Partially missing ESSIDs from networkmanager

English Network/Internet
1

Today I have changed to a new internet service provider.
They have installed a new wireless modem, with a new ESSID in both the 2.4 and 5GHz band.

In the Networkmanager applet these new ESSIDs do no show up. Multiple other wireless networks in the area do show up.

When I do <sudo iwlist scanning |grep ESSID>, the new ESSIDs are visible as expected.
I get the same results with <nmcli dev wifi list>
All networks have WPA2 security enabled and are in Infra mode.

Any hints and tips?

Network: Device-1: Intel Ethernet I219-LM driver: e1000e
Device-2: Intel Wireless 8260 driver: iwlwifi

​Kernel: 5.3.18-150300.59.54-default x86_64 bits: 64 Desktop: KDE Plasma 5.18.6
Distro: openSUSE Leap 15.3

2

Did you restart the client (e.g. by logout-login)? As you say, other clients seem to see them, only not the one in your desktop.

3

Thanks for your quick response.

I did reboot the client, as well as the new router, but it had no effect.

Here is a list of my “old” wireless access points - starting with G*** and the new ones - starting with H36***.
So the wifi adapter can “see” the new SSIDs.


~> nmcli dev wifi list
IN-USE  SSID                           MODE   CHAN  RATE        SIGNAL  BARS  SECURITY    
        G*****_1                       Infra  10    195 Mbit/s  100     ****  WPA2        
        H36*******C                    Infra  6     195 Mbit/s  99      ****  WPA2        
*       G*****_2                       Infra  104   405 Mbit/s  87      ****  WPA2        
        H36*******C                    Infra  52    405 Mbit/s  84      ****  WPA2
4

…and some more information.

Another (ancient) laptop, also running Leap 15.3 can see the new wifi router without any problem.
So it must be a local issue on my primary laptop.

5

That is a bit different from what I asked, but the result includes my suggestion.

But the above probably shows that there is some misunderstanding.

You rebooted the system. And by that restarted NetworkManager, which is a server.

Then you use two different clients:

  • nmcli, which shows all of them;
  • the applet in your desktop, which only shows some of hem (the old ones).

I only asked for the last line, to restart the client applet (e.g. by logout/login), but starting everything did that of course also.

Apart, from knowing that it is a client/server application for network managing, I never used NM, thus I have little further advice. Except that looking into the applet configuration might show something you could try.

6

“the laptop sees things” is a bit vague. But the Wifi hardware/firware indeed detects them all.
Which is proven by the fact that the NetworkManager server knows about them all.
Which is proven by the fact that the nmcli client displays them all.

And now you have shown that the NM-applet client on another system also gets them fed from the NetworkManager server there.

Thus I agree that it is something local to the system. Even more, it is something local to the NM-applet in the desktop that user uses.

You could try another, fresh, user to further encroach onto the problem.

7

I have set up a new user, but the new ESSID does not show up in the applet either.

As a workaround I have added the ESSID manually in the network manager applet.

That works, but it is not very elegant.

8

It really isn’t elegant.
Not using NM myself and my above advises based on more general “bug hunting” practises, I am a bit out of suggestions.
Maybe other members tune in here.

9

For a really clean reinstall you may need to remove anything in directories /etc/NetworkManager, /var/lib/NetworkManager and /var/log/NetworkManager first. Then run “zypper install --force NetworkManager”.

10

Karl,

Your advice did the trick. After the clean install of Networkmanager as per your advice the Networkmanager applet shows the missing ESSIDs.
Case closed.

Many thanks to both Henk and yourself.

11

Good advice and nice it works.

But we will never know what was wrong.