Wifi down after Mx linux update

System: MX Linux 23.3 (Based on Debian 12)

Wifi crashed after this week's update from official Mx Linux repositories.
I am trying to troubleshoot without success.
See relevant ouputs for some commands below

Harware version

1/ $ lspci

07:00.0 Network controller: Ralink corp. RT3290 Wireless 802.11n 1T/1R PCIe 

Error:

2/ $ sudo journalctl -b 0 -u NetworkManager

unmanaged -> unavailable (reason 'managed', sys-ifac>
ago 04 21:36:44 mx NetworkManager[992]: <warn>  [1722800204.3908] platform-linux: do-change-link[3]: failure 2 (No such file or directory), firmware>
ago 04 21:36:44 mx NetworkManager[992]: <warn>  [1722800204.3909] device (wlan0): firmware may be missing.
-----
wlan0): state change: unmanaged -> unavailable (reason 'managed', sys-iface-state: 'external')

-linux: do-change-link[3]: failure 2 (No such file or directory), firmware not found

wlan0): firmware may be missing.

wlan0): set-hw-addr: set MAC address to 1E:D3:FB:E0:60:A1 (scanning)

-linux: do-change-link[3]: failure 2 (No such file or directory), firmware not found

Status: DOWN -> I cannot turn status to UP

$ ip addr

3: wlan0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST> mtu 1500 qdisc noop state DOWN group default qlen 1000 
    link/ether 1e:d3:fb:e0:60:a1 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff permaddr a4:17:31:80:de:c1 

Hi @jose2024,

seems that the firmware drivers are missing. In Debian 10+, the ralink drivers are contained in the firmware-misc-nonfree package. To install it, you need to enable the non-free-firmware component in the apt sources, e.g.

deb https://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm main contrib non-free non-free-firmware

Thanks for your reply.
The drivers were installed. It was only after receiving updates from Mx Linux when they started to fail.
Were they overwritten? Were they somehow deleted by the update? I could not say. For sure it was a faulty update.
I already have that repo enabled. I will need to do more work to recover.

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Hi @jose2024,

to show the installed drivers:

ls -l /usr/lib/modules/$(uname -r)/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/ralink/*

What does nmcli con show wlan0 say?

Thanks again for you help. It looks we are on the right track.

Output of first command

$ ls -l /usr/lib/modules/$(uname -r)/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/ralink/*
total 1472
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 87723 jul 15 09:42 rt2400pci.ko
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 92739 jul 15 09:42 rt2500pci.ko
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 106163 jul 15 09:42 rt2500usb.ko
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 314763 jul 15 09:42 rt2800lib.ko
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 72523 jul 15 09:42 rt2800mmio.ko
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 68731 jul 15 09:42 rt2800pci.ko
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 117435 jul 15 09:42 rt2800usb.ko
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 198259 jul 15 09:42 rt2x00lib.ko
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 51691 jul 15 09:42 rt2x00mmio.ko
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 48699 jul 15 09:42 rt2x00pci.ko
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 83755 jul 15 09:42 rt2x00usb.ko
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 111051 jul 15 09:42 rt61pci.ko
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 118851 jul 15 09:42 rt73usb.ko

Output of second command

$ nmcli con show wlan0
Error: wlan0 - no such connection profile.

Output of nmcli command alone

$ nmcli
eth0: connected to Wired connection 1
"Realtek RTL810xE"
ethernet (r8169), 38:EA:A7:DC:F3:4A, hw, mtu 1500
ip4 default
inet4 192.168.0.101/24
route4 192.168.0.0/24 metric 100
route4 default via 192.168.0.1 metric 100
inet6 fe80::4876:4994:3828:1049/64
route6 fe80::/64 metric 1024

lo: connected (externally) to lo
"lo"
loopback (unknown), 00:00:00:00:00:00, sw, mtu 65536
inet4 127.0.0.1/8
inet6 ::1/128

wlan0: unavailable
"Ralink RT3290 1T/1R"
wifi (rt2800pci), 72:BA:07:DC:79:37, fw missing, hw, mtu 1500

DNS configuration:
servers: 192.168.0.1
interface: eth0

So it seems that drivers / firmware for wlan0 Ralink RT3290 were indeed wiped out because of the update

What will be the best approach to have them back?

I didn't read carefully your info till now. So I have this available in the end but my drivers are missing somehow.
I searched in Debian bookworm which corresponds with Mx Linux 23.3 and the last version is from 2023 and the version while in package manager is from 2024.
I just uninstalled and reinstalled that package on Package Manager and worked. Wifi is up again.
Thanks very much.

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