Nmcli incorrectly reports Wi-Fi channel as 0 for 6 GHz AP

[Antoine Lassagne]

SRU Justification:

[ Impact ]

 * All systems compatible with wifi 6E (6 ghz endpoint) are currently reporting an incorrect channel when using the `nmcli` tool to scan the network.

 * This patch provides minimal changes to address this problem. It adds the <frequency-channel> pairs that are missing in the code, and handles the few case where hard-coded exits where implemented for frequencies > 5.9 ghz.

[ Test Plan ]

 1. Run `nmcli device wifi list` without / with the patch. See that the channel is not zero anymore

 2. Run the Wireless Network certification suite from Checkbox, that will
    * Connect and disconnect to all kind of wifi
    * Scan the network

    All the tests should be successfull.

    wireless/wireless_scanning_interface
    wireless/wireless_connection_wpa_bg_nm_interface
    wireless/wireless_connection_open_bg_nm_interface
    wireless/wireless_connection_wpa_n_nm_interface
    wireless/wireless_connection_open_n_nm_interface
    wireless/wireless_connection_wpa_ac_nm_interface
    wireless/wireless_connection_open_ac_nm_interface
    wireless/wireless_connection_wpa_ax_nm_interface
    wireless/wireless_connection_wpa3_ax_nm_interface
    wireless/wireless_connection_open_ax_nm_interface
    wireless/wireless_connection_wpa_be_nm_interface
    wireless/wireless_connection_wpa3_be_nm_interface
    wireless/wireless_connection_open_be_nm_interface

[ Where problems could occur ]

 * Some function where existing or returning (0,0) when using wifi 6E before this patch. I made sure that it would not cause an unexpected behavior later.

[ Other Info ]

 * The patch is a subset of an upstream, unmerged, PR: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/NetworkManager/NetworkManager/-/merge_requests/2110
The above upstream PR contains other changes that are not relevant for a SRU (refactoring, for example). It went through several rounds of review already but is a bit stalled lately. Since one of our partners (nvidia) asks for a fix, I am proposing this patch and will help the PR move forward in parallel. Once the PR is merged upstream, the patch can be dropped from Questing.

original description:

We are observing that when connecting to a 6 GHz Wi-Fi access point (channel 169), the nmcli tool incorrectly reports the channel as 0, while other tools like iw dev and wpa_cli reflect the correct value.

The issue affects the accuracy of WiFi scanning, potentially leading to incorrect channel information and difficulties in using the WiFi network.

Repro steps:
- Power on the target
- Turn on the wifi 6GHz band network (Using WiFi7 TP BE19000)
- Set the region to US
$ sudo iw reg set US
- Scan the network using the cmd:
$ nmcli dev wifi list

Expected Result:
The channel set in the router should display in scan list

Additional comments:
After connecting to 6G WiFi, and executed the command
$ sudo iw dev
We are able to see the channel as 169,
and verified that in router page 6G AP channel is set to 169 itself.
However, when scanning 6G AP using nmcli, the channel is displaying as 0.

[Antoine Lassagne (antoinelassagne)]

There is an upstream PR about it: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/NetworkManager/NetworkManager/-/merge_requests/2110

The review is fairly advanced, however it's a bit stalled. Also, the PR is broader than just this channel thing.

I will help the upstream PR move forward and, in parallel, I will propose a smaller subset of it in a patch that can be SRU'd.

[Vladimir Petko (vpa1977)]

Hi,

I have unsubscribed Sponsors, please subscribe back once the SRU MPs are updated.

Best Regards,
 Vladimir.

[Antoine Lassagne (antoinelassagne)]

Sorry, I thought I had to wait for the questing version to be out of -proposed before proceeding with PP / NN.

I updated the 2 merge proposals and subscribed the sponsors again. Please note that the questing version is still in proposed, until I figure out why the builds are failing (it's reasonable to think that it is not because of this patch, but I'd like to find the root cause)

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package network-manager - 1.52.0-1ubuntu3

---------------
network-manager (1.52.0-1ubuntu3) questing; urgency=medium

  * Fix the .expected file in build-time tests, because its encoding
    became wrong on >= 25.10 (LP: #2121546)

network-manager (1.52.0-1ubuntu2) questing; urgency=medium

  * fix nmcli that could not report 6ghz wifi channels correctly (LP: #2116940)

 -- Antoine Lassagne <email address hidden> Wed, 27 Aug 2025 19:18:34 +0200

[Julian Andres Klode (juliank)]

Hello Antoine, or anyone else affected,

Accepted network-manager into plucky-proposed. The package will build now and be available at https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/network-manager/1.52.0-1ubuntu1.1 in a few hours, and then in the -proposed repository.

Please help us by testing this new package. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation on how to enable and use -proposed. Your feedback will aid us getting this update out to other Ubuntu users.

If this package fixes the bug for you, please add a comment to this bug, mentioning the version of the package you tested, what testing has been performed on the package and change the tag from verification-needed-plucky to verification-done-plucky. If it does not fix the bug for you, please add a comment stating that, and change the tag to verification-failed-plucky. In either case, without details of your testing we will not be able to proceed.

Further information regarding the verification process can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/PerformingSRUVerification . Thank you in advance for helping!

N.B. The updated package will be released to -updates after the bug(s) fixed by this package have been verified and the package has been in -proposed for a minimum of 7 days.

[Julian Andres Klode (juliank)]

Hello Antoine, or anyone else affected,

Accepted network-manager into noble-proposed. The package will build now and be available at https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/network-manager/1.46.0-1ubuntu2.3 in a few hours, and then in the -proposed repository.

Please help us by testing this new package. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation on how to enable and use -proposed. Your feedback will aid us getting this update out to other Ubuntu users.

If this package fixes the bug for you, please add a comment to this bug, mentioning the version of the package you tested, what testing has been performed on the package and change the tag from verification-needed-noble to verification-done-noble. If it does not fix the bug for you, please add a comment stating that, and change the tag to verification-failed-noble. In either case, without details of your testing we will not be able to proceed.

Further information regarding the verification process can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/PerformingSRUVerification . Thank you in advance for helping!

N.B. The updated package will be released to -updates after the bug(s) fixed by this package have been verified and the package has been in -proposed for a minimum of 7 days.

[Julian Andres Klode (juliank)]

Unsubscribing sponsors as there doesn't appear anything left to sponsor

[Ubuntu SRU Bot (ubuntu-sru-bot)]

All autopkgtests for the newly accepted network-manager (1.52.0-1ubuntu1.1) for plucky have finished running.
The following regressions have been reported in tests triggered by the package:

firewalld/2.3.0-2 (arm64)
systemd/257.4-1ubuntu3.2 (amd64, armhf, ppc64el)

Please visit the excuses page listed below and investigate the failures, proceeding afterwards as per the StableReleaseUpdates policy regarding autopkgtest regressions [1].

https://people.canonical.com/~ubuntu-archive/proposed-migration/plucky/update_excuses.html#network-manager

[1] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/StableReleaseUpdates#Autopkgtest_Regressions

Thank you!

[Ubuntu SRU Bot (ubuntu-sru-bot)]

All autopkgtests for the newly accepted network-manager (1.46.0-1ubuntu2.3) for noble have finished running.
The following regressions have been reported in tests triggered by the package:

netplan.io/1.1.2-2~ubuntu24.04.2 (arm64, s390x)

Please visit the excuses page listed below and investigate the failures, proceeding afterwards as per the StableReleaseUpdates policy regarding autopkgtest regressions [1].

https://people.canonical.com/~ubuntu-archive/proposed-migration/noble/update_excuses.html#network-manager

[1] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/StableReleaseUpdates#Autopkgtest_Regressions

Thank you!

[Antoine Lassagne (antoinelassagne)]

Hello,

I ran the test plan on both plucky and noble.
* Installed network-manager and libnm0 from -proposed
* Verified that I was able to see a channel with `sudo nmcli device wifi list`
* Ran the wifi test plan from checkbox, except the after_suspend ones that are irrelevant here:
```
[test plan]
unit = com.canonical.certification::client-cert-desktop-24-04-automated
forced = yes

[test selection]
forced=yes
match = .*wireless/wireless.*
exclude= .*suspend.*
```

Everything ran as expected.

[Andreas Hasenack (ahasenack)]

risc and s390x failed to build, I retried them.

[Andreas Hasenack (ahasenack)]

it also failed to build on noble/ppc64el, I also retried it.

[Julian Andres Klode (juliank)]

s390x failed again, retrying

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package network-manager - 1.46.0-1ubuntu2.3

---------------
network-manager (1.46.0-1ubuntu2.3) noble; urgency=medium

  * fix nmcli that could not report 6ghz wifi channels correctly (LP: #2116940)

 -- Antoine Lassagne <email address hidden> Tue, 15 Jul 2025 13:38:55 +0200

[Julian Andres Klode (juliank)]

The verification of the Stable Release Update for network-manager has completed successfully and the package is now being released to -updates. Subsequently, the Ubuntu Stable Release Updates Team is being unsubscribed and will not receive messages about this bug report. In the event that you encounter a regression using the package from -updates please report a new bug using ubuntu-bug and tag the bug report regression-update so we can easily find any regressions.

[Nick Rosbrook (enr0n)]

Hm, this was missed for plucky, which means the release happened out of order. Releasing for plucky now.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package network-manager - 1.52.0-1ubuntu1.1

---------------
network-manager (1.52.0-1ubuntu1.1) plucky; urgency=medium

  * fix nmcli that could not report 6ghz wifi channels correctly (LP: #2116940)

 -- Antoine Lassagne <email address hidden> Tue, 15 Jul 2025 14:53:01 +0200