GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 682233
nm-applet doesn't show wireless networks
Last modified: 2016-11-24 11:08:46 UTC
Created attachment 221795 [details] this is what my nm-applet menu looks like, no wireless networks there... hey, since neither the IRC support nor the mailinglist could solve my problem, I'm opening this bugreport. I'll just paste the email I wrote to the mailinglist: >> >> So I gave networkmanager a shot and am kinda stuck with my wireless. I >> can't get nm-applet to display the networks in range, even when started >> as root. Maybe I misunderstood the usage of nm-applet but I though it >> would display the available wireless networks on right clicking. I'll >> attach a jpg with what right-clicking the nm-applet produces. >> >> Currently, I have version 0.8.4 of both networkmanager and nm-applet >> installed. Oh and, in case this is any good: my wired interface works >> with nm (meaning that nm connects if I plug in ethernet (with dhcp)) > Only the NM daemon needs to be run as root, to get access to kernel wifi > APIs. nm-applet should be run as whatever user you're logged in as, and > communicates with the main NM daemon via the D-Bus IPC protocol. I am aware of that, however, I in the spirit of debugging my wifi problem, I wanted to not mix permission problems with nm/wifi problems. Hence, I started the applet as root thinking that polkit/dbus/ck would allow anything issued from a program called as root. > If you're having problems with wifi, a few questions to narrow it down: > > 1) does the applet show your wifi device at all, but no networks? or > does it not even show your wifi? If the wifi device isn't shown at all, > the contents of /var/log/messages, /var/log/daemon.log, > or /var/log/NetworkManager.log (depending on your distro) are helpful to > figure out what's going on. I don't quite understand where it should show my wifi device - The only place where it does show up is in the "Network Connections" dialog, under "wireless" called "System (wlan0)". I do not have a "/var/log/NetworkManager.log", does nm use the syslog facilities? Then it should show up in /var/log/messages (my syslog-ng is configured to dump everything there); However, a # grep wlan0 /var/log/messages revealed Aug 13 10:39:44 localhost NetworkManager[3797]: SCPlugin-Ifnet: wireless_setting added for wlan0 Aug 13 10:39:44 localhost NetworkManager[3797]: SCPlugin-Ifnet: Using dhcp method for wlan0 Aug 13 10:39:44 localhost NetworkManager[3797]: SCPlugin-Ifnet: Connection verified wlan0:1 Aug 13 10:39:44 localhost NetworkManager[3797]: <info> (wlan0): driver supports SSID scans (scan_capa 0x01). Aug 13 10:39:44 localhost NetworkManager[3797]: <info> (wlan0): new 802.11 WiFi device (driver: 'ath9k' ifindex: 4) Aug 13 10:39:44 localhost NetworkManager[3797]: <info> (wlan0): exported as /org/freedesktop/NetworkManager/Devices/0 Aug 13 10:39:44 localhost NetworkManager[3797]: <info> (wlan0): now managed Aug 13 10:39:44 localhost NetworkManager[3797]: <info> (wlan0): device state change: 1 -> 2 (reason 2) Aug 13 10:39:44 localhost NetworkManager[3797]: <info> (wlan0): preparing device. Aug 13 10:39:44 localhost NetworkManager[3797]: <info> (wlan0): deactivating device (reason: 2). Aug 13 10:39:44 localhost dhcpcd[2837]: wlan0: removing interface Aug 13 10:39:44 localhost NetworkManager[3797]: <info> (wlan0): supplicant manager state: down -> idle Aug 13 10:39:44 localhost NetworkManager[3797]: <info> (wlan0): device state change: 2 -> 3 (reason 0) Aug 13 10:39:44 localhost NetworkManager[3797]: <info> (wlan0): supplicant interface state: starting -> ready So I take it nm is aware of my wifi device! > 2) what distro? If you're using Debian or Ubuntu, what's in > your /etc/network/interfaces file? NM is sometimes told to ignore > interfaces that are listed in there, to ensure that when it's installed > it doesn't unexpectedly change your network config. My system runs gentoo linux x64, kernel is # uname -a Linux <hostname> 3.4.4-gentoo #5 SMP PREEMPT Thu Jul 12 14:59:41 CEST 2012 x86_64 Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T5900 @ 2.20GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux But I seriously doubt that the gentoo guys would default-configure nm to ignore some device without telling me in the ebuild. Also, nm wouldn't fiddle with wlan0 the way it does (see /var/log/messages above) if it was told to ignore it, right? > 3) what kernel version and wifi hardware do you have? Many drivers that > are not stable upstream kernel wifi drivers (ie, anything direct from a > vendor or in the 'staging' kernel drivers) often don't conform to the > standard kernel APIs, and often have small bugs that prevent them from > working smoothly; they simply don't get as much attention as the > standard drivers. Sometimes a simple fix makes them work, or switching > to a standard kernel driver makes things better. kernel version is 3.4.4 with some gentoo patches, nothing serious concerning wifi I guess. As seen in the above /var/log/messages snip my wireless driver is ath9k which works just fine in say wicd (and no, I did not run both wicd and nm deamons at the same time when conducting experiments).
(In reply to comment #0) > Aug 13 10:39:44 localhost NetworkManager[3797]: <info> (wlan0): new 802.11 WiFi > device (driver: 'ath9k' ifindex: 4) My wild guess is that you run into the same problem as https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=794710 . As a start, please provide output of the following commands: lspci -nnvv | grep Network dmesg | grep wlan0 dmesg | grep ath nmcli dev wifi more /var/log/wpa_supplicant.log modinfo ath9k rfkill list
Gladly! # lspci -nnvv | grep Network 03:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Atheros Communications Inc. AR928X Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express) [168c:002a] (rev 01) # dmesg | grep wlan0 [ 11.919399] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlan0: link is not ready [ 27.077020] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlan0: link is not ready [ 34.112953] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlan0: link is not ready [11328.697869] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlan0: link is not ready # dmesg | grep ath [ 3.065264] ath: EEPROM regdomain: 0x60 [ 3.065270] ath: EEPROM indicates we should expect a direct regpair map [ 3.065276] ath: Country alpha2 being used: 00 [ 3.065279] ath: Regpair used: 0x60 [ 3.067220] ieee80211 phy0: Selected rate control algorithm 'ath9k_rate_control' [ 3.067915] Registered led device: ath9k-phy0 # nmcli dev wifi (please note that I tried to anonymize the output, rest assured that the actual SSIDs are shown there) SSID BSSID MODE FREQ RATE SIGNAL SECURITY ACTIVE <anonymized> 64:AE:0C:BF:BF:B2 Infrastructure 2462 MHz 54 MB/s 48 -- no <anonymized> 64:AE:0C:BF:AA:52 Infrastructure 2437 MHz 54 MB/s 58 -- no <anonymized> 00:1E:58:3A:8D:85 Infrastructure 2457 MHz 54 MB/s 28 WPA2 no <anonymized> C0:C5:20:23:6E:08 Infrastructure 2417 MHz 54 MB/s 44 -- no <anonymized> 00:24:A8:BE:2A:D1 Infrastructure 2437 MHz 54 MB/s 65 -- no <anonymized> C0:C5:20:29:F7:C8 Infrastructure 2427 MHz 54 MB/s 91 -- no <anonymized> 64:AE:0C:BF:BF:B1 Infrastructure 2462 MHz 54 MB/s 54 WPA WPA2 Enterprise no <anonymized> 64:AE:0C:BF:AA:51 Infrastructure 2437 MHz 54 MB/s 58 WPA WPA2 Enterprise no <anonymized> 00:24:A8:BE:2A:D0 Infrastructure 2437 MHz 54 MB/s 67 WPA2 Enterprise no # more /var/log/wpa_supplicant.log /var/log/wpa_supplicant.log: No such file or directory (as it turns out, I do not have a wpa_supplicant.log anywhere) # modinfo ath9k filename: /lib/modules/3.4.4-gentoo/kernel/drivers/net/wireless/ath/ath9k/ath9k.ko license: Dual BSD/GPL description: Support for Atheros 802.11n wireless LAN cards. author: Atheros Communications alias: pci:v0000168Cd00000034sv*sd*bc*sc*i* alias: pci:v0000168Cd00000033sv*sd*bc*sc*i* alias: pci:v0000168Cd00000032sv*sd*bc*sc*i* alias: pci:v0000168Cd00000030sv*sd*bc*sc*i* alias: pci:v0000168Cd0000002Esv*sd*bc*sc*i* alias: pci:v0000168Cd0000002Dsv*sd*bc*sc*i* alias: pci:v0000168Cd0000002Csv*sd*bc*sc*i* alias: pci:v0000168Cd0000002Bsv*sd*bc*sc*i* alias: pci:v0000168Cd0000002Asv*sd*bc*sc*i* alias: pci:v0000168Cd00000029sv*sd*bc*sc*i* alias: pci:v0000168Cd00000027sv*sd*bc*sc*i* alias: pci:v0000168Cd00000024sv*sd*bc*sc*i* alias: pci:v0000168Cd00000023sv*sd*bc*sc*i* depends: ath9k_hw,ath9k_common intree: Y vermagic: 3.4.4-gentoo SMP preempt mod_unload parm: debug:Debugging mask (uint) parm: nohwcrypt:Disable hardware encryption (int) parm: blink:Enable LED blink on activity (int) parm: btcoex_enable:Enable wifi-BT coexistence (int) # rfkill list 0: phy0: Wireless LAN Soft blocked: no Hard blocked: no thanks for considering this! Regarding the bug you linked in the redhat bugzilla, I don't think it has anything to do with what I am experiencing, since I lack the "restoring config space at offset" messages and my rf is not killed. greets -igel
(In reply to comment #2) > # rfkill list > 0: phy0: Wireless LAN > Soft blocked: no > Hard blocked: no If that's the only device then I wonder where your wired ethernet hides... :)
oO your wired ethernet has an rfkill switch? Awesome! In other news: # ifconfig eth0 eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:26:18:05:f0:b4 inet addr:130.149.208.195 Bcast:130.149.208.255 Mask:255.255.255.192 inet6 addr: fe80::226:18ff:fe05:f0b4/64 Scope:Link UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 RX packets:27200 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:17168 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 RX bytes:16356764 (15.5 MiB) TX bytes:2247206 (2.1 MiB)
When 'nmcli dev wifi' shows the Wi-Fi networks, it means that NM is working properly and also NM clients have no problem to get the data. So nm-applet should work as well. Do you get the same output when you run 'nmcli dev wifi' as a normal user? (Actually, you should always run nmcli as well as nm-applet as a ordinary user and not root) Click nm-applet icon with *left* mouse button and ther should be a list of available Wi-Fi networks' SSIDs. Do you see any errors from nm-applet in ~/.xsession-errors?
there was no reaction to left-clicking whatsoever for nm-applet. However, yesterday, I entered the credentials to one of the wireless networks under the "Edit Connection -> Wireless" right-click menu as "Wireless connection 1" and now, I cannot reproduce the problem any more, so I consider the issue resolved, although I have no clue what actually caused this in the first place.
This problem still remains in nm-applet v. 1.4.2 (distro Archlinux) - not showing WL networks, but it's connected to one of them and nmcli and nmtui is working well (both are showing networks). I'm not sure if I have to fire a new bug or what to do ... Probably it has something to do with sleep/wake cycles of my laptop because sometimes it works, sometimes not. Now I've tried to kill nm-applet and re-run, then suspend and wake my laptop and it is still working so I can't reproduce it for 100%.
.xsession-errors: http://pastebin.com/e889QKFA ... grep nm-applet: http://pastebin.com/HSxVfW2U
(In reply to dmnc from comment #8) > .xsession-errors: http://pastebin.com/e889QKFA > ... grep nm-applet: http://pastebin.com/HSxVfW2U Well, the log contains the error "nm-applet-CRITICAL **: get_menu_item_for_ap: assertion 'dup_data.hash != NULL' failed". For further progress, please follow bug 774268 or bug 767317.