions 0
```

where lo is loopback

enp4s0 is ethernet

sit0 is ipv6

and wlan0 is wireless

----------

## zenglanmu

what is the version of your kernel?

My notebook has a  RTL8723BE PCIe Wireless Network Adapter. In my case, the kernel can't recognize the adapter under 3.17.8 although in the "make menuconfig" the RTL8723BE was selected as a module. But at kernel version of 3.18 and 3.19, the wireless card works.

Unfortunately, it seems the newer kernel has a bug for haswell platform: when KMS and DRM enable, I got the "drm_kms_helper:panic occurred" Kernel panic message.

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## s0be

After getting wireless modules loading, you still need to manage the wireless.  wpa_supplicant is pretty much the bare minimum to get it working, but also using something like network-manager, wpa-gui, or wicd to configure wpa_supplicant is also likely going to be useful.  Other than WEP or Open network, you need something to manage the wireless keys (with WPA1/2, the keys get rotated semi-regularly).

if lspci -k showed you had a driver loaded for the wireless device, then the init script for the interface might be failing out if wpa_supplicant is missing.  I would HIGHLY suggest getting wired working first, as having a working internet connection with gui so you can copy/paste logs here will greatly speedup getting wireless working.

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