Bug#1137376: general: MediaTek Wifi stops working in Debian 13 Stable after recent update from kernel point 86 to point 88

Package: general
Severity: important
X-Debbugs-Cc: [email protected]

Dear Maintainer,



* What led up to the situation?
   I was doing my normal update using sudo aptitude update then sudo
   aptitude safe-upgrade. Normally never have a problem.

* What exactly did you do (or not do) that was effective (or
     ineffective)?
     I did sudo aptitude update then sudo aptitude safe-upgrade. I did
     not see any errors reported during the process

* What was the outcome of this action?
   The process seemed to go as normal, but after reboot, my Gnome
   desktop can't see any wifi connections at all.

* What outcome did you expect instead?
   I expected to be able to use Wifi as usual.



Further to this, I tried some trouble-shooting: I got a live-CD and
burned that onto my USB, and booted from that. The Wifi was working. I
think it was on kernel update 86. On initial installation, Wifi is still
working. As soon as I do an update (which takes the kernel to update 88,
I believe) the Wifi stops working.

I checked the drivers on the device, it's an Acer, using MediaTek.

I notice that the general and mediatek specific firmware files date back
to 2025, and that there is a newer package in backports. I haven't tried
that yet.

The above steps are reproducible. I tried three times! (I work in QA :))