network manager doesn't allow to add vpn

[cornbread]

Binary package hint: network-manager

In network manager Intrepid I click VPN Connections -> Configure VPN and in that window it will not allow me to add (the add button is greyed out)

[Oliver Gerlich (ogerlich)]

Confirmed here (with network-manager 0.7~~svn20080818t061112+eni0-0ubuntu1 on Intrepid) - there is a VPN entry in NM applet menu which leads to the VPN connections dialog, but the Add button is disabled. Also, in ~/.xsession-errors it shows some messages:

(nm-connection-editor:6332): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_hash_table_foreach: assertion `hash_table != NULL' failed
** Message: nm_connection_list_new: failed to load VPN plugins: Couldn't read VPN .name files directory /etc/NetworkManager/VPN.

** (nm-connection-editor:6332): WARNING **: No connections defined

(and /etc/NetworkManager/VPN indeed doesn't exist). Probably this is because no NM VPN packages are installed; so it's more a usability problem?

I think NM applet shouldn't display the VPN menu entry if no VPN packages are installed (similar to NM 0.6 behavior). The VPN connection dialog would still be accessible through other way, though, so it would need at least some explanation or help text to tell the user how to install VPN packages (like "go to Applications -> Add/Remove -> install 'VPN Connection Manager (OpenVPN)' or 'VPN Connection Manager (PPP generic)'.").
Much better would be of course to extend the VPN dialog to install these packages directly (similar to Samba installation when trying to share a folder).

[Oliver Gerlich (ogerlich)]

setting to confirmed

[Dominik Baumeler (baumeler)]

Confirm this.
i think the tab should not be visible if the vpn plugin isn't installed or the plugin should be installed by default

[Martin Mai (mrkanister-deactivatedaccount-deactivatedaccount)]

 Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. You reported this bug a while ago and there hasn't been any activity in it recently. We were wondering if this is still an issue for you. Can you try with the latest Ubuntu release? Thanks in advance.

[Martin Mai (mrkanister-deactivatedaccount-deactivatedaccount)]

 We are closing this bug report because it lacks the information we need to investigate the problem, as described in the previous comments. Please reopen it if you can give us the missing information, and don't hesitate to submit bug reports in the future. To reopen the bug report you can click on the current status, under the Status column, and change the Status back to "New". Thanks again!

[David Tombs (dgtombs)]

Reopening as I have the same issue on fresh install of 9.10.

[David Tombs (dgtombs)]

Architecture: amd64
CRDA: Error: [Errno 2] No such file or directory
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
Gconf:

IfupdownConfig:
 auto lo
 iface lo inet loopback
IpRoute:
 192.168.1.0/24 dev eth0 proto kernel scope link src 192.168.1.48 metric 1
 169.254.0.0/16 dev eth0 scope link metric 1000
 default via 192.168.1.1 dev eth0 proto static
IwConfig:
 lo no wireless extensions.

 eth0 no wireless extensions.

 vboxnet0 no wireless extensions.
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
Package: network-manager 0.8~a~git.20091013t193206.679d548-0ubuntu1
PackageArchitecture: amd64
PciNetwork:

ProcEnviron:
 SHELL=/bin/bash
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-14.48-generic
RfKill:

Uname: Linux 2.6.31-14-generic x86_64
UserGroups: adm admin cdrom dialout lpadmin plugdev sambashare
WpaSupplicantLog:

XsessionErrors:
 (gnome-settings-daemon:3252): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_propagate_error: assertion `src != NULL' failed
 (gnome-settings-daemon:3252): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_propagate_error: assertion `src != NULL' failed
 (nautilus:3342): Eel-CRITICAL **: eel_preferences_get_boolean: assertion `preferences_is_initialized ()' failed
 (polkit-gnome-authentication-agent-1:3350): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_once_init_leave: assertion `initialization_value != 0' failed
 (gnome-panel:3341): Gtk-WARNING **: gtk_widget_size_allocate(): attempt to allocate widget with width -5 and height 24

[Ian (ianmaciel)]

I'm also having this bug.

Exactly as he described above. The add button is greyed out, and when I tried to open the "nm-connection-editor" by the terminal, I got this:

** (nm-connection-editor:5384): WARNING **: nm_connection_list_new: failed to load VPN plugins: Couldn't read VPN .name files directory /etc/NetworkManager/VPN.

I've 9.10 Ubuntu installed.

[Thomas Hood (jdthood)]

Is this bug reproducible in Ubuntu 12.04?

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for network-manager (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]