Clicking on already-selected Wired Network causes disconnect

[Stephen Gornick]

Binary package hint: network-manager-gnome

When I click on the NetworkManager it lists two entries, "Wired Network", with the radio-style select button next to it (solid, meaning "selected") and another entry that reads "Static configuration...".

If I click on the already-selected Wired Network, the applet displays a status balloon titled "Disconnected" and reads: "The network connection has been disconnected." Followed shortly thereafter is another status balloon titled "Connection Established" and reads: "You are now connected to the wired network."

Expected behavior:
With a radio-style select button, usually re-selecting an already-selected choice wouldn't cause any action to occur, so I was not expecting (nor did I wish it to occur) for the applet to disconnect and reconnect the Wired Network.

Actually, if you have two choices, e.g., Wired Network and Wireless network, I don't think you would want to use radio-style select button -- because that is for mutually exclusive choices, and I may want both of those types of network connections active simultaneously. Perhaps checkbox toggles instead of a radio-style selector is more appropriate?

Either way, the current behavior for this seems odd, to me.

Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Herd4 i386

[Chris Burgan (cburgan)]

I can confirm this pretty easily, what I can't confirm is if this is a bug or an intended feature so I'm going to mark it as wishlist. I could see how some people might enjoy the easy method of reconnecting easily, but I too would prefer it as a seperate option.

 As far as the two internet connections at one time, I didn't think that was technically possible. Yes, you can theoretically have both enabled and open but the computer only lets you use one at a time. Being that this program is a network manager, it would want you to choose the one you want to be the active connection. Anyways, If I am wrong in that regard I urge you to make a spec for that one as a feature request (see: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FeatureSpecifications ).

To reproduce:

1) Use nm-applet and connect to a wired connection
2) Click the already selected option of a "Wired Network"

Expected Behavior:

Everything should remain as it is.

Actual Result:

User is disconnected and then reconnected.

[Chris Burgan (cburgan)]

Also of note, this method of disconnecting and reconnecting upon clicking an already selected option is not exclusive to a wired connection. I can reproduce it the same way be clicking on an already connected wireless connection.

[Scott Robinson (scott-ubuntu)]

I'm fairly certain this is intentional behavior. Certainly I _prefer_ the current behavior because I can force a reinitialization of a network connection manually.

[Mackenzie Morgan (maco.m)]

Chris, you can use both connections at once. You can receive a signal from the wired NIC and then broadcast from your wireless card to use your computer as a wireless router. You can do the opposite as well: grab onto a wireless signal and pass it on to another computer over a wire (for instance, if that one doesn't have a wireless card).

[aent (aent)]

Yes, this is the intended behavior. I find it very useful the way it is as when a DHCP server is not functioning correctly, you can just reselect the network to reinitialize and reconnect to it. If the ability to reconnect by choosing the network again is removed, a repair button would need to be added to provide this functionality. I think it is a bit more integrated the way it is now rather then having a separate repair function, like Windows has.

[Michael Losonsky (michl)]

I am not so sure about the intentional behavior. It disconnects
and reconnects when you try to configure the dial-up modem as well. Of course, the dial-up modem configuration does not
work in system->admin->network and that's another issue, but trying to configure it should not cause the ethernet connection to disconnect and reconnect every time.

[Murray Cumming (murrayc)]

I think it should ask if this is what I want.

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

Indeed I find this very handy to reconnect if the current connection has died for some reason, and that's in fact the intention. Since there is no other reason why you'd want to click on an already active connection, this is no big deal IMHO.

Stephen, the 'multiple active connections' issue is bug 96103,

[Stephen Gornick (sgornick)]

> Indeed I find this very handy to reconnect

I agree, that capability is desirable to have. My problem is with the user interface choice.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_button
identifies a radio button as a graphical user interface widget that allows the user to choose one of a predefined set of options.

Adding a "reset" action to the select option's on-click event is not intuitive, in my opinion. I understand why a designer might make that choice -- "less is more". And I would agree with that in most areas. However in this instance performing a reset to a network connection that is currently in-use is annoying at best, and harmful in some cases. So that is why I believe a reset needs to be a separate action I would perform INTENTIONALLY, not accidentally because I happened to click on an already-selected network interface.

[Murray Cumming (murrayc)]

> Since there is no other reason why you'd want to click on an already active connection, this is no big deal IMHO

You might not think that people have a reason to do it, but they do it anyway. A confirmation dialog would prevent this problem, and is more forgiving than just calling it user error.

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

Murray, I agree. I left the bug open for that reason. I just classified it as not critical for the feisty release. :)

[frabcus (frabcus)]

I've found that I often want an explicit disconnect button - to make it so I'm not connected to any network. I think that there should be a menu option "Disconnect from all networks" as a radio button, and that selecting the same radio button twice should do nothing.

[Adrian (ruewan)]

I also want to a way to disconnect from a wireless network that I am already connected to. Both right and left clicking on an active connection resets the connection. Maybe left clicking should ask you if you want to disconnect from the network.

[Murray Cumming (murrayc)]

ruewan, isn't it enough for that to just uncheck "enable wireless" on the right-click menu?

[Adrian (ruewan)]

The reason that I suggested right clicking ask if you want to disconnect the network is because I accidentally connected to my neighbors wireless and I wanted to disconnect from that one and not connect to another but still have the wireless enabled.

[Stephen Gornick (sgornick)]

The discussion is veering away from the initial complaint -- where the user's action may cause an unintentional disconnect from the network. Fortunately, there is a single solution to everyone's problem:
  Add a RadioButton for a "None" option.

This gives us the ability to:
  - Select None to disconnect from a wireless network that is already connected

Once we have a "None" option, that is how a user can "reconnect" as well:
  First select None to disconnect, then select the the wireless network they wanted to reconnect to.

Additionally, having a "None" fixes another quirk. Currently when starting up and no wireless networks are connected, none of the RadioButton options is selected. Having a "None" button clears this up as well.

Here's more to my argument about "reconnect" being a misuse of a RadioButton interface:
  "A gtk.RadioButton is used to give the user a choice of one of many options."
  I took that from the GNOME Documentation Library:
  http://library.gnome.org/devel/pygtk/2.12/class-gtkradiobutton.html

Using a RadioButton interface to do more than a simple "choose one of many options" makes the user interface inconsistent. This causes an inconsistency even within the NetworkManager app -- as selecting a RadioButton for the VPN Connections option that is already connected DOES NOT reconnect to that VPN (see Bug# 141568 where I reported this inconsistency).

[Ruewan (gabbon)]

I like the idea of none being in the list.

[Alexander Sack (asac)]

reconnecting should be possible by just clicking a second time on the same network ... none won't happen for network-manager 0.6.5. for 0.7 (hopefully in hardy) we might take a look though.

[Motin (motin)]

This bug's name and/or summary needs to be renamed to reflect what actually is the reported complaint... Or split, depending on what we are aiming at.

Maybe: "Radio buttons should be changed to checkboxes or other symbol in nm-applet" ?

However, having checkboxes would make it necessary to first add support to connect through several NICs at once, as requested in Bug #96103

[Martin Mai (mrkanister-deactivatedaccount-deactivatedaccount)]

Any news about this? In intrepid the network-manager now has checkboxes as mentioned by Motin.

[Martin Mai (mrkanister-deactivatedaccount-deactivatedaccount)]

Closing the bug because of no reponse. Please reopen if this is still an issue.