knetworkmanager does not update network strength live

[John Dong]

Once knetworkmanager associates with a wireless network on my ipw3945, it refuses to update connection strength information in the taskbar. It remains at the strength I connected at.

GNOME's nm-applet has no issue keeping signal strength up to date.

[Anthony Mercatante (tonio)]

Latest version (in edgy) resolves this.

[Joakim Andersson (jocke)]

I'd like to reopen this bug as it still happens for me in gutsy (also with the package from hardy ("backported" to gutsy) and upstream SVN). I also have an ipw3945, and the bug appears both with the ipw3945 and the iwl3945 drivers.

I did some investigation last night and found that the problem is that knetworkmanager, as opposed to nm-applet, primarily uses Network Signal Strength (Signal from NetworkManager is called "WirelessNetworkStrengthChanged") if available (doesn't evaluate to false). After "sniffing" the dbus traffic using dbus-monitor, I found that only the Device Signal Strength (signal "DeviceStrengthChanged") changes. Since the Network Strength seems to be set during connection (and then never changes), it doesn't evaluate to false and is therefore used as the signal strength value.

nm-applet only uses the network strength for the network selection menu (I.E. network I'm not connected to), and always use the device strength for the current connection. If I simply comment out the code in the setStrength() function in knetworkmanager-network.cpp, the strength updates as it should. However, that way I can't see the strength for networks I'm not connected to. (I mostly only see one network here, so it's a bit hard to test, but the testing I have been able to do seems to agree with my theory.)

This is a bug upstream, but knetworkmanager doesn't seem to be a very active project, especially since KDE 4's solid has gotten NM support. As long as (k)ubuntu wants to continue using knetworkmanager (I.E. until KDE 4 becomes the default), this bug should be fixed.

I'm going to make an attempt to fix the bug using the hardy sources and then (if successful) attach a debdiff here.

[Joakim Andersson (jocke)]

Here is the promised debdiff. I built it from hardy's sources and added a new patch (in debian/patches, of course) which makes knetworkmanager behave just like nm-applet in this matter.
Runs fine on my laptop (and updates live, like it should).

P.S. Sorry for erroneously changing the bug status to 'Incomplete', I misinterpreted the meaning of that, I meant something like 'Incomplete Fix'... The closest thing I could find was 'Confirmed', though.

[Joakim Andersson (jocke)]

Whoops, I noticed a small bug in my patch. The network tool tips (shown on mouse-over of the network items in the menu) used the wrong information.
Here is a new patch, made in the same way as the previous one.
Perhaps I should mention that I'm testing this patch against gutsy packages (I.E. gutsy's NetworkManager etc.), but it should work the same way in hardy.

I also noticed that the signal strength (progress) bars in the menu don't update at all, but the source has to be modified a little more extensively to fix that, so I'm not going to attempt to fix it. The tool tips always show the current info, anyway.

[Joakim Andersson (jocke)]

Discard that thing about the progress bars, they DO update, I just misunderstood the code and didn't test it properly.

[Munzir Taha (منذر طه) (munzirtaha)]

I am using Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.11b/g in Dell Studio 15 and Intrepid. The blue bars that show the strength is not accurate at all. I am within 1 cm from my router and only two blue bars are shown. nm-applet works great

[Eli (elitrou)]

Same problem here - usually gets stuck just on 2 bars. Using Intel WiFi 5100 on Lenovo SL400 laptop on Intrepid Kubuntu (64 bit version).

[Lennart Jern (lennart-jern)]

Just 2 bars unless I manually reconnect. Also I'd like to add that when hovering the cursor over the icon it just reads:
Device: wlan0
Status: Activated
When I connect manually, however, the name of the network does appear under those lines.

[Felix (apoapo)]

exact the same problem here as Lenzi wrote on a dell m1330 laptop.

intel iwl4965

[Jonathan Thomas (echidnaman)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Kubuntu better. The KDE3 version of KNetworkManager has been discontinued by its original authors. This unfortunately means that there will be no more bugfix releases, and updates in general will be limited to those fixing security flaws.

While we cannot fix your bug, the good news is that the applet has been totally rewritten for KDE4 in the upcoming Kubuntu 9.10 release. There is a good chance that this bug is no longer an issue with the new applet. If you find any similar or new issues with the applet included in Kubuntu 9.10, we would politely ask you to file them as new bugs against the "plasma-widget-networkmanagement" package.

Thanks in advance for your cooperation and understanding.