Network Manager fails to start

[Jonathan Blackhall]

When I first installed the Intrepid Beta a week ago, NetworkManger appeared in my notification area, but since my 2 ethernet devices are unmanaged, there was nothing much to do with it. Of course that caused this bug:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/191889

After the fix was released from that bug, Network Manager no longer loads at startup. I tried reinstalling network-manager and network-manager-gnome from Synaptic without any luck. I tried manually loading it using "sudo /etc/init.d/NetworkManager start" as someone in that bug report suggested I try, but I got: " * Starting NetworkManager... [fail]"

dmesg is attached. please let me know what else I can provide (and possibly how to provide it)

I'm also having a problem where during boot, my system hangs for quite some time (~1 minute) when it's at about 40% (as you can probably tell from the dmesg). I'm not sure if that's related, but I thought I'd mention it.

Also, my network connection IS working.

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

please provide your /etc/network/interfaces as well as the complete /var/log/syslog after reproducing this (include a start attempt).

Also please try to start from terminal like:

 sudo NetworkManager --no-daemon

what do you see?

[Jonathan Blackhall (johnny-one-eye)]

The following are from a fresh boot. I started up, ran sudo /etc/init.d/NetworkManager start and sudo NetworkManager --no-daemon and then printed interfaces and syslog. Let me know what else you need.

[Jonathan Blackhall (johnny-one-eye)]

Perhaps some more useful info. I just ran a large set of updates from the past 24 hours, including a kernel update and a lot of other stuff. When everything was done installing, NetworkManager popped up and I got a tooltip saying something like ifupdown connected or something. So I thought it was fixed. Of course the updates required a restart and upon restart, NM isn't showing up again. Since I see that the syslog shows quite a bit of older material, I'll attach a new one that seems to include these events.

[Jonathan Blackhall (johnny-one-eye)]

Ok, so I just realized that I think NetworkManager is actually running on my system (I think). I must have missed it earlier, but there's an entry on System -> Preferences -> Network Connections that opens up the familiar Network Manager gui. So I guess the only problem is that it's not showing up in the Notification Area. Sorry for all the confusion.

[Jonathan Blackhall (johnny-one-eye)]

I have more to report (both good and bad). By disabling both my network cards in the BIOS, I was able to boot normally (without any hangs). Of course that meant I didn't have any network connections. However, once I got into Intrepid, Network Manager showed up (showing no cards available). So I think this is obviously somehow related to my network cards. If I have either of them enabled in the BIOS, I cannot boot normally and I have no Network Manager in my Notification area.

More about the Network Cards. One is a Marvel (#1) and one is nVidia (#2). Currently, only #1 works. Attempting to boot with a cable plugged into #2 gives me no Internet in Intrepid. Recently, #1 also started giving me problems. If I boot with a cable plugged into #1, I have Internet for about 5 minutes. Then it stops functioning and I can find no way to bring it back besides to reboot (very annoying)

This is all becoming fairly frustrating, so any advice you could give would be great. Also, let me know if I can give any more technical data on any of this. I realize I'm just giving silly descriptions because I just don't know what else would be of use.

[Jonathan Blackhall (johnny-one-eye)]

I was wrong in my previous submission. It looks like there is a problem with my Marvel port. It's also does not work in Windows. I hope this isn't anything like the Intel ethernet port issue. My nVidia one actually works fine. Disabling the Marvel port in my BIOS, I am able to boot without hanging in the 2.6.27-7 kernel. However, Network Manager still does not show up in the Notification Area. Even with the Marvel port disabled, eth0 and eth1 still show up in Network Manager if I access it via System -> Preferences. Also my /etc/network/interfaces has not changed. Attempting to start NetworkManager gives the same results. Attaching another syslog with Marvel disabled, nVidia enabled and a "no-hang boot."

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

On Sat, Oct 18, 2008 at 07:42:01PM -0000, Jonathan wrote:
> Ok, so I just realized that I think NetworkManager is actually running
> on my system (I think). I must have missed it earlier, but there's an
> entry on System -> Preferences -> Network Connections that opens up the
> familiar Network Manager gui. So I guess the only problem is that it's
> not showing up in the Notification Area. Sorry for all the confusion.
>

No, when you dont see it in your notification, either

 NetworkManager

or

 nm-applet

isnt running (or isnt reachable to be exact).

Could you please check which process isnt running when you experience
this situation. Thanks.

 - Alexander

[Jonathan Blackhall (johnny-one-eye)]

nm-applet is running. NetworkManager is not. According to System Monitor
that is. If there's another (better) way to check, let me know.

[Mark Ellis (mark-mpellis)]

I think I may be experiencing this behaviour.

I have two interfaces managed by ifupdown, and WLAN and 3G interfaces managed by nm. If neither of the nm managed interfaces is 'up', there is no systray icon, but nm-applet is running. Could this just be an icon display issue ?

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

On Tue, Oct 21, 2008 at 09:28:49AM -0000, Mark Ellis wrote:
> I think I may be experiencing this behaviour.
>
> I have two interfaces managed by ifupdown, and WLAN and 3G interfaces
> managed by nm. If neither of the nm managed interfaces is 'up', there is
> no systray icon, but nm-applet is running. Could this just be an icon
> display issue ?
>

No please check whether you hvae a process called NetworkManager
running. Also check whether there is a network manager relevant crash
report in the /var/crash directory and submit that by double clicking
on it in the gnome file manager (nautilus). If you did that provide us
the bug id.

 - Alexander

[Stephan Frank (sfrank)]

I think I can shed some light on the subject. I have a machine that was updated yesterday from hardy to intrepid (i386). After the update I was seeing the same symptoms as described above (no nm-applet icon in the notification area, though Networkmanager and nm-applet were running, nothing in /var/crash).

I ignored the problem for a while though had a look into my /var/log/syslog for other reasons and noted a message about the driver for my wlan stick (rt73usb) not being able to find the firmware. After installing the linux-firmware package and rebooting the nm-applet appeared as usual.

Apparently there is a missing dependency that leads to the linux-firmware package getting dropped during the update? At least in appears that the resulting faulty behaviour though seems to lead to the weird behaviour of nm-applet.

I'm attaching the relevant part from the machine's syslog...

Regs,
Stephan

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

On Wed, Oct 22, 2008 at 09:55:47AM -0000, Stephan Frank wrote:
> I think I can shed some light on the subject. I have a machine that was
> updated yesterday from hardy to intrepid (i386). After the update I was
> seeing the same symptoms as described above (no nm-applet icon in the
> notification area, though Networkmanager and nm-applet were running,
> nothing in /var/crash).
>
> I ignored the problem for a while though had a look into my
> /var/log/syslog for other reasons and noted a message about the driver
> for my wlan stick (rt73usb) not being able to find the firmware. After
> installing the linux-firmware package and rebooting the nm-applet
> appeared as usual.
>
> Apparently there is a missing dependency that leads to the linux-
> firmware package getting dropped during the update? At least in appears
> that the resulting faulty behaviour though seems to lead to the weird
> behaviour of nm-applet.
>

Can you reproduce this problem when removing that firmware again?

 - Alexander

[Stephan Frank (sfrank)]

Alexander Sack wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 22, 2008 at 09:55:47AM -0000, Stephan Frank wrote:
>> I think I can shed some light on the subject. I have a machine that was
>> updated yesterday from hardy to intrepid (i386). After the update I was
>> seeing the same symptoms as described above (no nm-applet icon in the
>> notification area, though Networkmanager and nm-applet were running,
>> nothing in /var/crash).
>>
>> I ignored the problem for a while though had a look into my
>> /var/log/syslog for other reasons and noted a message about the driver
>> for my wlan stick (rt73usb) not being able to find the firmware. After
>> installing the linux-firmware package and rebooting the nm-applet
>> appeared as usual.
>>
>> Apparently there is a missing dependency that leads to the linux-
>> firmware package getting dropped during the update? At least in appears
>> that the resulting faulty behaviour though seems to lead to the weird
>> behaviour of nm-applet.
>>
>
> Can you reproduce this problem when removing that firmware again?

Ah, a good question, sorry I didn't think of that myself. And
unfortunately, no, removing the firmware though does lead to the same
syslog entry, the nm-applet icon is displayed and indicating that the
network is down.

(And I'd like to add that another machine with almost the same
configuration which I upgraded to Intrepid sometime last week did not
expose this problem but also did not forget the firmware package during
the upgrade, so the initial situation did not occur anyway)

Sorry, seems like it's some nasty to track and reproduce buglet...
Stephan

[Mark Ellis (mark-mpellis)]

I managed to test this again unintentionally.

I was testing a workaround (bug #284298) to save the WLAN settings to system settings, which as it happened didn't work, but did cause the settings to disappear from my users network configuration.

Rebooted, connection failed to come up before login. Logged in, still no connection, nm applet apparently not in systray. On examining processes, present are

/usr/sbin/NetworkManager
/usr/sbin/nm-system-settings --config /etc/NetworkManager/nm-system-settings.conf
nm-applet --sm-disable

Upon very careful clicking, the applet is present but has no icon. By clicking in the right place in the systray I could get the network menu and connect to the WLAN. At this point the "connecting spinner" appears, followed by the bar graph when the connection is established.

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

On Wed, Oct 22, 2008 at 05:30:42PM -0000, Stephan Frank wrote:
> Alexander Sack wrote:
> > On Wed, Oct 22, 2008 at 09:55:47AM -0000, Stephan Frank wrote:
> >> I think I can shed some light on the subject. I have a machine that was
> >> updated yesterday from hardy to intrepid (i386). After the update I was
> >> seeing the same symptoms as described above (no nm-applet icon in the
> >> notification area, though Networkmanager and nm-applet were running,
> >> nothing in /var/crash).
> >>
> >> I ignored the problem for a while though had a look into my
> >> /var/log/syslog for other reasons and noted a message about the driver
> >> for my wlan stick (rt73usb) not being able to find the firmware. After
> >> installing the linux-firmware package and rebooting the nm-applet
> >> appeared as usual.
> >>
> >> Apparently there is a missing dependency that leads to the linux-
> >> firmware package getting dropped during the update? At least in appears
> >> that the resulting faulty behaviour though seems to lead to the weird
> >> behaviour of nm-applet.
> >>
> >
> > Can you reproduce this problem when removing that firmware again?
>
> Ah, a good question, sorry I didn't think of that myself. And
> unfortunately, no, removing the firmware though does lead to the same
> syslog entry, the nm-applet icon is displayed and indicating that the
> network is down.
>
> (And I'd like to add that another machine with almost the same
> configuration which I upgraded to Intrepid sometime last week did not
> expose this problem but also did not forget the firmware package during
> the upgrade, so the initial situation did not occur anyway)
>

well. if the applet is visible, nm hasnt crashed.

the other issue is unrelated.

 - Alexander

[hulleye (aahalai)]

Just wanted to chime in that I'm experiencing the same problem with Xubuntu 8.10. NetworkManager, nm-applet and nm-system-settings are all present in System Monitor but no icon in the System Tray. Please let me know if you need further information from me.

[David Nicholas (david-k-nicholas-gmail)]

I think I have the same bug. nm-applet is running but NetworkManager is not. I have no network icon in the notification area. This is after the upgrade from Hardy to Intrepid.

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

On Fri, Oct 31, 2008 at 12:41:42PM -0000, David Nicholas wrote:
> I think I have the same bug. nm-applet is running but NetworkManager is
> not. I have no network icon in the notification area. This is after the
> upgrade from Hardy to Intrepid.
>

your issue is bug 289466 ... you just need to clean your
/etc/network/interfaces from cruft. (read the bug).

 - Alexander

[Ben McCann (ben-mccann)]

I don't know if this is the right bug for this comment, but its the closest I've found so far.

My NetworkManager and nm-applet both work fine *except* that the nm-applet is not displayed in the notification tray. (Its actually there but apparently with a 1x1 pixel image. if you're lucky, you can get its attention with the mouse).

Is this bug the best place to track this problem? If so, should we rename the bug title to something besides "fails to start"? If not, where can I track this? Its the only gripe I have about Xubuntu 8.1.0.

BTW, this was a clean install on an HP-2133 mininote laptop using a lot of help from the Ubuntu Mininote forum.

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

On Sun, Dec 21, 2008 at 01:14:22PM -0000, Ben McCann wrote:
>
> I don't know if this is the right bug for this comment, but its the closest I've found so far.
>
> My NetworkManager and nm-applet both work fine *except* that the nm-
> applet is not displayed in the notification tray. (Its actually there
> but apparently with a 1x1 pixel image. if you're lucky, you can get its
> attention with the mouse).
>
> Is this bug the best place to track this problem? If so, should we
> rename the bug title to something besides "fails to start"? If not,
> where can I track this? Its the only gripe I have about Xubuntu 8.1.0.
>
> BTW, this was a clean install on an HP-2133 mininote laptop using a lot
> of help from the Ubuntu Mininote forum.
>

This should be fixed in latest intrepid-updates packages.

 - Alexander

[Ben McCann (ben-mccann)]

My xubuntu 8.10 is fully up to date and its still broken.

I'd be happy to help trouble-shoot it. I'm an experienced Linux user and software developer so I'd be happy to dig into anything including attaching GDB to a daemon if it would help dig out the cause of this problem. Its super annoying when the network's not working to not be able to pull up the nm-applet.

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 10:59:03AM -0000, Ben McCann wrote:
>
> My xubuntu 8.10 is fully up to date and its still broken.
>
> I'd be happy to help trouble-shoot it. I'm an experienced Linux user and
> software developer so I'd be happy to dig into anything including
> attaching GDB to a daemon if it would help dig out the cause of this
> problem. Its super annoying when the network's not working to not be
> able to pull up the nm-applet.
>

which package version are you running for network-manager-gnome?

 - Alexander

[Ben McCann (ben-mccann)]

 From 'dpkg -l':

ii network-manager-gnome
0.7~~svn20081020t000444-0ubuntu1.8.10.1 network management framework
(GNOME frontend)

-Ben McCann

Alexander Sack wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 10:59:03AM -0000, Ben McCann wrote:
>
>> My xubuntu 8.10 is fully up to date and its still broken.
>>
>> I'd be happy to help trouble-shoot it. I'm an experienced Linux user and
>> software developer so I'd be happy to dig into anything including
>> attaching GDB to a daemon if it would help dig out the cause of this
>> problem. Its super annoying when the network's not working to not be
>> able to pull up the nm-applet.
>>
>>
>
>
> which package version are you running for network-manager-gnome?
>
> - Alexander
>
>

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

Ben McCann wrote:
> I don't know if this is the right bug for this comment, but its the closest I've found so far.
>
> My NetworkManager and nm-applet both work fine *except* that the nm-
> applet is not displayed in the notification tray. (Its actually there
> but apparently with a 1x1 pixel image. if you're lucky, you can get its
> attention with the mouse).
>
> Is this bug the best place to track this problem? If so, should we
> rename the bug title to something besides "fails to start"? If not,
> where can I track this? Its the only gripe I have about Xubuntu 8.1.0.
>
> BTW, this was a clean install on an HP-2133 mininote laptop using a lot
> of help from the Ubuntu Mininote forum.
>
>
this should be fixed in the latest intrepid-updates packages. upgrade
your system.

(also this is the wrong bug ;) ... if you still see this open a new bug
against network-manager-applet package.

Thanks!

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

this shouldnt be a problem anymore in jaunty.