Description of problem: NetworkManager is not able to initiate a wifi connection (ipw3945d) to a WEP-protected access point on initial boot. A supplemental restart of ipw3945d and NetworkManager is required. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): ipw3945-firmware-1.13-1 dkms-ipw3945-1.1.3-2 ipw3945d-1.7.22-3 NetworkManager-0.6.4-5.fc6 knetworkmanager-0.1-0.5.svn20061113.fc6 How reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. Enable services on boot: ipw3945d, NetworkManger 2. Disable wifi interface on boot (ONBOOT=no in ifcfg-XXX) 3. Disable kudzu so that it doesn't regenerate ifcfg-XXX files 4. Boot system 5. Log in using KDE 6. Start knetworkmanager (possibly automatically as per a saved session) To work around the problem, alter the steps as follows: 5. Log in using KDE, without running knetworkmanager during session startup 6. Open a root shell, and type 'service ipw3945d restart' 7. Start knetworkmanager Actual results: WiFi authentication times out, and knetworkmanager prompts for a new WEP key. Expected results: WiFI should authenticate automatically. Additional info: The system is a Thinkpad T60 with Intel ipw3945d wireless. Wired LAN is not connected. My own dumb analysis of the problem would be that somehow ipw3945d is "stuck", and NetworkManager is not able to get it to associate with the access point. Using NetworkManager and knetworkmanager, this behavior is easily reproducible. My previous network setup used vanilla RedHat startup scripts (ifcfg-XXX) plus some wpa_supplicant tricks as per BUG154348. This worked consistently; the initial bringup would fail, leaving dhclient running in the background, and wpa_supplicant would retry as long as necessary. On the other hand I can definitely say that this method started up quicker than the 40s or so timeout that NetworkManager/knetworkmanager enforces, though.
I suspect this behavior is being triggered by http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=391067 What's happening on my system is that 1. NetworkManager starts at boot-time and tries to associate with my wireless NIC 2. The wpa_supplicant.conf file is invalid, so the boot-time interface bringup never works. 3. NetworkManager leaves wpa_supplicant running. 4. When I log in to KDE, knetworkmanager starts a *second* instance of wpa_supplicant. 5. The userland AP configuration is correct, but it's fighting with the first instance of wpa_supplicant, and loses. My observation about having to restart NetworkManager and/or ipw3945d was clearing up the problem by forcing the boot-time NetworkManager instance to shut down its *first* wpa_supplicant instance, thereby allowing the userland instance to associate properly.
I confirm this bug, same problem and same workaround. FYI, setting up the wifi connection with iwconfig/ifconfig works fine.
This behavior appears to be similar in F7 test 1.
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