Repeated CRITICAL **: nm_utils_ssid_to_utf8: assertion `ssid != NULL' failed in .xsession-errors

[Emmet Hikory]

When running network manager, I get "** (nm-applet:6505): CRITICAL **: nm_utils_ssid_to_utf8: assertion `ssid != NULL' failed" in my .xsession-errors file every minute or so. While this acts as a crude timing measure to help understand the timing of errors from other applications, it's surely indicative of something being wrong somewhere.

[Michele Mangili (mangilimic)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. Unfortunately we can't start working on it yet, because your bug report didn't include enough information.

Please include the information requested at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DebuggingNetworkManager. If you have trouble, do not hesitate to ask for more assistance. Thanks in advance.

[Emmet Hikory (persia)]

Which of the information on that page is even vaguely related to the described issue? The bug isn't that network manager doesn't work in some way with my chipset, or that it fails in some circumstances, or in fact anything from which the logs contain useful information.

In fact, the only log that might contain a demonstration of the described problem is .xsession-errors, which has overflowed, and so is no longer capturing information.

I'm more than happy to collect information to address the bug, but I'd like some guidance as to what information would be helpful.

[Michele Mangili (mangilimic)]

Thanks for your quick response!

Have you already tried to get a Capture Log, as described at this page: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DebuggingNetworkManager ?

Could you please tell us which version of Ubuntu / Network Manager are you using?

Thank you!

[Emmet Hikory (persia)]

I'm using Network Manager 0.7~~svn20081018t105859-0ubuntu1.8.10.1 in intrepid. My /var/log/syslog mostly contains "-- MARK --": I'm really not sure the Capture Log described on that page would help. Note that this is an issue with the applet, rather than network manager itself. I've rechecked my applet installation, and it appears to belong to network-manager-gnome, so I've reassigned the bug. I'm using network-manager-gnome 0.7~~svn20081020t000444-0ubuntu1.

Interestingly, the ssid noise doesn't appear in today's .xsession, although I certainly saw it as recently as a couple weeks ago. I'll check, and update the bug again with a chunk of .xsession-errors demonstrating the issue next time I see it.

[Michele Mangili (mangilimic)]

Emmet Hikory wrote:
> I'm using Network Manager 0.7~~svn20081018t105859-0ubuntu1.8.10.1 in
> intrepid. My /var/log/syslog mostly contains "-- MARK --": I'm really
> not sure the Capture Log described on that page would help.

I'd suggest to attach to this report the Capture Log even though you
think that this is not useful.

 > I've rechecked my applet installation, and it appears to belong to
 > network-manager-gnome, so I've reassigned the bug. I'm using network-
 > manager-gnome 0.7~~svn20081020t000444-0ubuntu1.
 >

I think that the best package to report this issue is
network-manager-applet, so I'd suggest not to move this report.

 > Interestingly, the ssid noise doesn't appear in today's .xsession,
 > although I certainly saw it as recently as a couple weeks ago. I'll
 > check, and update the bug again with a chunk of .xsession-errors
 > demonstrating the issue next time I see it.

Great!

Thank you for reporting this issue and helping to make Ubuntu better

[Holger Mayer (holger-mayer)]

My Asus Eeepc 1000H (eeebuntu, intrepid) get this error message in ~/.xsession-errors if the SSID is hidden by the WLAN network. It takes a very long time until there is a connetion established.
---
** (nm-applet:5573): CRITICAL **: nm_utils_ssid_to_utf8: assertion `ssid != NULL' failed
** (nm-applet:5573): CRITICAL **: nm_utils_ssid_to_utf8: assertion `ssid != NULL' failed
** (nm-applet:5573): CRITICAL **: nm_utils_ssid_to_utf8: assertion `ssid != NULL' failed
** (nm-applet:5573): CRITICAL **: nm_utils_ssid_to_utf8: assertion `ssid != NULL' failed
...
...
(nm-applet:5573): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: instance of invalid non-instantiatable type `(null)'
(nm-applet:5573): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: g_signal_handlers_disconnect_matched: assertion `G_TYPE_CHECK_INSTANCE (instance)' failed
---

My gess is that nm-applet fails because of the hidden SSID. In fact there is no SSID. The SSID field in the broadcasted WLAN beacon frame is empty. (I suppose "ssid" should be a zero length string, not a NULL pointer)

[era (era)]

As per Holger Mayer's comment, sounds to me like there is a reasonable hypothesis about how to reproduce this, thus changing the Incomplete status to New. Feel free to change back with an explanation if you still need more information. Thanks.

[Thomas Hood (jdthood)]

@Emmet: Is this still happening in Ubuntu 12.04?

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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