wicd hangs, freezing the entire system

scott_fakename · 2012-08-15 06:59:38

Hi everybody.

So, i just installed Arch on my laptop, and everything went fine, more or less. during the installation process, i was using the manual connection method using netcfg which works pretty well. but once i got a desktop manager installed and working (LXDE, in case it matters which i doubt), i thought it would be nice to have a gui front end to make things quicker.

i installed and then network manager (nm applet et al) but there were a bunch of issues so i just uninstalled it and got wicd.

wicd works mostly, but it VERY frequently hangs the system. when i boot up into a gui, it freezes entirely for a few seconds, but then unfreezes again and i'm able to log in. if i open the gui tray thing for it and ask it to scan, disconnect from all, or connect, four times out of five the CPU usage will skyrocket to a hundred percent and i wont even be able to move the mouse or switch to a virtual terminal and i have to power down with the physical switch.

the (/var/log/wicd/wicd.log) shows nothing interesting when its doing that but when i reboot it has a line "Exception KeyError(140400652642048,) in <module 'threading' from '/usr/lib/python2.7/threading.pyo'> ignored". probably nothing.

if i take it out of my daemons array everything is fine. i can connect without it using only the wireless tools package but it would be nice to have it working.

sorry for the long post. anybody know anything about this? the problem also happens when i use wicdcurses too, so it's not just the frontend.

joseperezc · 2012-08-15 17:29:37

have you tried lxnm?

scott_fakename · 2012-08-17 08:04:07

In the end, i dont really need a gui front end (one of the reasons i was trying wicd was that it has a cli), so i just went back to netcfg. I just thought, this is such a major problem on my system, i wonder if others have experienced this? is there a way to fix it? not really a big deal, though, with so many other options to choose from. i was just wondering if i was alone.

no problem.

joseperezc · 2012-08-18 18:13:05

This is maybe unrelated:
But today I found this: https://www.archlinux.org/packages/extr … icant_gui/
A qt gui for wpa_supplicant.
At least it could solve the wpa part

about wicd, i don't use it since i moved to systemd but I remember that when a button in the gui is used, wicd disables it as a part of normal function until it finish the previous order.

Even with an atom doesn't go for the 100% in my case.
So what hardware are you using?

flan_suse · 2012-09-18 20:50:57

What wireless chipset do you have? I noticed the same freezes happening on my system recently, and suspected Wicd. I replaced Wicd with NetworkManager, but the problem still persists.

My guess is that it has something to do with the kernel + wireless chipset + wireless driver.

I'm going to try the LTS kernel and see if it makes a difference.

These are serious freezes; nothing to laugh about.

On the same machine, I never had such a freeze under Ubuntu 10.04, and still do not. But under Arch Linux, I've recently been suffering through these major freezes when using wireless.

scott_fakename · 2012-09-18 22:14:08

realteck (spelling is wrong) 8188 is the card. i think i was using nm-applet for a very brief while, but it didnt work either (wouldnt connect to wireless) so instead of dealing with it i just went to netcfg, which works quite well indeed.

as for the freezes, occasionally i would be able to get top open before it happened and it said that wicd was using obscene amounts of CPU time right before the system locked up. for whatever that's worth. not much, really. yeah i've never known a linux machine to crash in that way before.

anyway, i would suggest, if you're down with command lines, that you might give netcfg a try for a while. i cant really call that a solution to the problem, but it did work for me and i didnt have to do anything with new kernels or the like.

good luck

flan_suse · 2012-10-14 15:41:24

Just an update from before.

I think we may be facing different problems. Here is what I've discovered:

* Whether using Wicd or NetworkManager, the system freezes upon enabling wireless after I resume from suspend.
* The LTS kernel makes no difference.
* Adding the modules to SUSPEND_MODULES makes no difference.
* I don't recall this happening under kernel 3.4.x, only 3.5.x. Perhaps it is only kernel-related? (But why would the problem still exist under the LTS kernel?)
* This does not happen under Ubuntu 10.04. Ever.

Last edited by flan_suse (2012-10-14 15:41:42)

flan_suse · 2012-10-17 16:44:29

I updated my system to kernel 3.6.x today and so far it seems the issue of wireless + freezing is gone. I'm crossing my fingers...

I've tried over an over again to get my system to freeze with kernel 3.6.2, and so far I have not been able to. Time will tell. My head hurts.

Last edited by flan_suse (2012-10-17 16:44:50)

ackt1c · 2012-10-23 08:16:05

NetworkManager -> Gnome/Consolekit
Wicd -> GTK/Python

I think...

Arch Linux

#1 2012-08-15 06:59:38

wicd hangs, freezing the entire system

#2 2012-08-15 17:29:37

Re: wicd hangs, freezing the entire system

#3 2012-08-17 08:04:07

Re: wicd hangs, freezing the entire system

#4 2012-08-18 18:13:05

Re: wicd hangs, freezing the entire system

#5 2012-09-18 20:50:57

Re: wicd hangs, freezing the entire system

#6 2012-09-18 22:14:08

Re: wicd hangs, freezing the entire system

#7 2012-10-14 15:41:24

Re: wicd hangs, freezing the entire system

#8 2012-10-17 16:44:29

Re: wicd hangs, freezing the entire system

#9 2012-10-23 08:16:05

Re: wicd hangs, freezing the entire system

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