FS#29632 - [networkmanager] After update to 0.9.4.0-4 wireless strength fails to show in KDE panel

Attached to Project: Arch Linux
Opened by Mike Cloaked (mcloaked) - Thursday, 26 April 2012, 21:22 GMT
Last edited by Ionut Biru (wonder) - Saturday, 01 September 2012, 09:26 GMT
Task Type Bug Report
Category Packages: Extra
Status Closed
Assigned To Jan de Groot (JGC)
Architecture All
Severity Medium
Priority Normal
Reported Version
Due in Version Undecided
Due Date Undecided
Percent Complete 100%
Votes 3
Private No

Details

Description:
Networkmanager 0.9.2 was working fine with ipw2200 in a Dell D610 running KDE as the desktop - upgrading networkmanager initially to 0.9.4.0-2 failed with ipw2200 until wext was re-enabled in version 0.9.4.0-4 when wireless again worked. However the wireless signal strength indication in the KDE panel did not show at all despite a strong signal.

The appearance of the icon can be seen in the attached screenshot image as a "dot" with greyed out arcs above it instead of the arcs showing as bright with the strong signal.

Additional info:
* package version(s)
* config and/or log files etc.
The wireless detail listed by iwconfig looks OK despite the networkmanager icon showing incorrectly.

eth1 IEEE 802.11bg ESSID:"xxxxxxxx"
Mode:Managed Frequency:2.422 GHz Access Point: xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
Bit Rate:36 Mb/s Tx-Power=20 dBm Sensitivity=8/0
Retry limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx Security mode:open
Power Management:off
Link Quality=86/100 Signal level=-29 dBm Noise level=-90 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:1 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:2

sensitive data above have been replaced with "x"s.

This appears to be a display bug specifically for the ipw2200 wireless chip since another laptop also running the same setup but with a different wireless chip works without any problem and displays the signal strength correctly at the same physical location.



Steps to reproduce:
   nm-icon-problem.jpg (6.4 KiB)
This task depends upon

Closed by  Ionut Biru (wonder)
Saturday, 01 September 2012, 09:26 GMT
Reason for closing:  Fixed
Additional comments about closing:  0.9.4
Comment by Timo Saarinen (timosa) - Friday, 27 April 2012, 09:11 GMT
I have a similar kind of problems with ipw2200. The icon is really not in sync with the wireless status. When connected, it usually shows the red traffic sign.
Comment by Mike Cloaked (mcloaked) - Friday, 27 April 2012, 10:01 GMT
There is a comment on the Network, Server and Protection list that this may be a problem with kdeplasma-applets-networkmanagement - in which case this should be tagged as such? Is there any test I can do to check where the problem lies? If so how does the "[networkmanager]" tag for this task get changed?
Comment by Mike Cloaked (mcloaked) - Friday, 27 April 2012, 14:07 GMT
I installed network-manager-applet, and put it on the panel, but this also shows no signal - it seems therefore that it is neither kdeplasma-applets-networkmanagement, nor network-manager-applet at fault. So it seems that the wireless connection is fine but the display icon on the panel or the link where the data about the connection held by networkmanager and its transmission to the display is not set up correctly - however it is not a problem with all wireless connections and only (for me) my machine with ipw2200 - the same setup on another laptop using the iwl4965 driver is fine and does show the correct strong signal strength! What else can I check to diagnose this further please?
Comment by Mike Cloaked (mcloaked) - Friday, 27 April 2012, 14:39 GMT
I am attaching another screenshot showing that the wireless connection strength is showing zero on both the kde network icon and 6 to its left the network-manager-applet icon also showing zero strength with the connection details above it showing strong signal for "mdc-guest" to which I am currently connected.
   nm-icon-problem-2.jpg (40.4 KiB)
Comment by Mike Cloaked (mcloaked) - Friday, 27 April 2012, 14:54 GMT
I don't know if this adds anything useful but I ran nm-applet in a terminal:

[mike@lapmike2 ~]$ nm-applet
** Message: applet now removed from the notification area

(nm-applet:4863): GdkPixbuf-CRITICAL **: gdk_pixbuf_scale_simple: assertion `dest_width > 0' failed
** Message: applet now embedded in the notification area

Does this output give any useful clues to what is happening?
Comment by Mike Cloaked (mcloaked) - Saturday, 28 April 2012, 12:07 GMT
I have reported this upstream at https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=675017
Comment by chab7 (chab7) - Sunday, 03 June 2012, 12:49 GMT
I have this issue with my IBM TP R52 laptop - using ipw2200 for wifi and networkmanager.
No icon signal and no showing connected network on extended panel info. Just like on your pictures.
Please developers fixing this issue. Thank you very much.
Comment by Gene (GeneC) - Tuesday, 05 June 2012, 02:08 GMT
I just started getting this recently with test repo. I have a N6300 wifi not ipw2200.

kdeplasma-applets-networkmanagement 1:0.9.0.2-1
systemd-tools 185-1
upower 0.9.16-1
kdelibs 4.8.3-3
linux 3.4-1

I believe it started after a recent update which included kdelibs

gene/



Comment by Gene (GeneC) - Tuesday, 05 June 2012, 02:09 GMT
Oh yeh - fresh reboot it seems fine - but after a sleep / resume cycle it goes bad. I have not done extensive testing with sleep.

gene/
Comment by Gene (GeneC) - Friday, 08 June 2012, 03:45 GMT
After all updates and rebooting into 3.4.1 kernel - i no longer have an icon problem (fully updated from test repo)

gene/
Comment by Gene (GeneC) - Tuesday, 12 June 2012, 11:00 GMT
Its back again after another sleep resume cycle. Fully updated from testing repo.

It seems to be intermittent.
Comment by Mike Cloaked (mcloaked) - Friday, 15 June 2012, 16:58 GMT
This seems fixed in networkmanager 0.9.4.0-5 though there are newly introduced problems of a different nature at shutdown after this update. However this issue should now be closed.
Comment by Gene (GeneC) - Friday, 15 June 2012, 19:09 GMT
I still have the problem (testing repo fully updated). After a few sleep resume cycles the icon goes bad again. I think this is likely a kde plasmoid bug ..


linux 3.4.2-2
networkmanager 0.9.4.0-5
kdeplasma-applets-networkmanagement 1:0.9.0.2-1

Comment by Mike Cloaked (mcloaked) - Friday, 15 June 2012, 21:01 GMT
I have just updated my machine to networkmanager 0.9.4.0-6 - the signal strength is again showing zero for the ipw2200 wireless. The original problem was identified upstream as due to "wext" not being implemented for the ipw2200 driver as in the upstream bug report referred to earlier in this thread. The comment from Dan Williams was at the time:

ipw2x00 supports minimal bits of the nl80211 API, basically just capability
reporting. It does not actually support anything useful with nl80211, so we
should still really be using WEXT with it. Arguably the switch for nl80211
shouldn't have been thrown for ipw2x00 until it was actually usable with
nl80211, but it was.

So NM detects that the driver supports nl80211 and then asks for the associated
AP, signal strength, etc using nl80211, which the driver doesn't actually
support. NM needs to match the logic that wpa_supplicant uses to determine
whether to fall back to WEXT.

Fix is on the 'wifi-fallback' branch in git.

I wonder if the same issue is now re-appearing in networkmanager 0.9.4.0-6 or if this is a new issue?

Comment by chab7 (chab7) - Wednesday, 18 July 2012, 09:33 GMT
I need also using ipw2200 firmware for my wifi. This signal strength showing issue exists on my system too.

0.9.4.0-4 - does not show signal strength
0.9.4.0-5 - show signal strength
0.9.4.0-6 - does not show signal strength again

The 0.9.4.0-5 version was the fixed. Why do you crash signal strength showing in 0.9.4.0-6 ? Please fix it again. Thanks.

(I have to use "pacman -Syu --ignore networkmanager" now to keep 0.9.4.0-5)
Comment by Gene (GeneC) - Wednesday, 18 July 2012, 11:06 GMT
I seem to no longer have the problem with N6300 - haven't seen it for a while now.

linux 3.4.5-1
networkmanager 0.9.4.0-6
kdeplasma-applets-networkmanagement 1:0.9.0.3-1

Comment by Mike Cloaked (mcloaked) - Wednesday, 18 July 2012, 16:23 GMT
I can confirm the comment by chab7, i.e. that for ipw2200 0.9.4.0-6 is still broken regarding display of signal strength - the comments within https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=675017 presumably still apply.
Comment by Mike Cloaked (mcloaked) - Wednesday, 18 July 2012, 16:56 GMT
Is WEXT included in the latest build?

It is working in networkmanager 0.9.6.0-1 so this bug is resolved now.
Comment by Ionut Biru (wonder) - Saturday, 01 September 2012, 09:25 GMT
yes

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