Hello I'm having the exact same issue. My Ethernet worked then stopped. Then two days ago I booted the machine and it was working. Now it's out again. It was fine at first install and has worked perfectly for months till recently. So I'm pretty sure an update killed the connection. Wi-Fi still works. I can't understand why Ethernet was working but was intermittent.
My PC is an older HP P7-1534 AMD A8-5500 16 GIG RAM all BIOS and firmware up to date. System is NOT dual boot and was a fresh install of 16 PRO on a new Samsung SSD. Secure boot is currently disabled. It's been a while since I did the install but I'm pretty sure I disabled it prior to install.
The system was working fine with both Ethernet and wi-fi. Spectrum Cable modem with separate wi-fi router. Both have been rebooted in attempts to solve this issue without success.
The machine has been working perfectly since the install months ago. Only within the past two to three weeks has this issue appeared. I thought it might be my hardwired connection but it checks out fine with my Windoze laptop.
Last weekend when I booted up the machine the Ethernet connected right up. The next day it didn't and hasn't since. No repairs done to the machine. However the secondary HDD was replaced by me with an SSD a few months back but the machine worked fine after that.
Since my lshw-C multimedia looks good. I'm at a loss as to what's going on. Also this is my first Linux box so maybe I'm missing something? I still can't help but feel an update of some type caused this.
Can you please boot into the Grub Menu, either by tapping esc or tab at boot.
Select Advanced Options for Zorin and choose to boot Zorin OS on an earlier kernel (perhaps the -56 or -76).
Once booted, test the Ethernet connection.
my choices are
5.15.0-82 generic and generic recovery
5.15.0-79 generic and generic recovery
I tried booting to both versions using the "generic" option and the result is the same. No Ethernet connection.
I do have timeshift installed and did a snapshot on 07/05/2023 the Ethernet connection was working at that time. Do you think I should I try and restore that snapshot?
Does this laptop have wifi toggle on the f keys or airplane mode?
Have you attempted to toggle airplane mode or the wifi off/on, waiting a few seconds imbetween?
I ask because previous versions of the driver were sometimes installed and started force disabled (toggled off).
Another issue with this driver was the kernels programmed network timing. The driver would work until a major change in the kernel network module. The driver then had to be patched. I wonder if the 6.02 kernel may serve you better for this hardware, as fixes are added to new kernels and firmware. It has happened several times for this driver.
I did that and rebooted with no success. When I run the uname -r I get this. Don't worry about the run around. After using Windows for decades I'm used to run arounds and frequent re-installs
*** I ask because previous versions of the driver were sometimes installed and started force disabled (toggled off). ***
I wonder if that's what happened. The wired connection tries to connect, gives an unable to connect message then toggles itself off with any user input.
Well it's getting late here so I'll sleep on it and try again tomorrow. Thanks to all for your help. Keep posting and I'll try suggestions again tomorrow.
Cable and connection to router is good works fine with my windows laptop. Zorin shows wired as trying to connect then fails to authenticate and toggles the wired connection off.
Wired details shows the correct hardware MAC address according to PC BIOS but for last used it says NEVER which is surprising as it worked in the past.
Before this reinstall, we're you running Zorin 16.3, or was it an earlier version?
When you're back, might you provide the first or last few lines of this log file: /var/log/apt/history.log
It should be chronologically ordered, i just don't know if it's ascending or descending. You will know when you check the dates, as it may help to see the last 10 to 20 most recent updates.
Your firewall is enabled. While this shouldn't be an issue, not having connected to the network already, may cause an issue.
Try sudo ufw disable. I belive that will turn off your firewall for now. This should allow connectivity (we can explore the rules of the firewall later).
Then try ethernet and wifi.
Was the previous version of Zorin also 16.3 or an earlier version (prior to this installation)?