Thank you so much! modprobe worked!
device now working as it should.
As for this issue, I've had the same thing happen to me on another VM, what I did to fix it was uninstall the drivers then reinstall them, don't know why but it worked.
Code:
apt-get remove realtek-rtl88xxau-dkms
apt-get purge realtek-rtl88xxau-dkms
then reinstall
Code:
apt-get install realtek-rtl88xxau-dkms