Arch Linux

Cadeyrn

Member

Registered: 2013-04-06

Posts: 170

NetworkManager doesn't work until I use nmcli

Really weird issue. I just got a new laptop and installed XFCE onto it and set up NetworkManager, including network-manager-applet and xfce4-notifyd. I know my setup works because I copied the package files and /home config files from another computer. However, every time I boot up my computer, NetworkManager appears to be broken, but without any error messages. At first I thought it was that common GTK bug where the icon just refuses to show up, but no. As soon as I use nmcli to manually connect to something (even though some of my connections are supposed to automatically connect in the first place), the icon shows up as if it was there all along, and works forever until the next time I shutdown and boot it up. I did not forget to enable NetworkManager.service and make sure dhcpcd.service is disabled.

Last edited by Cadeyrn (2015-01-06 04:34:23)

Head_on_a_Stick

Member

From: The Wirral

Registered: 2014-02-20

Posts: 9,003

Website

Re: NetworkManager doesn't work until I use nmcli

Is there anything in journalctl or dmesg relating to your network interfaces or NetworkManager?

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Jin, Jîyan, Azadî

Cadeyrn

Member

Registered: 2013-04-06

Posts: 170

Re: NetworkManager doesn't work until I use nmcli

As soon as I started trying to check, now my laptop suddenly doesn't have this problem anymore. I guess if it keeps working for a while I'll mark this SOLVED, but I won't hold my breath, because it also spent a few minutes not having this problem before the first time.

Maybe a related issue is that shutting down my system through XFCE or through shutdown -h now results in a reboot, but using the poweroff command or shutdown -hP 0 works fine. I don't know. From what I've seen, that issue is extremely common and has a million different causes, most of which have yet to be discovered, but maybe it's related to this.

Cadeyrn

Member

Registered: 2013-04-06

Posts: 170

Re: NetworkManager doesn't work until I use nmcli

OK, the problem is still at large, and I think I narrowed it down a little: it happens when I boot my computer in class, but not at home. The major difference in Wi-Fi there is that at home, it's set to automatically connect to a shared network from my desktop, but in class, it's set to automatically connect to eduroam (as in WPA2-Enterprise, PEAP, MSCHAPv2, including username/password and a security certificate).

Raynman

Member

Registered: 2011-10-22

Posts: 1,539

Re: NetworkManager doesn't work until I use nmcli

The password is typically stored in the keyring through nm-applet. Is the applet running (started automatically?), even when you do not (yet) see the icon? Does its stderr get logged somewhere (xorg/xsession log maybe; or else start it manually from a terminal or something to see if that gives you any hints)?

Cadeyrn

Member

Registered: 2013-04-06

Posts: 170

Re: NetworkManager doesn't work until I use nmcli

nm-applet is always running properly at boot, and I don't know where it logs its errors, if there is a place for that. I do know that when I run it manually from the Terminal, it doesn't output anything at all.

Last edited by Cadeyrn (2015-01-08 16:05:17)