NM shows duplicate connections

[Travis Shearer]

Binary package hint: network-manager

I'm a bit of a newbie, but I'll detail as much as I can, and post any additional info you may require.

I just upgraded from Lucid to Natty on my HP mini-110. I have two network cards:

- Ralink rt3090pci
- External usb Realtek rtl8187

Rtl8187 works fine. Ralink was using the rt2800pci drivers, and working only sporadically (worked fine after installation. On next reboot, connection was somewhat slower, and on the following, it manages to connect, but hardly no data transfer takes place, and it's impossible to view any webpage. In between these two reboots, all I've done is install software: ubuntu-restricted-extras, dropbox, skype and a few others. No system updates.

I have currently blacklisted rt2800pci, rt2x00lib and rt2x00pci. The system is using the rt2860 drivers, but internet works fine.

The problem is that network connections are duplicated. The connection "home_wifi", for instance, shows up 3 times in network manager: twice with the signal strength corresponding to the internal pci card, and once with the signal strength it gets from the usb rtl8187. One of these connections works for the rt2869, and one for the rtl8187. If I click on the third one (it's hard to tell which one sometimes), it asks me for the connection password, and duplicates the connection again (now I have 4 "home_wifi"). If there's any more info I can provide, please let me know.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.04
Package: network-manager 0.8.4~git.20110319t175609.d14809b-0ubuntu3
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.38-8.42-generic 2.6.38.2
Uname: Linux 2.6.38-8-generic x86_64
Architecture: amd64
CRDA: Error: [Errno 2] No such file or directory
Date: Tue Jun 7 12:29:50 2011
Gconf:

IfupdownConfig:
 auto lo
 iface lo inet loopback
InstallationMedia: Kubuntu 11.04 "Natty Narwhal" - Release amd64 (20110427)
IpRoute:
 192.168.0.0/24 dev wlan1 proto kernel scope link src 192.168.0.196 metric 2
 169.254.0.0/16 dev wlan1 scope link metric 1000
 default via 192.168.0.1 dev wlan1 proto static
Keyfiles: Error: [Errno 2] No such file or directory
NetworkManager.state:
 [main]
 NetworkingEnabled=true
 WirelessEnabled=true
 WWANEnabled=true
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: network-manager
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre (cyphermox)]

Sounds like a logic issue in de-duplicating APs, but that shouldn't happen unless there were more than one access point with teh same name in the vicinity... Regardless, I'm marking this a Triaged/Medium against network-manager-applet so that I can get back to look at it, but it doesn't sound like something very straigthforward to fix -- it could be due to the drivers misreporting wifi networks.

As an additional point of information, could you please provide a screenshot that shows the three (or more) entries, so we can clearly see how they're divided, their signal level, etc ?

If possible, could you also attach full debug logs for NM (although you might want to look quickly through them in case they contain sensitive information). Here's how you can do that:

sudo stop network-manager
sudo /usr/sbin/NetworkManager --no-daemon --log-level=DEBUG | tee -a /tmp/nm.log

Reproduce the issue, then Control-C in the terminal to stop NM again (which can then be restarted normally with "sudo start network-manager"). The full debug log will be in /tmp/nm.log; just attach that file to this report after reviewing it.

[Thomas Hood (jdthood)]

Is this bug still present in Ubuntu 12.04?

[Travis Shearer (travisshearer)]

I've quit using the HP mini 110 toy-computer and purchased a 13" laptop with proper computing functionality, so I can't say, but am using Kubuntu 12.04 on the new one; as soon as I can plug in the external wireless adapter, I'll post the results!

[udippel (udippel)]

I don't know if this is a duplo or different?
There is a logical mistake in nm, on at least Kubuntu (12.04):
I have two entries for the same access point. Not my liking, but a result of me using two different USB dongles. So far so good. Since it is one and the same access point, both links show in the network applet of plasma. Still fine and good. What is wrong is, that the field strength of both is always identical in the network applet.
If the code was written cleanly, it would distinguish the two links. Now it looks like as if it was written in a way, when a signal strength of an an access point was associated to an SSID and simply ascribed to all instances of that access point, active or not.

[udippel (udippel)]

Yep, I have a screenshot.
It shows a plain wrong behaviour: With one dongle, only one link can be active. So the access point must never show more often than once.
Correct behaviour would be to show a stronger signal with the more sensitive dongle; one link. And a single link, as well, when using the other dongle, albeit with less signal strength.

[udippel (udippel)]

Ooops, all wrong image. My excuses!
Here comes the good one

[Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre (cyphermox)]

udippel: please file a new bug report for your particular issue. You can use the following command to do this:

ubuntu-bug network-manager

[Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre (cyphermox)]

Incomplete since waiting for input from Travis Shearer (whether or not the same issue can be reproduced on the new system with 12.04)

[Thomas Hood (jdthood)]

I have set to "Confirmed" since there is a similar report, #891685, where the submitter shows that duplicate ESSIDs are output by "iwlist scan".

Travis Shearer has stopped using the machine for which he originally reported the problem, but if someone can reproduce it would be good to know if "iwlist scan" produces duplicate ESSIDs for a single interface on the HP mini-110.