NM 0.6.6-0ubuntu2 segfaults w/ hal 0.5.11~rc2-1ubuntu2 and b43 wireless driver

I have exactly the same problem. I am running on powerpc, iBook G4. It started just today. I am also using wpa psk with a linksys wrt54g router.
I have updated today the following packages:
hal - 0.5.11~rc2-1ubuntu1 (also libhal-storage1, libhal1)
libidl0 - 0.8.10-0.1
liboil0.3 - 0.3.14-3
pm-utils - 0.99.2-3ubuntu2

My error in syslog is exactly the same so I'm not posting again. The only difference is the last line which for me isn't
__kernel_vsyscall ()
but
poll () from /lib/libc.so.6

I might have spoken too fast. Another update of packages seems to have fixed that for me now. There was there hal-0.5.11~rc2-1ubuntu2 - it is actually a duplicate of bug #204768

debian/patches/42a_ath_pci_supplicant_tweaks.patch is causing the crash (added in 0.6.6-0ubuntu2). This breaks wireless for most everyone EXCEPT atheros users. Patch creator should recheck their code for sanity against non-atheros cards.

See bug #204931

There seems to be a bug in the latest version of network-manager (0.6.6-0ubuntu2) which causes NetworkManager to crash and / or hang.

It is indeed a bug in debian/patches/42a_ath_pci_supplicant_tweaks.patch. I attach a debdiff that solves the problem for me.

Just to confirm that I had the bug (see attached syslog), I recompiled the network-manager package with Emanuel Steen debdiff, and it solves the problem for me too (Dell Lattitude D830, Broadcom b43 wireless card)

Solved by applying debdiff and install patched package ( HP Pavilion Zv??? , Broadcom b43)

for those (like me) who didn't know how to apply a debdiff path :

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuPackagingGuide/BuildFromDebdiff?highlight=(debdiff)

Thanks all, this solved it for me as well (Dell Latitude D600, Broadcom bcm4306). Thanks especially to Emanuel for the debdiff and Fabien for the helpful reference.

The debdiff solves it for me also. Thanks!

Yep! Solved it for me! Most gratefully too, as there seem to be several interweaving issues with Hardy Beta and wireless..

THANKS!

The debdiff worked for me too- thanks. Dell Insprion 6400, Broadcom 4311.

Hopefully this gets solved, i have reverted to network-manager 0.6.6-0ubuntu1 (with b43-fwcutter) because of these connection problems and high proc usage. When can we have this debdiff-patched version of network-manager 0.6.6-0ubuntu2 in the repositories?

FYI:
The problem: WLAN does not work with network-manager 0.6.6-0ubuntu2

Hardware: Broadcom 4311 WLAN on a HP nc8430

The problem appears when enabling wireless after disconnecting LAN or when connecting to another WLAN or when choosing a wireless network from nm-applet (it finds existing WLANs). Network-manager accepts the passwords & WLAN security settings. Problem begins when pressing "connect":

The animated "balls" (nm-applet) keep animating (trying to connect) but stay grey (no green).
Alternatively, the signal strength bars appear immediately without the animated balls appearing first. The bars remain grey.

Network-manager ceases at this point to respond to any controls: manual wlan switch, trying to switch to another network (wlan or lan), ticking off the boxes (network, wireless) on nm-applet, trying to kill nm through system administration program.

The connection does not work, the adapter doen not get an IP address, it seems to keep keep negotiating/waiting (for the network key?) indefinitely. The processor is also getting hot at this point, until rebooting. Some process gets into a loop presumably.

With network-manager 0.6.6-0ubuntu1 everything worked as expected.
Solution to problem so far: everything started working as expected immediately when downgrading back to 0.6.6-0ubuntu1

While the debdiff provided appears to correctly fix a potential segfault, the trigger for this bug was actually a hal change that resulted in the kernel_driver value being NULL for *all* users when it should have been set to the actual driver name. The hal bug is bug #204768, which for hal was resolved in hal 0.5.11~rc2-1ubuntu2.

For those experiencing this bug, please check that you've upgraded to the current version of the hal package. If you have and are still experiencing this problem, please let us know.

thanks for this patch. I agree that we should use this for final hardy. milestoning.

Looks to me like good bulletproofing that ought to be included before release in any case.

The debdiff worked for me too . HP Pavillion zv6000, Broadcom 4306 rev 3

Steve: hal is 0.5.11rc2-1ubuntu2 and I still got the problem.. so Emanuel's patch corrects the problem .. not upgrading to hal i'm affraid..
I tried to downgrade to 0.6.6-0ubuntu2 and still have the full cpu load and no wireless connection.
( dpkg -i to the old version )
when I upgrade to the Emmanuel's patched version I could give this comment ..

-NB: if Emmanuel's on Paris I can propose him a beer to solve so quickly that bug :-)

Thanks, debdiff works for me. SONY VAIO SZ3 with Intel 3495abg

Steve:
Thanks for clearing up some of the details, however I was experiencing this bug with a fully updated hal, as commented in Bug #204768. Only when I applied the patch was the symptom fixed.
Hope that helps.

I confirm that the bug doesn't occur with hal 0.5.11~rc2-1ubuntu2 and network-manager 0.6.6-0ubuntu2

Thanks to all for helping to pin down this bug. While for most users the fixes in hal 0.5.11~rc2-1ubuntu2 were sufficient, it appears that even with hal working as it did before there are some chipsets for which hal still returns a null kernel driver name, leading to this segfault. It's unfortunate that we had uploads of both hal and network-manager introducing regressions at nearly the same time with near-identical symptoms, making it more difficult to distinguish the causes.

I'm working on fixing the regression in network-manager, for upload shortly; I think we'll want to also open a task against hal, to figure out why the broadcom driver is giving a null kernel driver name.

This bug was fixed in the package network-manager - 0.6.6-0ubuntu3

---------------
network-manager (0.6.6-0ubuntu3) hardy; urgency=low

  * debian/patches/42a_ath_pci_supplicant_tweaks.patch: guard against a NULL
    kernel driver name, which currently happens with some chipsets causing
    network-manager to segfault when trying to connect to wireless. Thanks
    to Emanuel Steen <email address hidden> for the analysis and patch.
    LP: #204868.

 -- Steve Langasek <email address hidden> Sun, 23 Mar 2008 22:55:53 -0700

Any word on when this patch will be released? Also can anyone tell me how to remove all the prerequisites installed for applying a debdiff and for building a package?

On Mon, Mar 24, 2008 at 11:16:49AM -0000, Valentin Neacsu wrote:
> Any word on when this patch will be released?

It has already been released and is in the archive.

It appears that the prism54 driver may also be returning an empty driver name via hal:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/network-manager/+bug/203793/comments/9

Unsubscribed Ubuntu Sponsors for main from this bug for now, nothing to sponsor.

Hi there.

I updated to 8.04 on 1st May and since then have been having problems getting wireless working. I have the same problem as described by juksu in this post. I can see all the available wireless networks but when i try to connect the network manager hangs on "waiting for network key". This has me stumped. I tried applying the debdiff to the source for network-manager but apparently it has already been applied. I guess this is what was meant when someone said it was already in the repositories.

Anyway, if anyone has any ideas that would be great, i know i haven't provided much information here, i was not sure whether it would be worth much as juksu has exactly the same problem. However, if i can provide any information that would help then i am more than willing to provide it.

The only thing i haven''t tried is rolling back to an earlier version of network manager, I am ashamed to say that this is because I don't know how to. According to synaptic there is only one version of network manager. If anyone could help with this that would be great.

Cheers

quizzical:
Which version of network-manager are you using? (Check in synaptic or post the result of the command dpkg -l '*network-manager*')

And can you please provide the last 30 rows or so of /var/log/daemon.log when this happen?

Heres the output from dpkg -l "*network-manager*":

Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
| Status=Not/Installed/Config-f/Unpacked/Failed-cfg/Half-inst/t-aWait/T-pend
|/ Err?=(none)/Hold/Reinst-required/X=both-problems (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
||/ Name Version Description
+++-==============-==============-============================================
ii network-manage 0.6.6-0ubuntu5 network management framework daemon
ii network-manage 0.6.6-0ubuntu3 network management framework (GNOME frontend
un network-manage <none> (no description available)

I've attached a text file with the output from /var/log/daemon.log, the section i have included is the output since i turned my computer on about ten minutes ago, all i have done up to this point is log in and attempt to connect to the wireless network, the connecting animation has been running since then and i get the tooltip saying "waiting for network key".

Cheers

Any help anyone? this is still an issue.
Cheers

I have the same issue with my Broadcom b4311 card, wireless wont connect to WEP encrypted networks, it just keeps trying and trying while the green balls stay grey.

I'm trying to install the debdiff but I'm stuck on this step:

!Get the package source tree. Sometimes the "source" package and the "binary" package will have different names, so watch the "apt-get" output closely.

    *

      apt-get source PACKAGE"

What should I put where it says "PACKAGE"? What is that package name? Please help, anybody, thanks!

I am also having this problem on with a Broadcom bcm4328. I have updated to the latest network-manager 0.6.6-0ubuntu5, and hal 0.5.11~rc2-1ubuntu8.2, with no changes. It will connect to my wireless network if it is open, but if I try to connect with WPA or WPA2 it just hangs at "Waiting for Network Key".

Here is a copy of the last few lines of my daemon.log:

"Oct 21 20:20:37 m1210 NetworkManager: <info> Device wlan0 activation scheduled...
Oct 21 20:20:37 m1210 NetworkManager: <info> Deactivating device eth0.
Oct 21 20:20:37 m1210 dhclient: There is already a pid file /var/run/dhclient.eth0.pid with pid 7564
Oct 21 20:20:37 m1210 dhclient: killed old client process, removed PID file
Oct 21 20:20:37 m1210 dhclient: DHCPRELEASE on eth0 to 192.168.0.1 port 67
Oct 21 20:20:37 m1210 avahi-daemon[5252]: Withdrawing address record for 192.168.0.16 on eth0.
Oct 21 20:20:37 m1210 avahi-daemon[5252]: Leaving mDNS multicast group on interface eth0.IPv4 with address 192.168.0.16.
Oct 21 20:20:37 m1210 avahi-daemon[5252]: Interface eth0.IPv4 no longer relevant for mDNS.
Oct 21 20:20:38 m1210 avahi-daemon[5252]: Withdrawing address record for fe80::218:8bff:fed8:9dd5 on eth0.
Oct 21 20:20:38 m1210 NetworkManager: <info> Activation (wlan0) started...
Oct 21 20:20:38 m1210 NetworkManager: <info> Activation (wlan0) Stage 1 of 5 (Device Prepare) scheduled...
Oct 21 20:20:38 m1210 NetworkManager: <info> Activation (wlan0) Stage 1 of 5 (Device Prepare) started...
Oct 21 20:20:38 m1210 NetworkManager: <info> Activation (wlan0) Stage 2 of 5 (Device Configure) scheduled...
Oct 21 20:20:38 m1210 NetworkManager: <info> Activation (wlan0) Stage 1 of 5 (Device Prepare) complete.
Oct 21 20:20:38 m1210 NetworkManager: <info> Activation (wlan0) Stage 2 of 5 (Device Configure) starting...
Oct 21 20:20:38 m1210 NetworkManager: <info> Activation (wlan0/wireless): access point 'XXXX' is encrypted, but NO valid key exists. New key needed.
Oct 21 20:20:38 m1210 NetworkManager: <info> Activation (wlan0) New wireless user key requested for network 'XXXX'.
Oct 21 20:20:38 m1210 NetworkManager: <info> Activation (wlan0) Stage 2 of 5 (Device Configure) complete. "

Hi,

I have different hardware now so I can't help you much but a few things I did notice when I had this problem. I think that one problem is to do with network manager not raising a dialog to ask for the WPA key, I used another network manager (wicd) to get around this issue.

However, even with wicd I was unable to connect to the network. It seems that there is some problem with the wpa supplicant program. What worked for me (albeit intermittently) was using wpa_supplicant from the command line to connect, however, as i said I have different hardware now and I was only using that solution for a small while.

My suggestion would be to work out how to use wpa_supplicant and give that a go.

Cheers

There's still an open hal task here. Unfortunately there is no stack trace, lshal, or other output which would indicate what the problem is. I presume that info.linux.driver was not set?

There is no chance that info.linux.driver can be present and NULL, see hald/linux/osspec.c, hal_util_set_driver(). If the sysfs path of a device is invalid/not existing/NULL, then the property is not set at all. So I assume what happened was that NM did libhal_device_get_property_string("info.linux.driver") and used the return value without checking for NULL, or using libhal_device_property_exists().

Please correct me if I am wrong and reopen.