libnl upgrade breaks Network Manager

[Dave Musicant]

I appear to have been hit by a regression problem in the libnl update described here:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/libnl3/+bug/1511735

After running a regular software update this morning and rebooting, I've completely lost networking access. Network Manager is down. I'm running Trusty 14.04. I tried this workaround:

http://askubuntu.com/questions/727127/last-upgrade-crashes-network-manager-no-internet-connection-no-applet

... and step 1 didn't work. I'll be trying step 2 tonight when I've got more time.

I'm filing this as a new bug with a regression-update, as indicated in the above-linked bug report.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Dario Bertini (berdario)]

A colleague of mine has been affected by this as well, there are new threads popping up in askubuntu.com

http://askubuntu.com/questions/771627/14-04-network-manager-stopped-working

and newly affected people are popping up in the old bug:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/libnl3/+bug/1511735

[Robie Basak (racb)]

Can someone affected by this regression please report the package versions of libnl3 and network-manager?

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

This was supposed to be fixed with the network-manager update in bug 1539634. Can you please check whether you have network-manager 0.9.8.8-0ubuntu7.3?

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

I removed the libnl3 update from trusty-proposed for now. In the best case this was just a partial upgrade and affected users did not get the corresponding network-manager update from bug 1539634 - in that case, Ryan, please reupload an ubuntu2 with a corresponding Breaks: to n-m. Otherwise we'll have another regression. This depends on the answer to comment 4.

[Claude Godfrey (cagodfrey)]

I also have been affected. Updated Trusty 14.04 LTS yesterday. Next boot resulted in loss of network. Msg received was:"The system network services are not compatible with this version".

[Cedders (cedric-gn)]

Saw this today on Lubuntu 14.04.4. After the following upgrades (from dpkg.log):

upgrade libnl-route-3-200:amd64 3.2.21-1 3.2.21-1ubuntu1
upgrade libnl-genl-3-200:amd64 3.2.21-1 3.2.21-1ubuntu1
upgrade libnl-3-200:amd64 3.2.21-1 3.2.21-1ubuntu1

NetworkManager then crashed.

Manually configuring /etc/network/interfaces and then
upgrade libnm-util2:amd64 0.9.8.8-0ubuntu7.2 0.9.8.8-0ubuntu7.3
upgrade libnm-glib4:amd64 0.9.8.8-0ubuntu7.2 0.9.8.8-0ubuntu7.3
upgrade network-manager:amd64 0.9.8.8-0ubuntu7.2 0.9.8.8-0ubuntu7.3

And NetworkManager runs without crashing, and nm-applet runs without crashing, but only shows in the system tray before disappearing.

[MikkoH (mikkoh)]

Installing automatic updates in Ubuntu 14.04 upgraded libnl3 to 3.2.21-1ubuntu1 while network-manager remained in 0.9.8.8-0ubuntu7.2 resulting Network Manager crash. After upgrading manually network-manager to 0.9.8.8-0ubuntu7.3 it is working normally again.

[John B. (jbuncher)]

Just want to add a clarifying bit: Martin Pitt in #5 stated that he removed the libnl3 update from trusty-proposed, but I got hit with this on 14.04 and I do *not* have the -proposed repositories enabled. I can confirm I am running network-manager 0.9.8.8-0ubuntu7.2.

In my case, it looks like the libnl upgrade was "available" before the n-m upgrade, and it broke. Oddly enough n-m is listed (in synaptic) as having another version available (7.3), but this wasn't caught by the Software Updater app.

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

The phasing of network-manager version 0.9.8.8-0ubuntu7.3 was stopped due to potential regressions with it. Only update-manager, the Software Updater, is aware of and respects phased update percentages and that is why synaptic shows the other version available. Neither of the regressions identified by the phased-updater are new issues though, so people who installed the updated version of libnl3 could install the updated version of network-manager.

[Ufos92 (ufos92)]

On the sidenote: this issue has been known for 6 months: http://askubuntu.com/a/727462/308869

How is it possible that things like that make it's way into the release?

Let me know it this question belongs somewhere else, I will be glad to repeat it.

[Ufos92 (ufos92)]

p.s. Please, add this as a WORKAROUND into the header. http://askubuntu.com/a/771692/308869

[Vassil Peytchev (vassil-peytchev)]

To manually upgrade network-manager, visit this launchpad page: https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/trusty/amd64/network-manager/0.9.8.8-0ubuntu7.3

The link with the 7.3 version .deb is on the right-hand side, transfer to the affected computer via USB key or other means, and double-click on the .deb file. This will let you upgrade. After that, reboot (doing only service restart did not work), and use Synaptic to upgrade libnm-util2, libnm-glib4, libnm-glib-vpn1, and gir1.2-networkmanager-1.0

[Adam Conrad (adconrad)]

Downgrading libnl3 should no longer be required for people working around this. Upgrading to the latest version in trusty-updates should get them a working version again.

Alternately, upgrading network-manager should also work, and should work with the libnl3 in trusty-proposed.

[Dave Musicant (musicant)]

I followed Vassil Peytchev's directions to do a manual update of network-manager via USB key, and I'm back online. Thanks for your help!

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

Sorry, I meant to say that I removed the package from *trusty-updates*.

[Full Name (dataplane)]

As Jon B mentions in comment #9 above, even I DO NOT have trusty-proposed enabled on my 14.04.1 with kernel 3.19.0-59-generic.

[Artemis (alexander-plaza-net)]

Workaround that worked for us, listed here:
http://askubuntu.com/questions/771627/14-04-network-manager-stopped-working
Link to answer: http://askubuntu.com/a/771841

Hopefully this bug gets fixed soon. Has this already been pulled from updates?
I know a lot of beginners would be frustrated by this and wouldn't know what to do. Specially if you don't have access to another machine and can't google the answer.

Achievement Unlocked -> Updates are now just as reliable as those from Microsoft!

[Artemis (alexander-plaza-net)]

Edit to #19

*Note: The workaround listed in comment #19 only works for Ethernet connections - You will need to use an Ethernet cable to connect to the router for those using wireless.-

Additionally, I noticed I can't edit my own comments. Is that a bug or a feature? Lol

[Michel-Ekimia (michel.ekimia)]

Please confirm : the fix from Bug #1511735 was promoted to trusty-updates on 12/05 and contained a missing dep to updated network manager. then few hours ago , a new libln was uploaded to updates that depends on the new networkmanager.

Then we can safely tell people to just apt-get upgrade and reboot.

[Mathew Hodson (mhodson)]

Ekimia, that's basically correct.

To fix the bug make sure all packages are upgraded.

The problem only occurs if the user upgrades libnl3 but not network-manager.

[Fox (fox-nowdqk)]

The instructions I found that worked and were these easiest to follow were at http://askubuntu.com/questions/727127/last-upgrade-crashes-network-manager-no-internet-connection-no-applet specifically the very first answer. I tried step 1 but that did not work, so I did step 2 and then rebooted and then my network connections worked again.

[Saji Nediyanchath (saji89)]

Ekimia, Looks like the fix is in place, I had downloaded the following packages manually from packages.ubuntu.com, trusty-updates:

- libnl-3-200_3.2.21-1ubuntu1.1_amd64.deb
- libnl-genl-3-200_3.2.21-1ubuntu1.1_amd64.deb
- libnl-route-3-200_3.2.21-1ubuntu1.1_amd64.deb

Has to install it using sudo dpkg -i, as Ubuntu software center was not allowing it due to the dependency relation between these packages. Anyhow after installing these packages and doing a
sudo service network-manager restart

enabled my netwrok manager, previously with the broken packages, it was resulting in netwrok-manager crashing, if I tried to restart the service, but after these packages were installed the netwrok-manager worked normally.

One more thing, though technically a apt-get upgrade and reboot should work, it won't work as without the network-manager there is no easy way to connect to the internet, so for most users they'll have to download the packages manually and install like I had to do.

[Luís de Sousa (luis-de-sousa)]

You should avoid fixing this issue by downgrading packages or re-installing them manually. This answer explains how to connect to the internet and upgrade the network_manager package with apt:

http://askubuntu.com/a/773559/177437

Cheers.

[N. W. (nw9165-3201)]

Woah, that hit hard.

Something like that really should not happen!

Proposed is not enabled here.

Would there be any chance you could provide an official patch that could be copied over to a USB stick and only needs to be double clicked to solve the issue or something like that?