NM indicator unable to re-enable wireless after disabling it

[Brian]

With network-manager 0.9.4.0 and network-manager-gnome 0.9.4.1, if I disable wireless by right-clicking on the applet and unchecking "Enable Wireless", then the menu item is greyed out and cannot be re-enabled.

It appears that when disabling, the rfkill soft block is set on the wireless device. NM then reports the device as hardware disabled (when in fact it is only soft-disabled), causing the menu item to be disabled.

If one manually removes the soft block using `rfkill unblock <ID>`, then it is possible to re-enable wireless from the applet.

The applet should instead show enable the menu option when the device is only soft-blocked, and remove the soft block when the enable option is selected.

[Thomas Hood (jdthood)]

Same as bug #823615?

[Brian (rephorm)]

It could be related, but its not the same issue. #823615 is about NM not recognizing when the soft block is removed. This is not the case on my system. Removing the soft block (using `rfkill`) allows me to re-enable wifi through NM.

[Brian (rephorm)]

An upstream bug report is at https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=672588

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[Thomas Hood (jdthood)]

Also similar, bug #583308.

[Brian (rephorm)]

It looks like this specific issue could be unique to sony laptops. As mentioned in the upstream bug report, there are two radio killswitches. When the one that corresponds to the physical switch on the laptop is soft blocked, the bios hard blocks the second killswitch, causing NM to think that it can't unblock. There is a proposed workaround in the upstream report.

[Thomas Hood (jdthood)]

#497623 mentions Toshiba and Dell laptops. But that could be another underlying issue, of course.