GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 593654
Auto-connect to networks based on signal strength
Last modified: 2020-11-12 14:28:00 UTC
nm-applet is wonderful in that it Just Works, but there is one aspect that could be improved. I commute to work via train, and free wifi is provided on-board. There is a separate wireless AP in each train car, with SSIDs indicating the train name and car number. On any given day, you will see 3 access points: the one in your train car and the ones in the cars immediately before and after -- with far weaker signals. Right now, nm-applet connects to the network I connected to most recently (out of the ones in the auto-connect list), which often ends up being a network with a poor signal. I'd rather it just pick the one with the best signal, since I end up having to do that manually 66% of the time. It seems like the cases where your prefered network is NOT the one with the best signal would be the exception and not the rule. Is there a compelling reason to ignore signal strength when automatically connecting?
Do all the APs have different SSIDs, like "car #1" "car #2" "car #3"? That would be really odd, and pretty stupid... Or are they all the same SSID? If you could run 'nm-tool' next time you encounter this issue and paste the results in here that would be helpful too. Thanks!
Created attachment 143194 [details] nm-applet connecting to downeaster 1 instead of downeaster 2 goes with attached screenshot
Created attachment 143195 [details] nm-applet connecting to downeaster 1 instead of downeaster 2 (screenshot) goes with other attachment of nm-tool output
*** Bug 609535 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
It should be configurable. In some other cases the last used network is a better choice than the strongest (e.g. if the last one is usually the strongest, but you happen to have stronger signal at another just when you connected).
*** Bug 706496 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Bug 737356 proposes a possible solution. Adding bug dependency.
bugzilla.gnome.org is being shut down in favor of a GitLab instance. We are closing all old bug reports and feature requests in GNOME Bugzilla which have not seen updates for a long time. If you still use NetworkManager and if you still see this bug / want this feature in a recent and supported version of NetworkManager, then please feel free to report it at https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/NetworkManager/NetworkManager/-/issues/ Thank you for creating this report and we are sorry it could not be implemented (workforce and time is unfortunately limited).