Linux Mint 16 network-manager-gnome breaks wifi?

Posted: 2013-12-19 22:51:08 by Alasdair Keyes

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I'm on call at the moment, which is never fun, but to make it worse, whilst I was logged into servers at work trying to fix an issue, my wifi died.

It wasn't just my router losing connection, the network manager in Mint 16 just didn't want to know about wifi. All options to use it were greyed out and the following errors were in syslog (Please forgive the wall of text)

Dec 19 21:56:05 luka wpa_supplicant[987]: rfkill: WLAN hard blocked
Dec 19 21:56:05 luka kernel: [ 2855.552595] wlan0: deauthenticating from [wifi router mac] by local choice (reason=3)
Dec 19 21:56:05 luka kernel: [ 2855.553638] brcmsmac bcma0:0: brcmsmac: brcms_ops_bss_info_changed: disassociated
Dec 19 21:56:05 luka kernel: [ 2855.553646] brcmsmac bcma0:0: brcms_ops_bss_info_changed: arp filtering: 1 addresses (implement)
Dec 19 21:56:05 luka kernel: [ 2855.553649] brcmsmac bcma0:0: brcms_ops_bss_info_changed: qos enabled: false (implement)
Dec 19 21:56:05 luka wpa_supplicant[987]: wlan0: CTRL-EVENT-DISCONNECTED bssid=[wifi router mac] reason=3
Dec 19 21:56:05 luka NetworkManager[944]: [info] WiFi now disabled by radio killswitch
Dec 19 21:56:05 luka NetworkManager[944]: [info] (wlan0): device state change: activated -> unavailable (reason 'none') [100 20 0]
Dec 19 21:56:05 luka NetworkManager[944]: [info] (wlan0): deactivating device (reason 'none') [0]
Dec 19 21:56:05 luka kernel: [ 2855.612636] cfg80211: Calling CRDA to update world regulatory domain
Dec 19 21:56:05 luka avahi-daemon[665]: Interface wlan0.IPv6 no longer relevant for mDNS.
Dec 19 21:56:05 luka avahi-daemon[665]: Leaving mDNS multicast group on interface wlan0.IPv6 with address [wifi adapter ipv6 address].
Dec 19 21:56:05 luka avahi-daemon[665]: Interface wlan0.IPv4 no longer relevant for mDNS.
Dec 19 21:56:05 luka avahi-daemon[665]: Leaving mDNS multicast group on interface wlan0.IPv4 with address [wifi adapter ipv4 address].
Dec 19 21:56:05 luka avahi-daemon[665]: Withdrawing address record for [wifi adapter ipv6 address] on wlan0.
Dec 19 21:56:05 luka avahi-daemon[665]: Withdrawing address record for [wifi adapter ipv4 address] on wlan0.
Dec 19 21:56:05 luka avahi-daemon[665]: Joining mDNS multicast group on interface wlan0.IPv4 with address [wifi adapter ipv4 address].
Dec 19 21:56:05 luka avahi-daemon[665]: New relevant interface wlan0.IPv4 for mDNS.
Dec 19 21:56:05 luka avahi-daemon[665]: Registering new address record for [wifi adapter ipv4 address] on wlan0.IPv4.
Dec 19 21:56:05 luka wpa_supplicant[987]: rfkill: WLAN hard blocked
Dec 19 21:56:05 luka kernel: [ 2855.641875] cfg80211: World regulatory domain updated:
Dec 19 21:56:05 luka kernel: [ 2855.641879] cfg80211:   (start_freq - end_freq @ bandwidth), (max_antenna_gain, max_eirp)
Dec 19 21:56:05 luka kernel: [ 2855.641881] cfg80211:   (2402000 KHz - 2472000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (300 mBi, 2000 mBm)
Dec 19 21:56:05 luka kernel: [ 2855.641882] cfg80211:   (2457000 KHz - 2482000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (300 mBi, 2000 mBm)
Dec 19 21:56:05 luka kernel: [ 2855.641883] cfg80211:   (2474000 KHz - 2494000 KHz @ 20000 KHz), (300 mBi, 2000 mBm)
Dec 19 21:56:05 luka kernel: [ 2855.641885] cfg80211:   (5170000 KHz - 5250000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (300 mBi, 2000 mBm)
Dec 19 21:56:05 luka kernel: [ 2855.641886] cfg80211:   (5735000 KHz - 5835000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (300 mBi, 2000 mBm)
Dec 19 21:56:05 luka kernel: [ 2855.776410] usb 1-1.3: USB disconnect, device number 5
Dec 19 21:56:05 luka kernel: [ 2855.776419] usb 1-1.3.1: USB disconnect, device number 7
Dec 19 21:56:05 luka NetworkManager[944]: [info] (wlan0): canceled DHCP transaction, DHCP client pid 1584
Dec 19 21:56:05 luka kernel: [ 2855.786157] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): wlan0: link is not ready
Dec 19 21:56:05 luka avahi-daemon[665]: Withdrawing address record for [wifi adapter ipv4 address] on wlan0.
Dec 19 21:56:05 luka avahi-daemon[665]: Leaving mDNS multicast group on interface wlan0.IPv4 with address [wifi adapter ipv4 address].
Dec 19 21:56:05 luka avahi-daemon[665]: Interface wlan0.IPv4 no longer relevant for mDNS.
Dec 19 21:56:05 luka NetworkManager[944]: [warn] DNS: plugin dnsmasq update failed
Dec 19 21:56:05 luka NetworkManager[944]: [info] Removing DNS information from /sbin/resolvconf
Dec 19 21:56:05 luka dnsmasq[2210]: setting upstream servers from DBus
Dec 19 21:56:05 luka dbus[584]: [system] Activating service name='org.freedesktop.nm_dispatcher' (using servicehelper)
Dec 19 21:56:06 luka kernel: [ 2855.862901] usb 1-1.3.2: USB disconnect, device number 8
Dec 19 21:56:06 luka kernel: [ 2855.864109] usb 1-1.3.3: USB disconnect, device number 9
Dec 19 21:56:06 luka bluetoothd[624]: Adapter /org/bluez/624/hci0 has been disabled
Dec 19 21:56:06 luka bluetoothd[624]: Unregister path: /org/bluez/624/hci0
Dec 19 21:56:06 luka bluetoothd[624]: Endpoint unregistered: sender=:1.55 path=/MediaEndpoint/A2DPSink
Dec 19 21:56:06 luka bluetoothd[624]: Endpoint unregistered: sender=:1.55 path=/MediaEndpoint/A2DPSource
Dec 19 21:56:06 luka bluetoothd[624]: Endpoint unregistered: sender=:1.55 path=/MediaEndpoint/HFPAG
Dec 19 21:56:06 luka bluetoothd[624]: Endpoint unregistered: sender=:1.55 path=/MediaEndpoint/HFPHS

What's interesting is rfkill detecting that my WiFi was hard blocked (disabled by a hardware switch), but my laptop doesn't have a hardware switch for disabling wireless and a reboot didn't help at all.

I had run a system update a few hours before and saw from /var/log/apt-history.log that apt had updated the network-manager-gnome package, that could well have been the cause so I rolled back....

I was currently running version 0.9.8.0-1ubuntu5.1

# dpkg -l | grep network-manager-gnome
ii  network-manager-gnome                       0.9.8.0-1ubuntu5.1                        amd64        network management framework (GNOME frontend)

I checked what versions were available to me..

# apt-cache showpkg network-manager-gnome | grep -A 10 "Provides"
Provides: 
0.9.8.0-1ubuntu5.1 - 
0.9.8.0-1ubuntu5 - 
Reverse Provides: 

And then downgraded, it seems that libnm-gtk0 is a dependency so it had to be downgraded as well...

# apt-get install network-manager-gnome=0.9.8.0-1ubuntu5 libnm-gtk0=0.9.8.0-1ubuntu5
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
...
...
Setting up network-manager-gnome (0.9.8.0-1ubuntu5) ...
Processing triggers for libc-bin ...

I rebooted my machine and I had wireless back again, I'm not sure if the update caused the issue as wifi was working fine for a couple of hours after the update, but rolling back seemed to fix it. I don fancy trying an upgrade to the same package again to test it. I'll leave those updates to see if another one is shortly release. Worth a try if you get the same issue...

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