Hello,
I'm encountering a strange issue with my Fedora 27 Gnome installation. I'm sometimes connected to a WiFi network without a working Internet connection. When that's the case, some programs like Firefox, Thunderbird or even LibreOffice take really long to start. As soon as I disable the connection to that particular network (e.g. by enabling Airplane Mode), everything works smooth again.
Any thoughts why that might be?
Regards, Nils.
On Wed, 14 Mar 2018 12:48:35 +0100 ni.ls@posteo.de wrote:
Hello,
I'm encountering a strange issue with my Fedora 27 Gnome installation. I'm sometimes connected to a WiFi network without a working Internet connection. When that's the case, some programs like Firefox, Thunderbird or even LibreOffice take really long to start. As soon as I disable the connection to that particular network (e.g. by enabling Airplane Mode), everything works smooth again.
Any thoughts why that might be?
Thoughts only, not sure if they are true. My suspicion is that they are made aware of the connection from network manager as if it is active, so try to access it, and then have to wait a period of time until they decide it is not active.
A few months ago there was a discussion here about how network manager decides that a network connection is live before it has actually connected. I think it would be neat if network manager did a ping of a / the dns address associated with a connection before marking the connection as active. Maybe that isn't possible.
I don't think there is a solution to your issue other than the one you've already found, or waiting for the timeout.
PS pedantic note, no sanction, 'works smooth' should be 'works smoothly'. smooth is an adjective, smoothly is the adverb. Though there are lots of native speakers who don't adhere to that e.g. real and really, 'worked real hard' vs 'worked really hard'. For them, not you, it's a sign of poor education, and thus a class indicator.
On 03/14/2018 10:24 AM, stan wrote:
A few months ago there was a discussion here about how network manager decides that a network connection is live before it has actually connected. I think it would be neat if network manager did a ping of a / the dns address associated with a connection before marking the connection as active. Maybe that isn't possible.
NetworkManager has a few different states of connected. There are at least NETWORK_LOCAL which seems to mean it has an IP address and NETWORK_GLOBAL which means it has internet access. There might another one in between as well.
On 03/14/2018 12:24 PM, Samuel Sieb wrote:
NetworkManager has a few different states of connected. There are at least NETWORK_LOCAL which seems to mean it has an IP address and NETWORK_GLOBAL which means it has internet access. There might another one in between as well.
Considering that not all computers use DHCP, NETWORK_LOCAL should probably include pinging the gateway but probably doesn't.
Samuel Sieb wrote:
NetworkManager has a few different states of connected. There are at least NETWORK_LOCAL which seems to mean it has an IP address and NETWORK_GLOBAL which means it has internet access. There might another one in between as well.
Joe Zeff:
Considering that not all computers use DHCP, NETWORK_LOCAL should probably include pinging the gateway but probably doesn't.
That still wouldn't prove the internet is accessible. My ISP could be failing, or suspended my account, or the cable between my gateway to my ISP unplugged, but my gateway would still be alive (in itself).
You'd have to do some other check that went out onto the internet, to prove you were fully on-line. e.g. Check the time on a NTP server, use one of those "find my outside IP" services, etc.
Even then, that only checks what it checks. Your external mail service could be totally inaccessible while you could still be able to surf the web.
On 03/14/2018 07:14 PM, Tim wrote:
Joe Zeff:
Considering that not all computers use DHCP, NETWORK_LOCAL should probably include pinging the gateway but probably doesn't.
That still wouldn't prove the internet is accessible. My ISP could be failing, or suspended my account, or the cable between my gateway to my ISP unplugged, but my gateway would still be alive (in itself).
Of course it doesn't. That's why I specified NETWORK_LOCAL, not NETWORK_GLOBAL.
On 03/14/2018 06:24 PM, stan wrote:
On Wed, 14 Mar 2018 12:48:35 +0100 Thoughts only, not sure if they are true. My suspicion is that they are made aware of the connection from network manager as if it is active, so try to access it, and then have to wait a period of time until they decide it is not active.
A few months ago there was a discussion here about how network manager decides that a network connection is live before it has actually connected. I think it would be neat if network manager did a ping of a / the dns address associated with a connection before marking the connection as active. Maybe that isn't possible.
I don't think there is a solution to your issue other than the one you've already found, or waiting for the timeout.
I was actually able to replicate this behavior using the Fedora 27 Live ISO. I found out it only happens when setting a custom DNS server. So if I do not set a custom DNS server in the connection settings, Firefox etc. open instantly, even if the network I'm connected to has no Internet access.
I don't really mind this, since a workaround exists and usually the network I'm connected to has Internet access. I just wanted to clarify that it's not a problem with my specific setup or some kind of major bug.
-
Joe Zeff -
ni.ls＠posteo.de -
Samuel Sieb -
stan -
Tim