Description of problem: In the network manager applet, a wireless network with multiple access points will show up having a signal strength of what I guess is the signal strength of one (random) access point of the network. The signal strength of the most likely access point to be used by the driver should be displayed. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): Version : 0.7.0 Release : 0.12.svn4326.fc10 How reproducible: Always. Steps to Reproduce: 1. Click on the network manager applet. 2. Find a wireless network with multiple access points in the list. 3. Actual results: Mostly, a very low signal strength will be diplayed, even when being physically close to an access point of the network. This is misleading, because connecting to the network will work fine. Expected results: The displayed signal strength should the best signal strength of all the network's access points, because in most cases, the wireless driver will select that AP to connect to the network. Additional info:
The menu should be showing the highest signal strength of all APs of that SSID+Band+Security. Unfortunately there's no way to know what AP the driver will actually try to connect to, so we can't show that. Can you provide the output of /usr/bin/nm-tool so we can see what the actual AP list looks like and what the strengths of each AP in the SSID are? Signal strength display in the menu comes almost directly from the driver, and thus if the menu display shows a weak AP, the driver is showing a weak AP. Also useful would be the output of '/sbin/iwlist wlan0 scan' (or whatever your wifi interface is if it's not wlan0) to see _exactly_ what the drivers are reporting.
Created attachment 331831 [details] display of signal strength in the nm-applet menu
Created attachment 331832 [details] display of signal strength in the nm-applet icon
An example output of nm-tool when connected to the network is (the "rate" value jumps randomly between a value of 54 and 0 Mb/s for all access points individually, when calling nm-tool repeatedly; "54 MB/s" is more likely): *kruga: Infra, 00:1D:7E:BD:__:__, Freq 2447 MHz, Rate 54 Mb/s, Strength 80 WPA kruga: Infra, 00:1D:7E:BD:__:__, Freq 2447 MHz, Rate 54 Mb/s, Strength 40 WPA kruga: Infra, 00:1D:7E:FB:__:__, Freq 2447 MHz, Rate 54 Mb/s, Strength 40 WPA kruga: Infra, 00:1D:7E:FB:__:__, Freq 2447 MHz, Rate 0 Mb/s, Strength 20 WPA As displayed in the attached images, the problem is limited to the nm-applet menu; signal strength is correctly displayed in the icon. All this is with the propietary "wl" driver which I am forced to use. At the time of filing the bug I have been using ndiswrapper, the problem was the same. Unfortunately, my wireless chipset (Broadcom Corporation BCM4328 802.11a/b/g/n (rev 03)) is not supported by any free driver, so I'm not able to provide any better data here. Also, the "wl" driver does not support scanning (according to what "iwlist scan" claims). If necessary, I can setup ndiswrapper again to provide additional nm-tool and iwlist output.
unfortunately, the difference in the "associated" strength and the scanned strength is entirely a driver problem. The driver is simply reporting completely different values for the AP it's associated with, and that same AP from the scan list. The fix has to be in the driver. That's the problem with non-free drivers of course; it's not something that I or others can fix. You'll have to somehow get broadcom to fix this for you.
While that explains why the menu and the icon display different signal strengths, I don't see why the progess bar in the menu doesn't show the AP with best signal strength when _not_ associated to that network. Except for the "*" mark, nm-tool output stays the same, so NetworkManager obviously knows about all the available APs.
Found and fixed upstream in applet svn r1159 (trunk) and r1161 (0.7).
NetworkManager-0.7.0.97-5.git20090220.fc10, NetworkManager-openconnect-0.7.0.97-1.fc10, NetworkManager-pptp-0.7.0.97-1.fc10, NetworkManager-openvpn-0.7.0.97-1.fc10, NetworkManager-vpnc-0.7.0.97-1.fc10 has been pushed to the Fedora 10 testing repository. If problems still persist, please make note of it in this bug report. If you want to test the update, you can install it with su -c 'yum --enablerepo=updates-testing update NetworkManager NetworkManager-openconnect NetworkManager-pptp NetworkManager-openvpn NetworkManager-vpnc'. You can provide feedback for this update here: http://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/F10/FEDORA-2009-1985
NetworkManager-0.7.0.98-1.git20090225.fc10, NetworkManager-openconnect-0.7.0.97-1.fc10, NetworkManager-pptp-0.7.0.97-1.fc10, NetworkManager-openvpn-0.7.0.97-1.fc10, NetworkManager-vpnc-0.7.0.97-1.fc10 has been pushed to the Fedora 10 testing repository. If problems still persist, please make note of it in this bug report. If you want to test the update, you can install it with su -c 'yum --enablerepo=updates-testing update NetworkManager NetworkManager-openconnect NetworkManager-pptp NetworkManager-openvpn NetworkManager-vpnc'. You can provide feedback for this update here: http://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/F10/FEDORA-2009-1985
NetworkManager-0.7.0.99-1.fc10,knetworkmanager-0.7-0.8.20080926svn.fc10,NetworkManager-vpnc-0.7.0.99-1.fc10,NetworkManager-openvpn-0.7.0.99-1.fc10,NetworkManager-pptp-0.7.0.99-1.fc10,NetworkManager-openconnect-0.7.0.99-1.fc10 has been submitted as an update for Fedora 10. http://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/NetworkManager-0.7.0.99-1.fc10,knetworkmanager-0.7-0.8.20080926svn.fc10,NetworkManager-vpnc-0.7.0.99-1.fc10,NetworkManager-openvpn-0.7.0.99-1.fc10,NetworkManager-pptp-0.7.0.99-1.fc10,NetworkManager-openconnect-0.7.0.99-1.fc10
NetworkManager-0.7.0.99-1.fc9,NetworkManager-vpnc-0.7.0.99-1.fc9,NetworkManager-openvpn-0.7.0.99-1.fc9,NetworkManager-pptp-0.7.0.99-1.fc9,NetworkManager-openconnect-0.7.0.99-1.fc9 has been submitted as an update for Fedora 9. http://admin.fedoraproject.org/updates/NetworkManager-0.7.0.99-1.fc9,NetworkManager-vpnc-0.7.0.99-1.fc9,NetworkManager-openvpn-0.7.0.99-1.fc9,NetworkManager-pptp-0.7.0.99-1.fc9,NetworkManager-openconnect-0.7.0.99-1.fc9
NetworkManager-0.7.0.99-1.fc9, NetworkManager-vpnc-0.7.0.99-1.fc9, NetworkManager-openvpn-0.7.0.99-1.fc9, NetworkManager-pptp-0.7.0.99-1.fc9, NetworkManager-openconnect-0.7.0.99-1.fc9 has been pushed to the Fedora 9 stable repository. If problems still persist, please make note of it in this bug report.
NetworkManager-0.7.0.99-1.fc10, knetworkmanager-0.7-0.8.20080926svn.fc10, NetworkManager-vpnc-0.7.0.99-1.fc10, NetworkManager-openvpn-0.7.0.99-1.fc10, NetworkManager-pptp-0.7.0.99-1.fc10, NetworkManager-openconnect-0.7.0.99-1.fc10 has been pushed to the Fedora 10 stable repository. If problems still persist, please make note of it in this bug report.