Leap 42.2/KDE: Network manager icon DL/UL speed indicators disappear

English Network/Internet
1

I’m new to this forum, sorry for asking things that might have been answered before; however, no success with forum search.

I have taken the step from Windows (power user) to Linux 1/2 year ago, testing several distros like Linux Mint Cinnamon, Ubuntu, Linux Mint KDE, Kubuntu and now openSUSE Leap 42.2 with KDE desktop. openSUSE Leap to me currently is the most polished KDE implementation, plus several more positives like more technical orientation, detailed system management etc. However, I need to resolve a couple of issues before deciding to stick with Leap for a long-term installation.

Problem even with a start-from-scratch fresh installation of Leap 42.2 with KDE desktop from ISO/DVD, fully updated, Kernel as per default, laptop computer: The network manager icon in the system tray (I suppose it’s a KDE Plasma applet sitting on top of NetworkManager) is erratically losing the two download/upload speed displays, both the DL/UL digital displays on the network connection item as well as the speed graph over time showing up when clicking the network connection item. The simple display goes from “down arrow - number / up arrow - number” to just showing “Connected”, the speed graph remains empty. (Of course, there IS traffic to be shown.) These tow speed displays are very helpful, more than eye candy.

The problem occurs with both LAN and WiFi connections, where the LAN is connected to a FritzBox router, and the WiFi is either connected to the same FritzBox or a Netgear Aircard LTE router. For example: (1) When hooking up to the LAN for the very first time, the speed indicators do show up initially; right after starting Firefox, they disappear / show nothing. (2) With both WiFi’s I have seen the speed indicators to be alive for some time, even days with lots of power-ups/downs; then they disappeared at some seemingly random point in time.

One more hint: When testing Linux Mint 18.1 KDE, I have observed the same problem. Here the speed indicators to my observation just never showed up to begin with.

Another issue: During some intermittent times, the WiFi connection speed on the Details tab is shown as 6 Mbit/s only. I can’t believe this figure when there is traffic going on at those very moments; in general, the speed should be up to 300 or so Mbit/s which is shown most of the time.

Googling this problem yielded some posts from ArchLinux https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=208745 but it’s not clear whether these measures are permissible at all, and whether they would resolve the problem “forever” (not only in the current session).

My system:

inxi -Fxzw
Resuming in non X mode: xdpyinfo not found. For package install advice run: inxi --recommends
System:    Host: susy422-et.suse Kernel: 4.4.57-18.3-default x86_64 (64 bit gcc: 4.8.5)
           Desktop: KDE Plasma 5.8.6 (Qt 5.6.1) Distro: openSUSE Leap 42.2
Machine:   Device: laptop System: Hewlett-Packard product: HP EliteBook 8560w v: A0001C02
           Mobo: Hewlett-Packard model: 1631 v: KBC Version 01.3F
           UEFI: Hewlett-Packard v: 68SVD Ver. F.61 date: 05/25/2016
Battery    BAT0: charge: 37.0 Wh 95.0% condition: 38.9/38.9 Wh (100%)
           model: Hewlett-Packard Primary status: Charging
CPU:       Dual core Intel Core i5-2540M (-HT-MCP-) cache: 3072 KB
           flags: (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx) bmips: 10376
           clock speeds: max: 3300 MHz 1: 806 MHz 2: 843 MHz 3: 1797 MHz 4: 859 MHz
Graphics:  Card: NVIDIA GF108GLM [Quadro 1000M] bus-ID: 01:00.0
           Display Server: X.org 1.18.3 drivers: nouveau (unloaded: modesetting,fbdev,nv,vesa)
           Resolution: 96x51
Audio:     Card-1 NVIDIA GF108 High Definition Audio Controller
           driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 01:00.1
           Card-2 Intel 6 Series/C200 Series Family High Definition Audio Controller
           driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 00:1b.0
           Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture v: k4.4.57-18.3-default
Network:   Card-1: Intel 82579LM Gigabit Network Connection
           driver: e1000e v: 3.2.6-k port: 5020 bus-ID: 00:19.0
           IF: eth0 state: down mac: <filter>
           Card-2: Intel Centrino Ultimate-N 6300 driver: iwlwifi bus-ID: 25:00.0
           IF: wlan0 state: up mac: <filter>
Drives:    HDD Total Size: 500.1GB (29.0% used)
           ID-1: /dev/sda model: Samsung_SSD_850 size: 500.1GB
Partition: ID-1: / size: 126G used: 8.7G (7%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda2
           ID-2: swap-1 size: 20.14GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sda6
Sensors:   None detected - is lm-sensors installed and configured?
Weather:   Conditions: 52 F (11 C) - Overcast Wind: From the WSW at 12 MPH
           Time: April 21, 2:09 PM CEST (Europe/Berlin)
Info:      Processes: 177 Uptime: 0:38 Memory: 885.9/15992.5MB
           Init: systemd runlevel: 5 Gcc sys: N/A Client: Shell (bash 4.3.421) inxi: 2.3.8

Current network connection is WiFi to Netgear Aircard LTE router:

sudo iwconfig
root's password:
usb0      no wireless extensions.
                                                                                                
lo        no wireless extensions.                                                               
                                                                                                
wlan0     IEEE 802.11abgn  ESSID:"BlackBear-a8c10-5G"                                           
          Mode:Managed  Frequency:5.18 GHz  Access Point: 50:6A:03:8F:0F:A1                     
          Bit Rate=135 Mb/s   Tx-Power=15 dBm                                                   
          Retry short limit:7   RTS thr:off   Fragment thr:off                                  
          Encryption key:off                                                                    
          Power Management:off                                                                  
          Link Quality=55/70  Signal level=-55 dBm                                              
          Rx invalid nwid:0  Rx invalid crypt:0  Rx invalid frag:0                              
          Tx excessive retries:0  Invalid misc:100   Missed beacon:0

eth0      no wireless extensions.

Thanks in advance for your help!

2

It would be really nice if you out there could report here if you see the same effect, please. Question is whether this has to do with the KDE Plasma Network Widget, with the Linux NetworkManager or with my specific machine.

3

Some more info:

Linux NetworkManager 1.0.12-4.3.1; with branding-openSUSE 42.1-1.2, lang 1.0.12-4.3.1, openvpn, openvpn-lang, pptp, pptp-lang, vpnc, vpnc-lang (all the latter are 1.0.8) also installed
Plasma Network Widget plasma-nm5 5.8.6-4.1; with lang, openvpn, pptp, vpnc also installed

I suppose these are the latest updates available.

4

Are you using the same scale ie bits or bytes.Some things report bytes per and some report bits per. Be sure you are talking the same scale. Generally but not always bytes use a large B bits a small b.

5

Thanks for asking, but I know MB from MiB and MBit/s etc. And my issue is the speed displays turning absent or empty.

6

I have a small Netbook running a fully updated Leap 42.2/KDE installation and using NetworkManager to manage the network interfaces. It is running the same versions of NetworkManager and plasma-nm5 as you.

And it has the same problems you describe; reported upload and download connection speeds sometimes disappear and the speed/time graph can be empty even though data is being uploaded/downloaded. The problem occurs on both ethernet and wifi.

However on another machine running a similar set-up with an ethernet only connection, but with NetworkManager at version 1.6.2, the display appears to be quite stable. So I suspect its a problem that has been fixed upstream but has not been back-ported to the version of NetworkManager used in Leap42.2.

The OP on the Archlinux BBS also appeared to have the same problem but I certainly wouldn’t be trying his ‘remedy’. In fact, one of the posts said it was ‘really bad form’ and another expressed surprise that things still worked.

Incidentally, my wifi connection speed is consistently reported at 100Mbit/s (when close to the Access Point) which sounds reasonable. I think the low connection speed you are seeing is a separate issue, possibly involving your wifi device or router.

7

Thanks for this comprehensive and reassuring comment!

To elaborate further on what I see: From time to time, the WiFi speed shown in the text display under Details is very obviously wrong. It e.g. says 6 MBit/s or 54 MBit/s, while I am downloading a file at the maximum speed given by my ISP which is 100 MBit/s = close to 12 MByte/s.

What I will do for a check now is to install openSUSE Tumbleweed besides Leap. Maybe I will take also the pain and revive an older machine with different network cards (Broadcom instead of Intel, huh).

Thanks again for making me sure I am not alone with that issue.

8

Update: I did install openSUSE Tumbleweed in parallel to Leap 42.2 now. Tumbleweed uses the Linux NetworkManager 1.6.2-1.1 and plasma-nm 5.9.4-1.1. As of now, the speed displays do appear a lot more reliable than they were in Leap 42.2 with the a/m versions. However, they are STILL NOT EXACTLY SATISFACTORY - seems to be a long long way to get that working between Linux and KDE Plasma. I am hoping for further improvements. I am considering to file a bug report, but am still uncertain about the best place for that.

9

Start with this guide
https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Bugreport_KDE
If it is not openSUSE-specific (as I suspect is the case with this issue), then it suggested to report it upstream at http://bugs.kde.org/

10

Thank you, I will proceed like that.