Arch Linux

xihu0208

Member

Registered: 2020-06-14

Posts: 7

[SOLVED] nm-applet opens file manager when asking for password

Whenever I connect to a new wifi through nm-applet, it prompts me to the file explorer instead of an input box asking for a password. Because of that, I've been using nmcli for a while... But I have had enough of this and want to know how to solve that, I feel like it has to be something very trivial that I'm missing. Tried my luck with the search engine but didn't find much; any help would be appreciated.

This is the output of the nm-applet whenever I connect to a new wifi:

nm-applet-Message: 23:11:51.864: No keyring secrets found for XXXX; asking user.

Last edited by xihu0208 (2022-11-13 02:41:54)

ulidtko

Member

Registered: 2013-05-11

Posts: 10

Re: [SOLVED] nm-applet opens file manager when asking for password

Hi! What's the desktop environment?

Do you have a keyring service running, e.g. gnome-keyring-daemon ? Try seahorse to explore that keyring; network-manager will store your wifi keys in there.

Probably, once you get the keyring functioning correctly, the "asking user" part will go away.

xihu0208

Member

Registered: 2020-06-14

Posts: 7

Re: [SOLVED] nm-applet opens file manager when asking for password

Thanks for the suggestion! I'm running X11 and using gnome-keyring as my keyring service. From my previous experience, things should work out-of-box.. At least my skype is using the keyring normally.
I can find my default keyring at `~/.local/share/keyrings`, but I cannot choose the file in the file explorer nm-applet gives to me --- seems like nm-applet doesn't have the permission.

Also, I want to mention some extra details about the issue: nm-applet keeps popping up the file explorer when a password is required; if I keep closing the file explorer, eventually, it will pop me an input box asking for a password.

I'll try to read through the wiki tonight and see if I'm missing anything.

xihu0208

Member

Registered: 2020-06-14

Posts: 7

Re: [SOLVED] nm-applet opens file manager when asking for password

Hi!

1. I tried following the wiki and setting up the gnome-keyring, but the issue still exists. I believed gnome-keyring was setup properly because Skype used the keyring without issue.

2. From my understanding, nm should still store the password at `/etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/` even without gnome-keyring. This is the case for me; I can see all my previous connections stored in that folder. I used to have an arch installation without gnome-keyring, and it did not prevent nm-applet from prompting a proper popup asking for a password.

So I removed gnome-keyring completely, deleted all my keyring files and rebooted the system. After making sure `pgrep -f gnome-keyring-daemon` returns nothing, the issue still exists: nm-applet keeps popping up a file manager. After closing it multiple times, it eventually gives me a proper popup. And the password is eventually saved at `/etc/NetworkManager/system-connections`

Also the file explorer nm-applets gave to me is useless. It does not allow me to select any file, only browsing through different folders.

shako

Member

Registered: 2021-11-16

Posts: 50

Re: [SOLVED] nm-applet opens file manager when asking for password

Hi @xihu0208. Maybe it's unrelated, but I recently was unable to use nm-connection-editor (which is a dependency of nm-applet), which kept on failing while editing connections. Details here. The problem disappeared today with an upgrade of libnma, libnma-common and libnma-gtk4 after a database refresh. Have you already tried this?

Last edited by shako (2022-11-10 13:36:15)

xihu0208

Member

Registered: 2020-06-14

Posts: 7

Re: [SOLVED] nm-applet opens file manager when asking for password

Hi @xihu0208. Maybe it's unrelated, but I recently was unable to use nm-connection-editor (which is a dependency of nm-applet), which kept on failing while editing connections. Details here. The problem disappeared today with an upgrade of libnma, libnma-common and libnma-gtk4 after a database refresh. Have you already tried this?

That's precisely it! Thanks for this. Marked as resolved.