GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 665874
Network configuration option disabled when not connected to a network
Last modified: 2012-05-11 12:33:07 UTC
Gnome Shell, Ubuntu 11.10. I recently came upon an absolute need to edit my wired network interface despite it being unplugged. Of course, I cannot select "configure" while it is unplugged because the option is grayed out. I had to utilize an entirely different desktop environment to get into network manager so I could select the feature I needed. This was extremely frustrating. If only I had the configure option available even when it is unplugged, things would have been incredibly different. After an initial Google search, this has come up time and time again. We need the functionality available to edit network interfaces without them being actively connected.
Are you sure you're using GNOME Shell? The "Network Settings" item at the end of the network menu isn't associated with any specific interface, so I don't see why it would be greyed out. Could you attach a screenshot? (In the future, please choose more specific bug titles...)
(In reply to comment #1) > Are you sure you're using GNOME Shell? The "Network Settings" item at the end > of the network menu isn't associated with any specific interface, so I don't > see why it would be greyed out. The bug refers to the "Network" settings panel - the "Configure" button is connection specific, e.g. it is grayed out when not connected.
I'd like to highlight a key part: The bug refers to the "Network" settings panel - the "Configure" button is connection specific, e.g. it is grayed out when not connected. THAT is the problem. I ran into an issue earlier where I specifically absolutely required the need to edit the interface without it being connected. Why? Because the settings on that interface were incorrect. The fix? Edit the settings so the interface can be successfully re-connected. Why couldn't I do that? Because "Configure" was grayed out because it wasn't connected. Why was it not connected? Because the interface was not properly set. How could I fix this? Well, I had no choice but to fire up another desktop environment since the desktop environment I chose (thankfully) allows me to adjust network settings on an interface regardless of whether or not the interface is actively connected. If it wasn't for having had another environment installed, I honestly have no idea how I could have worked around this issue. Summary: The interface would have been locked due to certain settings that I could not change because it could not connect yet it would never connect since the settings were incorrect... See why this little grayed out box turns into a massive ball of frustration? It can be avoided so very easily if "configure" is a selectable option regardless of whether or not it is connected. Having to log into another desktop environment to make a minor network interface change, I'm sorry to sound like this, but it's just a little ridiculous. If there was another obvious workaround, please by all means, tell me. I just had no idea how else I could have done it.
Designers, what do you think? Sounds highly necessary to me that users are able to configure networks that don't currently work. Else, there's no way of fixing a broken option. :-/
I've been hit by the same problem (using Gnome 3 on Fedora 16), and used the same solution. I accidentally mis-configured a WPA network, and gut stuck in the same catch-22 - I couldn't change the settings for the network without successfully connecting to it, which I couldn't do that because the settings where wrong. I ultimately had to log out of Gnome 3 and log in to KDE just to delete that one network. (And I got to repeat this pattern several times as I guess-and-checked the correct configuration for that network, which was incredibly frustrating.) It's worth pointing out that nm-connection-manager *will* allow you to edit the settings on a network even if it isn't connected. There is a tremendous amount of (necessary) functionality present in nm-connection-manager that is not present in the Network pane of the control-panel. I don't get why the Network control panel is so feature-poor -- and given that it is, why there's no prominent way to launch nm-connection-manager, which there is no indication that the user can use.
*** Bug 671475 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 653296 ***