[solved - almost] wifi stopped working after updates today

[wobo]

After todays updates my gnome-shell worked nicely - that problem was fixed.

But after this update wifi stopped working. The available networks are listed, I can mark my network. Now comes the problem: the configuration dialogue (Network settings) insists on "Open WEP" as encryption while my network is protected by "WPA/WPA2 Shared keys". But when I change that in the dialogue, click on OK and then re-open the settings dialogue it is back to "Open WEP".

Then I checked /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts - the relevant files are ok, (ifcfg-wlan and the matching files in wireless.d/). I do not see any cause of the problem.

[isadora]

My standard workaround would be: throw away the old connection-configuration, and define and apply a fresh one.
Or even remove all wireless packages and re-install.

But as i know you, you might as well have done this altogether!!!

[wobo]

Yes, I tried with removing the old and setting a new connection. The problem persists - it seems to be the authentification. May be this is related to the update of network-manager. But if I set "Use network-manager" to "No" it is back to "Yes" when I reopen the configuration.

[isadora]

Maybe try wicd? For network-manager is not always that bug-free.

[isadora]

Just installed wicd myself, but........
Following message stops me from using it:

Could not connect to wicd's D-Bus interface. Check the wicd log for error messages.

Have dropped a bug-report:
https://bugs.mageia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2082

[wobo]

Found something else:
When I open the configuration via network icon (top bar, right, last line in the list) and mark the "wireless" part, I see an empty field at "Network name". When I open the dropdown list, I see "my" network but when I mark it, the field "Network name" remains empty.

This matches the repeated showing of "Open WEP" in the configuration (as described in my previous post.

This is bad because it makes my laptop unusable with this installation, I can't even do updates because I have no cable connection (it used to work with wifi out of the box with every OS I used it so far (Win7, Mandriva 2010.0/1/2, Mageia Alpha - Mageia 1, Cauldron up to yesterday).

I will upgrade my KDE installation of Mageia 1 to Cauldron on the same machine and check if the same problem arises (to see if it is a general problem or only with Gnome).

[wobo]

Upgraded my KDE installation to Cauldron (current distrib-coffe updates as of today, 10:00 UTC, 1 hour ago). No problem with wifi on the same machine and with the same network.
So the problem seems to be (as suspected) with network-manager which is not installed in the KDE installation.

But removing network-manager from the gnome installation will destroy gnome3 / gnome-shell, so I suspect.

[doktor5000]

But removing network-manager from the gnome installation will destroy gnome3 / gnome-shell, so I suspect.

Should not do any harm. I don't use gnome, but isn't net_applet still the default tool for network management?
That would be a big regression if gnome3 required network-manager, no?

[wobo]

I only remember that some time ago when gnome-shell crashed at the beginning many error messages in ~/.xsession-errors began with "network-manager".
networkmanager is a dependency of task-gnome -minimal.

Ok, my assumption about the cause of the problem was correct.
I removed the package 'networkmanager' (which also removed task-gnome-minimal). Then I went to MCC->Network and removed the existing wifi connection (which did not work) and set up a new wifi connection - it works!
Of course I did not mark the option "Connection managed by network-manager"! I checked the ifcfg-wlan file, USE_NETWORKMANAGER is set to "No"

How to test:
- no networkmanager - wifi works.
- install networkmanager, reboot, wifi does not work.
- remove networkmanager - the icon of networkmanager vanishes and wifi comes up in a second!

Now, how do I get that piece of info back on the screen? Either the one in the systray in the top bar right or the one which is visible when I move the mouse to the lower right corner?