[Solved] Raspberry Pi 3: wlan0 disappeared

[blm768]

Just today, I ran into an issue with the integrated wireless chip in the Pi 3. The issue seems to be similar to the problem described in https://archlinuxarm.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=65&t=9938, but since that issue was solved months ago, this may be due to a different cause. Until today, the wireless interface was working (almost) perfectly, but now the wireless device has disappeared. "iw dev" doesn't list any devices, "ip a" shows no sign of wlan0, NetworkManager can't find any wireless interfaces, etc.

After a fresh boot, lsmod doesn't show any of the wireless-related modules. "modprobe brcmfmac" is able to find the module, but even after it's loaded, there's still no sign of wlan0. My guess is that an update changed something, but I'm not sure where to start looking for the solution. Should I try downgrading my kernel, perhaps?

Edit: I did a clean re-install, and now the wireless is working again. No idea what happened, but it works now, so I'm happy.