How to Fix Non-Working WiFi on Minix Neo Z83-4 2.0 Running LibreELEC
A friend asked me to help him fix the non-working WiFi on his Minix Neo Z83-4 2.0 running LibreELEC.
After connecting via SSH, I discovered that neither the lsusb nor lspci commands detected the WiFi card. So, I checked the output of the dmesg command and found the following messages:
[ 9.943902] brcmfmac: brcmf_fw_alloc_request: using brcm/brcmfmac43455-sdio for chip BCM4345/6
[ 9.944187] brcmfmac mmc0:0001:1: Direct firmware load for brcm/brcmfmac43455-sdio.MINIX-Z83-4.bin failed with error -2
[ 9.944870] usbcore: registered new interface driver brcmfmac
[ 10.005339] brcmfmac mmc0:0001:1: Direct firmware load for brcm/brcmfmac43455-sdio.txt failed with error -2
I then checked the /lib/firmware/brcm directory on the device, but the files brcmfmac43455-sdio.MINIX-Z83-4.bin and brcmfmac43455-sdio.txt were missing. However, I found a file named brcmfmac43455-sdio.MINIX-NEO Z83-4.txt.
So, I tried renaming it to the required name and restarted the system. After rebooting, I discovered that everything had reverted to its original state. Upon further investigation in the LibreELEC documentation, I learned that the /lib directory is part of a SquashFS filesystem, which resets to its default state after every reboot. Any modifications must be made in the /storage directory instead.
To fix this, I created a firmware directory inside /storage/.config/, placed the correctly named file there, and rebooted the system. After that, everything started working.
Long story short:
# mkdir -p /storage/.config/firmware/brcm
# cp /lib/firmware/brcm/brcmfmac43455-sdio.MINIX-NEO\ Z83-4.txt /storage/.config/firmware/brcm/brcmfmac43455-sdio.txt
# reboot