Network Manager GNOME Applet doesn't show wireless networks

I forgot to mention, this is with the latest hardy updates as of 4/13. (I had upgraded from Gutsy.)

Well, never mind - sorry to bother everyone. It started working again after I switched from knetworkmanager back to nm-applet.

Embarrassingly, the problem may have been that I don't remember left-clicking on the notification icon. If that was the problem, it's either a huge usability issue, an extreme "duh" moment... or a little of both. =)

This problem is happening to me. NetworkManager in my notebook doesn't show the list of wireless connections.

Ubuntu 8.04 here.

Can you try some of the commands that I tried above and paste the output?

Mike,
sorry not answering sooner. Here goes my outputs: (some of them did not show the same stuff as yours; as I'm not so fluent in Linux commands, please, don't care about my flaw, and please, you can tell me how to do it better, as I really want to learn more about it, ok?)

== lshw output
*-network
                description: Wireless interface
                product: PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection
                vendor: Intel Corporation
                physical id: 0
                bus info: pci@0000:02:00.0
                logical name: wmaster0
                version: 02
                serial: 00:1b:77:b5:27:42
                width: 32 bits
                clock: 33MHz
                capabilities: bus_master cap_list logical ethernet physical wireless
                configuration: broadcast=yes driver=iwl3945 latency=0 module=iwl3945 multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11g

== lspci output
02:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection (rev 02)

== iwconfig
wlan0 IEEE 802.11g ESSID:"" Nickname:""
          Mode:Managed Frequency:2.412 GHz Access Point: Not-Associated
          Tx-Power=27 dBm
          Retry min limit:7 RTS thr:off Fragment thr=2346 B
          Power Management:off
          Link Quality:0 Signal level:0 Noise level:0
          Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
          Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

== iwlist scan
wlan0 No scan results

== nm-tool
NetworkManager Tool

State: connected

- Device: eth0 ----------------------------------------------------------------
  NM Path: /org/freedesktop/NetworkManager/Devices/eth0
  Type: Wired
  Driver: r8169
  Active: yes
  HW Address: 00:90:F5:5D:66:F8

  Capabilities:
    Supported: yes
    Carrier Detect: yes
    Speed: 1000 Mb/s

  Wired Settings
    Hardware Link: yes

  IP Settings:
    IP Address: 10.3.68.71
    Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0
    Broadcast: 10.3.68.255
    Gateway: 10.3.68.254
    Primary DNS: 10.3.19.2
    Secondary DNS: 10.3.19.1

- Device: wlan0 ----------------------------------------------------------------
  NM Path: /org/freedesktop/NetworkManager/Devices/wlan0
  Type: 802.11 Wireless
  Driver: iwl3945
  Active: no
  HW Address: 00:1B:77:B5:27:42

  Capabilities:
    Supported: yes

  Wireless Settings
    Scanning: yes
    WEP Encryption: yes
    WPA Encryption: yes
    WPA2 Encryption: yes

  Wireless Networks (* = Current Network)

=================================

Again,
I'm at clients office now, and looking at my friends notebook (with Windows XP) there are 3 APs available, and my Network Manager shows none. I'm cable connected, of course.

Thanks!

To add more:
there's another friend here running Ubuntu 8.04, with Network Manager installed, using a Toshiba Satellite A105S, and he sees the 3 access points.

Sorry, I didn't post all the additional parameters I used to get those outputs. Some of those commands take a "-v" for "verbose" output.

Also, I think "iwlist scan" seems to work better when running it as root. Try "sudo iwlist scan" and see if you get any access points?

From what I've seen so far it looks like you just aren't seeing any networks... the other thing you might try is check if there is a switch or button for turning your wireless card on or off. Make sure it's enabled, and you can also use the "dmesg" command to see if there is any output regarding your wireless card. I believe when you press that button you may also see some output that indicates if the driver thinks you are turning the card on or off.

Ok, Mike, so let's add -v for those that makes difference, and we get:

== sudo lspci -v
02:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection (rev 02)
 Subsystem: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection
 Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 219
 Memory at d4000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
 Capabilities: [c8] Power Management version 2
 Capabilities: [d0] Message Signalled Interrupts: Mask- 64bit+ Queue=0/0 Enable+
 Capabilities: [e0] Express Legacy Endpoint IRQ 0

== iwconfig -v (different output!!)
iwconfig Wireless-Tools version 29
          Compatible with Wireless Extension v11 to v22.

Kernel Currently compiled with Wireless Extension v22.

wlan0 Recommend Wireless Extension v21 or later,
          Currently compiled with Wireless Extension v22.

Typing "sudo iwlist scan" showed me the same output as without sudo, i. e., "wlan0 No scan results".

Yes, there's a key for turnning on/off the wireless in my notebook. I tried it and it turned the wireless off, as left clicking over nm-applet did not show me the wireless connection possibility anymore. So I turned it on again and the option for wireless connection was back there in nm-applet, but again, no APs listed.

I think that the new iwconfig output maybe is a clue. But, to be honest, I did not understand it that much.

Is there anything else I can execute here for your analisys?

Thanks for your help and attention,
Claudio.

Sorry, I'm out of ideas. Maybe someone else can suggest something...

Mike,
the status is set to "Solved". Maybe this might be changed to some kind of an "open" bug.

How does this kind of thing happens? I'm sorry I don't know how to do this kind of thing here.

Thanks,
Claudio.

Reopening since Claudio still needs help troubleshooting the same issue.

Claudio- first of all, iwconfig -v is giving you "different output!!" because the -v flag for iwconfig is version not verbose. Also, well.. check if there a physical switch on the outside of the laptop that controls power to the wireless card and is turned off. I can't tell you how often this is the problem.

Reopening because I think Claudio has already tried this. ("Yes, there's a key for turnning on/off the wireless in my notebook. I tried it and it turned the wireless off, as left clicking over nm-applet did not show me the wireless connection possibility anymore. So I turned it on again and the option for wireless connection was back there in nm-applet, but again, no APs listed" above)

To me, if all of the following are true:
1. The iwlist scan and nm-tool both report no networks (check)
2. The card is physically switched on, and turned on in software (check)

... then it's likely either a hardware or a driver problem. The questions I would ask are:

1. Did this wireless card ever work, using a diferent operating system?
2. How do we know if the card is known to be supported? (Clearly the driver *thinks* it's supported, but should we try to verify that assumption?)

Mike-
The reason I specifically said "physical switch" is because many laptops have a separate hardware switch for turning off power to wireless antennas, for FAA regulations and such. My Thinkpad has a power switch on the front that will disconnect wifi and bluetooth as well as a function KEY (fn-f5) that allows you to control those features in software. Just making sure that this isn't the case for Claudio.

Hi all!

Candle Jack,
no, in my notebook there's not a physical switch for turning on/off the wifi. Just the FN-F11. Yesterday I search for this problem over the net and found something about the "rf_kill" file. It contents here is with "0", and cannot be updated with gEdit, for example, although I can open it as sudo.

Then I noticed that when I type Fn-F11 to toggle the wifi, the "rf_file" turned it contents to "2". Typing again Fn-F11, back to "0" went this file. Ok, so (based on what I read in my researches) this is fine, and my wifi is turning on/off as far as I type my Fn-F11 key. And also my wifi LED in front of the notebook turns on/off as well.

I understood that "kill switch" is off when the wifi is on, and I command this by the Fn-F11 key.

Mike,
when I bought this notebook it came with Windows Vista, but I really didn't even used it for a second: just installed Ubuntu formatting it's harddrive. So, I really don't know if another OS could have this issue functioning ok.

But, the wifi is not the problem. It works. I just can't see, by left clicking over nm-applet icon, a list of APs available. If I choose in this nm-applet context menu to "connect in another wireless net" (don't know if in english is this text), I can type the SSID, password, and so on, and the AP is shown and I can access that especific AP I choose. The other's I can't see.

But, sometimes, as I connect to a known (to me) wireless AP, the others appears within the nm-applet context menu.

I tried some other applications, as SWScanner (it hangs when I chosse to scan my wlan0), gtkwifi, prismstumbler, wavemon, and none of then seens to be aware of the APs around me.

I read some stuff about the iwl3945 driver, (http://www.intellinuxwireless.org/?p=iwlwifi&n=downloads , http://intellinuxwireless.org/) and I understood that it's under maintanance. I'm I right?

Well, again, I appreciate the help of you both!
Regards,
Claudio.

This may sound strange, but try a *COLD* reboot.

I just had a problem where my wireless card was acting very similar to yours, when it was working fine yesterday. A reboot did not fix the problem, nor did trying an older kernel+module.

I turned off my laptop, flipped it over, removed the battery, and waited a few seconds for everything to discharge. Then I put it back in and restarted it, and everything has been fine since.

While I had the system rebooting, I also checked my BIOS - there is an option to enable/disable wireless in there as well. You might check that as well, though I doubt it would ship to you like that. (and I doubt you would have turned it off on purpose!)

Mike,
I tried what you suggested, but it did not work for me. I've already been through my BIOS setting and there's no toggle option for the wireless setup, only the Fn-F11 key (wich works fine, that is, toggles on/off the wifi).

Ok, so I think that there is no solution here. I don't know if it is a hardware, firmware or software problem. I know that it works when I choose to mannually set a wirelles connection, then type it's properties. This means that the card is ok.

The only thing that not work fine is the wifi sensibility to the APs presence.

Thanks for the help!
Best regards,
Claudio.

I have been through this post problem not solved my wireless is ok with vista and xp and if i set it up manualy works ok but shows no wireless networks nm-applet 0.6.6 is installed on Ubuntu 8.04 toshiba a100 seems a popular problem any way to solf this ?
Fred

Note, this bug also affected me (on Jaunty):

https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/network-manager/+question/29742

I had to remove and re-add the kernel module for the wireless card and press the kill switch while the module was unloaded to get my wireless connection back today...