WiFi Realtek RTL8852AE issues "limited connectivity"

Hello Community,

since todays or maybe yesterdays update my laptop’s WiFi keeps going into a limitied connectivity state (de: eingeschränkte Verbindung) were the internet connection is being lost which shows by an exclamation mark at the WiFi sign.

Laptop is a Thinkpad T14s gen2a.

WiFi Chip is: Realtek RTL8852AE 802.11ax PCIe Wireless Network Adapter
Driver: rtw89_8852ae

I tried putting these lines into /etc/modprobe.d/70-rtw89.conf but with the same result.

options rtw89_pci disable_aspm_l1=y disable_aspm_l1ss=y
options rtw89pci disable_aspm_l1=y disable_aspm_l1ss=y
options rtw89_core disable_ps_mode=y
options rtw89core disable_ps_mode=y

I have also updated the bios to latest available version as of today.

Toggling WiFi off and back on via the slider fixes the issues.

Are there other approaches for a fix?
Can I expect a fix with an upcoming update?

Please let me know if there’s more information I can provide.

Kernel: Linux 7.1.1-2-cachyos
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 PRO 5850U (16) @ 4.51 GHz

I ve got exactly the same problem with the same realtek Wireless network adapter

they sometimes go away after some updates but the newest screwed me over they got worse about day before.

this should help you, there’s always at least two versions of a firmware if it’s in the rtw89 directory, I think this dir is for the newer chips, I think your firmware is in this dir, even if it’s RTL88

your firmware is not the same, but if you run journalctl -b0 | grep rtw you should see which file is being loaded and there should be a file that ends with -2 that’s the previous version, which will get loaded if if -1 is missing, if I remember correctly, some of the firmwares have multiple versions, so I’m not sure what’s the logic here, but last time I just moved the -1 to another directory and it loaded a different file that worked correctly.

here you can see which one was modified when rtw89 · main · kernel-firmware / Linux Firmware · GitLab

This seems like a safe temporary solution, because after an update or reinstall of the firmware package -1 will be back in it’s place.

There’s also a new realtek firmware package in testing you can try to install that, it might fix the issue.

Thank you for your help. I will have a look into it.

I can confirm the same regression on a Lenovo notebook with a Realtek
RTL8852AE (PCI ID 10ec:8852, driver rtw89_8852ae).

Affected:

  • Fedora 44 with kernel 7.1.3
  • CachyOS with a 7.1-based kernel

Working:

  • Fedora 44 with kernel 6.19.10
  • CachyOS with the LTS kernel

During the failure, Wi-Fi remains associated and the IPv4 address and
default route remain configured, but even the local IPv4 gateway becomes
unreachable. IPv6 continues to work. IPv4 recovers after some time
without reconnecting.

Disabling NetworkManager Wi-Fi power saving did not help. No
deauthentication, disassociation, firmware timeout, or visible rtw89
driver error is logged.

This appears to be a distribution-independent kernel 7.1 regression.

It is almost always going to be distribution independent as none change the kernel in a dramatic fashion. The LTS kernel hardly gets the drivers touched so it tends to be the fallback in these instances.

Several others have reported a similar issue, looks like it was broken around 7.1 then fixed in the current rc. It might get backported at some point (usually during the new cycle if they fix something big it gets pulled to the current build).

Thanks, that matches my testing.

The issue occurs with Linux 7.1 on both Fedora 44 and CachyOS, while

Fedora 6.19.10 and the CachyOS LTS kernel are stable on the same hardware.

My adapter is a Realtek RTL8852AE using rtw89_8852ae. During the issue,

Wi-Fi remains associated, IPv4 stops reaching even the local gateway, while IPv6 continues to work.

I will stay on the LTS/6.19 kernel for now and test the next stable kernel once the fix from the current release candidate is included.