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This is on Ubuntu 16.04.3 LTS.

I had an issue with my wireless card/drivers recently (outlined here) which I couldn't fix. I booted from a Live USB and still no networks were detected. Then I chose to install Ubuntu from the Live USB, and my wifi began to work! I erased my disk completely and installed Ubuntu from scratch.

After installing, no wireless networks were detected again. ifconfig shows only a loopback device as before.

I repeated the process with the same results. Wireless works only during the install process. The only thing strange I noted is that after installing, I'm prompted to restart. It brings me to a black terminal-like screen with a flashing underscore, and I have to force shutdown my computer. This happened every time.

I followed the suggestions in the post Internet worked during install, but not after with no success.

Thanks for any suggestions.

update

Reinstalling Ubuntu from the Live USB and choosing to install third party software but not download updates while installing allowed me to access wireless after the install was complete. sudo apt-get update and sudo apt-get upgrade performed as expected, but sudo apt-get dist-upgrade caused bcmwl-kernel-source to crash. It appears upgrading the kernel causes the driver to crash.

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  • Perhaps there is a broadcom card, which needs a proprietary driver post installation. Search this site for installing a broadcom driver ofline, in case you can't get online to use Additional Drivers.
    – mikewhatever
    Jan 16, 2018 at 19:50
  • @mikewhatever it is Broadcom and the first link in my post has info on it. I already tried proprietary drivers, but there seems to be some other issue. (On previous installs it worked out of the box as well).
    – wyoumans
    Jan 16, 2018 at 19:53
  • @mikewhatever however when looking under the additional drivers tab it now lists my wireless card as "device not working" and won't let me select any drivers at all. It definitely didn't say that before. And yet wireless works during the installation process.
    – wyoumans
    Jan 16, 2018 at 19:56
  • 1
    You should answer your "update" as an answer to your own question here, so you can select that as your solution.
    – rubo77
    Feb 17, 2018 at 8:06
  • Anyway: I have the same problem, but I am not able to install without errors if I chose not to use updates during install. see askubuntu.com/questions/1004796/…
    – rubo77
    Feb 17, 2018 at 8:07

1 Answer 1

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Per the suggestion from @rubo77 in the comments, I'll leave my update as an answer.

Reinstalling Ubuntu from the Live USB and choosing to install third party software but not download updates while installing allowed me to access wireless after the install was complete. sudo apt-get update and sudo apt-get upgrade performed as expected, but sudo apt-get dist-upgrade caused bcmwl-kernel-source to crash. It appears upgrading the kernel causes the driver to crash.

I'll mention that my solution was to hold upgrades on the kernel version until Ubuntu 18 was released. I've had no issues since upgrading to Ubuntu 18.

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