Question Mark on top of my Wifi-Icon

Tyskr · 2019-12-12 09:32:19

Hey guys!

I've run into a problem:

There is a question mark on my wifi-symbol. I'm sure you guys are familiar with this. I've found several treads describing this problem on the internet, yet they didn't help in my case. There is a thread here on the Arch forums in which people suggested to downgrade curl. I did that, it didn't solve he problem and I reverted the curl downgrade.

I have Network Manager and network-manager-applet-indicator installed. I'm using a VPN (expressVPN) if that is of any help. It is a Remote Access VPN if I'm not mistaken.

I also have netctl and dhcpcd installed. Being a total noob still, I don't even know exactly what these do.

$ systemctl list-unit-files --state=enabled

autovt@.service                                                
dbus-org.freedesktop.nm-dispatcher.service    
display-manager.service                                   
expressvpn.service                                           
gdm.service                                                      
getty@.service                                                 
NetworkManager-dispatcher.service                
NetworkManager-wait-online.service               
NetworkManager.service                                 
remote-fs.target

The question mark appears with both ethernet and wlan.

The '?' isn't immediately there, it pops up after a minute or so.

As of now I don't know how to provide anymore useful information about my system and the problem.

Slithery · 2019-12-12 09:50:38

What wi-fi symbol? Which WM/DE/taskbar etc are you running?

Tyskr · 2019-12-12 10:45:13

I'm using Gnome 3.
No specific taskbar.

V1del · 2019-12-12 13:24:01

Networkmanager pings a specific Arch URI, can you access that from your connectoin? http://www.archlinux.org/check_network_status.txt

Also since you have expressvpn explicitly enabled as a service, did you configure the VPN connection within an NM context or do you just connect to normal wifi and enable the service? It could be that networkmanager cannot properly asses connection state because you didn't set up the VPN connection via it's own facilities.

Last edited by V1del (2019-12-12 13:27:03)

Tyskr · 2019-12-12 18:41:13

Networkmanager pings a specific Arch URI, can you access that from your connectoin? http://www.archlinux.org/check_network_status.txt

404 - Page Not Found

Also since you have expressvpn explicitly enabled as a service, did you configure the VPN connection within an NM context or do you just connect to normal wifi and enable the service? It could be that networkmanager cannot properly asses connection state because you didn't set up the VPN connection via it's own facilities.

I just connect to normal wifi and enable the service.

seth · 2019-12-12 21:31:05

% curl http://www.archlinux.org/check_network_status.txt
NetworkManager is online
% curl https://www.archlinux.org/check_network_status.txt
# yields the 404 page

Tyskr · 2019-12-13 08:52:24

seth wrote:

% curl http://www.archlinux.org/check_network_status.txt
NetworkManager is online

This worked for me.

seth · 2019-12-13 08:55:17

https://git.archlinux.org/svntogit/pack … orkmanager

  install -Dm644 /dev/stdin "$pkgdir/usr/lib/NetworkManager/conf.d/20-connectivity.conf" <<END
[connectivity]
uri=http://www.archlinux.org/check_network_status.txt
END

Check the file on your system.

(nb. my networkmanager installation works as intended. It doesn't use any disk space and doesn't mess around w/ my network config - ie. I don't use it ;-)

Tyskr · 2019-12-13 11:14:58

seth wrote:

https://git.archlinux.org/svntogit/pack … orkmanager
  install -Dm644 /dev/stdin "$pkgdir/usr/lib/NetworkManager/conf.d/20-connectivity.conf" <<END
[connectivity]
uri=http://www.archlinux.org/check_network_status.txt
END
Check the file on your system.

Can you elaborate on how to do that?

seth · 2019-12-13 12:33:18

cat /usr/lib/NetworkManager/conf.d/20-connectivity.conf

What distribution do you use?

Tyskr · 2019-12-13 21:20:25

seth wrote:

cat /usr/lib/NetworkManager/conf.d/20-connectivity.conf
What distribution do you use?

I'm using Arch Linux.

seth · 2019-12-13 21:21:28

And you don't know how to look into a file?

Let's pretend I buy that: what is in that file?

Tyskr · 2019-12-13 21:31:04

seth wrote:

And you don't know how to look into a file?

I know how to cat into a file, it just wasn't clear to me with the 'install Dm644 /dev/stdin' in front. Sorry.

seth wrote:

Let's pretend I buy that: what is in that file?

[connectivity]
uri=http://www.archlinux.org/check_network_status.txt

^ content of that .conf file.

seth · 2019-12-13 21:55:31

Ok, that's the proper URI and you confirmed that you can fetch it, so if that question mark is supposed to indicate a broken connection depending on that URI, there's either a bug in NM or that particular systray implementation.

NM is notoriously chatty, so you could check the journal.

Tyskr · 2019-12-16 18:53:59

audit: type=1131 audit(1576521848.824:87): pid=1 uid=0 auid=4294967295 ses=4294967295 msg='unit=NetworkManager-dispatcher comm="systemd" exe="/usr/lib/systemd/systemd" hostname=? addr=? terminal=? res=success'

journalctl was showing even more, but I got suspicious when I saw the question marks and copied that part to show you guys.

$ nmcli g

STATE                  CONNECTIVITY  WIFI-HW  WIFI     WWAN-HW  WWAN    
connected (site only)  limited       enabled  enabled  enabled  enabled

Last edited by Tyskr (2019-12-16 19:04:13)

seth · 2019-12-16 20:07:24

That line just says that systemd started the NetworkManager-dispatcher service. It doesn't really indicate anything.
The question marks there are placeholders (obfuscation of private data, I assume) in the audit log.

Tyskr · 2019-12-20 16:44:16

Tried several things in the meantime, but to no avail.

V1del · 2019-12-20 17:09:02

This is likely similar to [1] and your resolv.conf and/or DNS being clobbered by the expressvpn service you are starting here that confuses NM since it breaks it's assumptions about the initial connection, either switch to a networkmanager native vpn plugin if possible, change the resolv rules (and/or add your routers ip as a nameserver) or live with the question mark if nothing else gets borked through it.

[1] https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=251483

Last edited by V1del (2019-12-20 17:13:16)

Maniaxx · 2019-12-20 17:15:48

Does the icon change properly if you disable the network?
Try to set another Gnome theme or icon set to see if it has same issues. Maybe its an icon cache issue or something.

Tyskr · 2019-12-20 19:44:24

V1del wrote:

This is likely similar to [1] and your resolv.conf and/or DNS being clobbered by the expressvpn service you are starting here that confuses NM since it breaks it's assumptions about the initial connection, either switch to a networkmanager native vpn plugin if possible, change the resolv rules (and/or add your routers ip as a nameserver) or live with the question mark if nothing else gets borked through it.
[1] https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=251483

Interesting. When I'm not using the VPN, the question mark won't show up. So it's most likely a Express VPN issue.

I have never touched the resolv.conf and I have honestly absolutely no clue what if have to do, even after reading the wiki page. Can you help me?

Tyskr · 2019-12-26 15:00:04

I edited my resolv.conf and added 3 DNS:

8.8.8.8
8.8.4.4
1.1.1.1

After a reboot for example, my resolv.conf always had been overwritten. It would change to my localdomain.

Then I did

chattr +i /etc/resolv.conf

and it kept the changes in resolv.conf.

When I try to connect to expressvpn, it won't connect me. When I try to connect, it goes to 25%, 60%, 80% and starts from zero all over again. Infinite loop.

When I make the resolv.conf writeable again, the vpn will connect, but I can't ping anything and no connection is established.

//Edit

Can connect to WiFi again, question mark still there tho.

Last edited by Tyskr (2019-12-27 16:19:21)

Tyskr · 2019-12-27 17:17:54

If I do

 
ls -l /etc

it says

resolv.conf -> /var/lib/expressvpn/resolv.conf

Does this mean that expressvpn is managing my resolv.conf?

ewaller · 2019-12-27 17:19:54

Yes. Specifically, /etc/resolv.conf is naught but a soft link to /var/lib/expressvpn/resolv.conf. IOW, that file is your /etc/resolv.conf.

Tyskr · 2019-12-27 18:22:43

ewaller wrote:

Yes. Specifically, /etc/resolv.conf is naught but a soft link to /var/lib/expressvpn/resolv.conf. IOW, that file is your /etc/resolv.conf.

Do you have any idea how to modify my /var/lib/expressvpn/resolv.conf so that NetworkManager is not confused by my vpn? Just trying things out here to solve my problem.

seth · 2019-12-27 20:34:44

No idea, but did you read https://www.expressvpn.com/de/support/v … h-openvpn/ ?

Arch Linux

#1 2019-12-12 09:32:19

Question Mark on top of my Wifi-Icon

#2 2019-12-12 09:50:38

Re: Question Mark on top of my Wifi-Icon

#3 2019-12-12 10:45:13

Re: Question Mark on top of my Wifi-Icon

#4 2019-12-12 13:24:01

Re: Question Mark on top of my Wifi-Icon

#5 2019-12-12 18:41:13

Re: Question Mark on top of my Wifi-Icon

#6 2019-12-12 21:31:05

Re: Question Mark on top of my Wifi-Icon

#7 2019-12-13 08:52:24

Re: Question Mark on top of my Wifi-Icon

#8 2019-12-13 08:55:17

Re: Question Mark on top of my Wifi-Icon

#9 2019-12-13 11:14:58

Re: Question Mark on top of my Wifi-Icon

#10 2019-12-13 12:33:18

Re: Question Mark on top of my Wifi-Icon

#11 2019-12-13 21:20:25

Re: Question Mark on top of my Wifi-Icon

#12 2019-12-13 21:21:28

Re: Question Mark on top of my Wifi-Icon

#13 2019-12-13 21:31:04

Re: Question Mark on top of my Wifi-Icon

#14 2019-12-13 21:55:31

Re: Question Mark on top of my Wifi-Icon

#15 2019-12-16 18:53:59

Re: Question Mark on top of my Wifi-Icon

#16 2019-12-16 20:07:24

Re: Question Mark on top of my Wifi-Icon

#17 2019-12-20 16:44:16

Re: Question Mark on top of my Wifi-Icon

#18 2019-12-20 17:09:02

Re: Question Mark on top of my Wifi-Icon

#19 2019-12-20 17:15:48

Re: Question Mark on top of my Wifi-Icon

#20 2019-12-20 19:44:24

Re: Question Mark on top of my Wifi-Icon

#21 2019-12-26 15:00:04

Re: Question Mark on top of my Wifi-Icon

#22 2019-12-27 17:17:54

Re: Question Mark on top of my Wifi-Icon

#23 2019-12-27 17:19:54

Re: Question Mark on top of my Wifi-Icon

#24 2019-12-27 18:22:43

Re: Question Mark on top of my Wifi-Icon

#25 2019-12-27 20:34:44

Re: Question Mark on top of my Wifi-Icon

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