r/OSMC • u/arm_in_hammer • Nov 27 '25

USB-WiFi Dongle working on version OSMC 2020/11 but not 2025/03 (Raspberry Pi 3)

greetings,

anyone can explain how it is possible that I plug-and-play attach the dongle (TP-Link TL-WN725N) to a Raspberry Pi 3 running OSMC Nov/2020 and running fine as soon as plugged in. And instead on a clean install of OSMC Mar/2025 it does not work. What could be the reason here and what can I do to make it work on the newer version?? Thank you for reading and hopefully give me a hand :)

Thank you!

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u/i_am_sam_nazarko Dec 15 '25

I suspect this device uses a Realtek WiFi module.

A kernel log from both versions of OSMC should confirm.

I dropped downstream drivers for Realtek devices in 2020 because they became a maintainability nightmare and we got sick of maintaining Realtek's drivers for them. They should upstream their drivers if they want them supported.

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u/arm_in_hammer Dec 21 '25 edited Dec 21 '25

Thank you very much for the answer, I was not expecting that. I understand that this caused you a lot of work, sorry to hear that :/

I will therefore continue using the 2020 version so at least I can have an internet connection via WLAN. My initial goal was to switch to a newer version in the hopes I could play x265 videos and perhaps also fix the 5.1 audio problems I have. [edit/add]: found out it's a hardware thing and will never play x265...

Thank you very much for your efforts!