Gnome wifi menu items jumping up and down make clicking risky

[Nick]

Steps to reproduce:

0. I don't know the relevant circumstances about Wi-Fi networks being available and about the adapter's reception (I use a 2.4GHz USB adapter). This occurs mainly when I first try to get on a network, probably right after waking the machine from sleep and trying to get on a network.

1. In the Gnome desktop environment's top panel, at the far right, open the menu. If Wi-Fi is off, turn it on. If it says Wi-Fi Not Connected, see if that line is appearing and disappearing several times.

2. Try to select a command below that line, not a command that is exposed only by selecting Wi-Fi Not Connected but one below that, such as Settings. Because the network line is disappearing and reappearing in unpredictably rapid cycles, you may not want to click on a command below it (and risk clicking the wrong command) but merely position your cursor as if you intend to click it.

Actual result: You can't be sure what you're going to click.

Expected result:

If a menu command must appear and disappear in unpredictable fashion, have it do so without everything below it in the menu jumping up and down.

This can be managed by having the disappearing menu item be replaced by an unselectable blank menu item. Then, anything below would not jump. If the menu while it has a blank menu item is closed by any method, the blank menu item should be deleted. Thus, when the menu is opened later by any method, in the same login session or not, the blank menu item would not be included.

Additional info:

Ubuntu 20.04.2 LTS, kept evergreen, with Gnome desktop environment 3.36.8 (still).

The package was guessed from the list of process IDs. The string: gnome-shell 3.36.9-0ubuntu0-20-04.2

I'm told that Gnome bugs have to be reported to a distro bug tracker first for proper component assignment, so I'm reporting here now.

[Ubuntu Foundations Team Bug Bot (crichton)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. It seems that your bug report is not filed about a specific source package though, rather it is just filed against Ubuntu in general. It is important that bug reports be filed about source packages so that people interested in the package can find the bugs about it. You can find some hints about determining what package your bug might be about at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/FindRightPackage. You might also ask for help in the #ubuntu-bugs irc channel on Freenode.

To change the source package that this bug is filed about visit https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1933748/+editstatus and add the package name in the text box next to the word Package.

[This is an automated message. I apologize if it reached you inappropriately; please just reply to this message indicating so.]

[Nick (nick-levinson)]

I thought I did, but I guess the entry didn't save, and somehow my copy of the entry has the wrong entry anyway. The opening post has it correctly and with the full string.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Thanks for the bug report. I've never seen this problem before. Can you please try live booting (from USB) a newer version of Ubuntu:

  21.04: https://ubuntu.com/download/desktop
  21.10: http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/daily-live/current/

and tell us if the problem occurs there too?

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

It's also possible a newer kernel version (in comment #3) might make the driver more reliable and avoid the problem without any GUI changes.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

I think the main issue here is the erratic wifi reception, so that's a kernel bug (or hardware or environmental). The GUI design is understandably annoying in this case, but it's of secondary concern and I can't find evidence of other people having the same problem. So low priority for gnome-shell.

If you'd like to discuss the design further with the GNOME developers then please open a new issue at:

  https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-shell/issues

But I suggest the most important thing here is to progress as a kernel bug, so please run the following command on the affect system to collect more information:

  apport-collect 1933748

[Nick (nick-levinson)]

Jumping does not occur most of the time that I boot or awaken it, so I'll accept your prioritization, since my idea for a patch may be more complicated to implement than I suppose. So, I won't download a new Ubuntu now.

The apport-collect command is too risky to run (see https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/update-manager/+bug/1933747/comments/2) and it does not provide relevant terminal output I could copy and paste into here. If there's something you'd like to know about my platform or something like that, let me know and I can try to check and report back.