network-manager is not able to rescan networks on demand

[Bump]

Binary package hint: network-manager

If you start knetworkmanager with wireless disabled by hardware (hot key in laptops) and then you enable the wireless it may take a lot of time for knetworkmanager to re-scan the networks and find them. There should be an option like "refresh" or "rescan now" like windows xp has in order not to make the user wait because can think that the network is not working properly if no networks are found some seconds after.

[Dima Ryazanov (dima-gmail)]

I don't disable/enable wireless that way, but I still run into this problem too often. Sometimes NetworkManager doesn't detect all networks at once; sometimes it doesn't scan correctly after resuming from suspend, etc. The user should always have the option to scan manually - especially that you can do it with "iwlist scan" even without root privileges.

[David Jaša (dejv)]

I can confirm this on IBM T40, which also has a key to switch on/off wireless devices.

[tmp (skrald)]

I agree. There should really be a "rescan networks now!" button in knetworkmanager! It happens all the time that some networks are missing. Either when resuming from suspend mode, when moving the laptop from one location to another or simply because not all networks was found in the first automatic scan.

[hakre (hanskrentel)]

This really is a need. I don't know why this function is not already in there. Most of the thinkpads have a "disable wlan switch" which works physically and cuts off power to WLAN and Bluetooth devices.I think the command should be named scan or scanning. Does anyone has got a hint on how to force that with existing commands?

[Bump (bump55)]

network-manager is part from gnome as far as I gnome, and gnome people is not very collaborative, in opposition to KDE guys:

http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=145108

[tmp (skrald)]

Well, why is kubuntu using network-manager then? To me, it sounds somewhat surrealistic and unworldly that someone could even think of the idea to skip the manual rescan functionallity. Have they ever tried using a wlan in the real world?

Aren't there an alternative to network-manager that kubuntu could use instead?

[Bump (bump55)]

>Well, why is kubuntu using network-manager then?<

ubuntu uses it too, and ubuntu should have the re-scan option as well.

As I see, the network manager is the best program for network management, both wired and unwired, but I am not a developer to decide that. I think that limits are caused by developer's decision, not by technical issues.

[Pascal d'Hermilly (pascal-tipisoft)]

This should have a high importance.
Considering how mobile people are with their laptops you have to be able to rescan the network on demand.

[kelmo (kelrin)]

The problem _may_ be that scan requests are being ignored when wpa_supplicant is in the DISCONNECTED state. If so, a patch has entered the upstream archive and will be in the new upstream releases. The debian package version 0.6.2-2 (which is pending upload to sid currently) will include this patch.

http://w1.fi/gitweb/gitweb.cgi?p=hostap.git;a=commit;h=a212dadddf8dd9784136efe9964ef57e9185a251

This won't fix dodgy drivers that fail to do anything after a resume cycle however.

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

ok, except some kernel driver noise, there is nothing suspicious in the posted syslogs. Can you still reproduce this in hardy? network manager 0.6.6 received several cleanups which might have improved the leak situation.