[Pkg-utopia-maintainers] Bug#361207: disconnect right after successful connect

[Erich Schubert]

Package: network-manager
Version: 0.6.5-4

>From time to time, network-manager starts freaking out on my connection.
I'm connected to a WPA encrypted wireless network, at around 50% link
strength, with the ipw3945 drivers.

Sometimes, the wireless connection dies, and usually after 3-4
reconnects it's stable again. But every now and then, it won't
reconnect. Actually it does reconnect (the pop up ballon appears), but
disconnects again right away. Not as in a lost connection, where it
would show the 'connecting' icon, but actually switch into the
disconnected mode.
Flipping the kill switch, disabling network manager, didn't help.
After restarting network-manager, the connection worked on first try.

Here's the relevant part of the log:
---
Dec 28 23:37:56 [NetworkManager] <info>  Retrieved the following IP4
configuration from the DHCP daemon:_
Dec 28 23:37:56 [NetworkManager] <info>    address 192.168.178.25_
[...]
Dec 28 23:37:57 [NetworkManager] <info>  Activation (wifi0) Finish
handler scheduled._
Dec 28 23:37:57 [NetworkManager] <info>  Activation (wifi0) Stage 5 of 5
(IP Configure Commit) complete._
Dec 28 23:37:57 [NetworkManager] <info>  Activation (wifi0) successful,
device activated._
Dec 28 23:37:57 [NetworkManager] <info>  SWITCH: terminating current
connection 'wifi0' because it's no longer valid._
Dec 28 23:37:57 [NetworkManager] <info>  Deactivating device wifi0._
Dec 28 23:37:57 [dhclient] There is already a pid
file /var/run/dhclient.wifi0.pid with pid 24992
Dec 28 23:37:57 [dhclient] killed old client process, removed PID file
Dec 28 23:37:57 [dhclient] DHCPRELEASE on wifi0 to 192.168.178.1 port 67
[...]
Dec 28 23:37:58 [NetworkManager] nm_device_is_802_3_ethernet: assertion
`dev != NULL' failed
Dec 28 23:37:58 [NetworkManager] nm_device_is_802_11_wireless: assertion
`dev != NULL' failed
---
As you can see, it decides after successfully connecting, that the
device is "no longer valid", running into assertion failures later on.

Same symptoms as in
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=454697
which however was closed without action.
Bug in Ubuntu:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/network-manager/+bug/124706
in SuSE:
https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=330995

Tons of reports via Google.
http://www.google.de/search?q=network-manager+because-it%27s-no-longer-valid

There are some hints that it's actually caused by a bug in the wireless
driver (but why did a nm restart help?). I'm using 1.2.2, which is the
latest released version of the ipw3945 driver. I didn't try the iwlwifi
driver yet.

--- System information. ---
Architecture: i386
Kernel:       Linux 2.6.23.9

Debian Release: lenny/sid
  500 unstable        www.debian-multimedia.org 
  500 unstable        ftp.de.debian.org 
    1 experimental    ftp.de.debian.org 

--- Package information. ---
Depends                   (Version) | Installed
===================================-+-===============
adduser                             | 3.105
dbus                      (>= 0.60) | 1.1.2-1
dhcdbd                  (>= 1.12-2) | 3.0-1
hal                    (>= 0.5.7.1) | 0.5.10-4
ifupdown                            | 0.6.8
iproute                             | 20071016-2
iputils-arping                      | 3:20071127-1
libc6                    (>= 2.7-1) | 2.7-5
libdbus-1-3              (>= 1.1.1) | 1.1.2-1
libdbus-glib-1-2          (>= 0.74) | 0.74-1
libgcrypt11              (>= 1.4.0) | 1.4.0-2
libglib2.0-0            (>= 2.14.0) | 2.14.4-2
libgpg-error0              (>= 1.4) | 1.4-2
libhal1                 (>= 0.5.10) | 0.5.10-4
libiw29              (>= 28+29pre7) | 29-1
libnl1-pre8                         | 1.0~pre8-1
libnm-util0                         | 0.6.5-4
lsb-base                 (>= 2.0-6) | 3.1-24
wpasupplicant            (>= 0.4.8) | 0.6.1~git20071119-1

best regards,
Erich Schubert
-- 
   erich@(vitavonni.de|debian.org)    --    GPG Key ID: 4B3A135C    (o_
            Reality continues to ruin my life --- Calvin            //\
       Es gibt kein idiotensicheres Programm, weil Idioten so       V_/_
                     genial sind. -- E. Murphy