I updated wl18xx firmware/packages in an attempt to reduce the high frequency of dropped WiFi connections. That didn’t go smoothly and I had to take a few passes at it.
I now have no (WiFi) connectivity at all. I rebooted after the troublesome package upgrade and the wlan0 interface worked - but now it does not, despite many subsequent reboots (and days of trying to think what could have happened - but no action taken).
The only thing other than the package upgrade that was changed was removing some unneeded packages (reported by apt-get) using “apt-get autoremove” - and removal of some packages to free up eMMC space. I didn’t document this, but my recollection is that the only packages removed were chrome-related.
I have been able to access the BBBW using the USB interface for debugging. It seems the wlan0 interface is up but not active:
debian@BBB:~$ ifconfig -v wlan0
wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
UP BROADCAST MULTICAST DYNAMIC MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)
debian@BBB:~$ sudo /opt/scripts/tools/version.sh
…
pkg:[bb-wl18xx-firmware]:[1.20180328-0rcnee2~jessie+20180328]
pkg:[firmware-ti-connectivity]:[20170823-1rcnee1~jessie+20180328]
…
Rather than trying to bind the adapter or manually configure with an IP address, I’m looking to understand what has gone wrong to prevent the expected auto-configuration and acquisition of a valid IP address (which my router is configured to specify as the network DHCP server).
Ideas where to look next?