"Disconnect" menu item in network-manager taskbar tool is inactive when connected to network

[drummer]

When connected to a network (via ethernet), I am not able to disconnect using the network menu in the top taskbar. The "Disconnect" menu item is not highlighted. The Connection Name is highlighted, but I don't need to click it because I'm already connected to it. If I click the Connection Name, it connects again, but still does not highlight the "Disconnect" option. So to disconnect, I have to go to System Settings -> Network, and click on the toggle. That does work. It's just the taskbar connection manager that is malfunctioning.

I have tried restarting, and the problem persists.

This happened after I updated software this morning using Update Manager. I installed the updated Unity Greeter that puts network status on the login screen and updates wifi and mobile.

I am running 12.04 LTS and Unity2d

[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.

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[drummer (3-mike-j)]

It is possible that this is not a bug, but that I somehow messed-up my system. To try to solve the problem, I deleted and reinstalled network-manager and unity-greeter, and restarted. The problem persisted. I then deleted unity-greeter, and restarted, but then could not get a logon prompt.

In the "Privacy" system setting, I have "record activity" set to "off". Because of that, (I think) I normally got a plain message at startup, "Unable to write bytes". Then unity greeter would start, and I would log on (I have a password set). But without unity-greeter (and using unity-2d) it would not give me a logon prompt, even after answering all the questions it asked me. All I could get was "Unable to write bytes", from which point all I could manage to do was ctrl-alt-del, which rebooted, after which I still could not log on. So I reinstalled 12.04 LTS, wiping out the previous installation. Now it has been updated and works fine. I am using the following:

network-manager-gnome 0.9.4.1-0ubuntu2.3
network-manager 0.9.4.0-0ubuntu4.4.1
unity-greeter 0.2.9-0ubuntu1.4

with no problems or bugs. You guys that work on bugs might want to try logging on with a password needed, using unity-2d, and without unity-greeter, and with "Record Activity" set to "off". But be prepared to lose the entire system! Now that might be buggy. But that would be a different bug, not this one.

Thank you for your attention to this.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[jokrebel (jokrebel)]

Hi, after questions in an IRC-cannel about network-manager which only has un-clickable gray "disconnect" and "edit-Function" I tried it with my own
                                           12.04.5 Unity Laptop.

After I did the latest updates my network-manager also shows the pull-down-menu-switches for disconnection and for editing the settings un-clickable gray! Wifi works but is not editable.
In the Update-List I can remember to have seen network-manager-gnome
and 2 things hit the networkmanager begining with lib....

[Marek Wrzosek (marek-wrzosek)]

Installing older versions (from precise, instead of precise-updates) of ubuntu-desktop, unity-greeter, network-manager and network-manager-gnome works the charm too ;) Disconnecting from WiFi or wired was pain in... some part of the body, but disconnecting from Bluetooth PAN was almost impossible.

[User (ubuntu-user-q)]

@marek-wrzosek:
Just downgrading network-manager alone did it for me. thank you!

[User (ubuntu-user-q)]

.. on Ubuntu 12.04.5 using gnome-session-fallback