Why do I have to restart NetworkManager.service all the time?

Question

After switching to systemd, I started to use NetworkManager.service, I got connected to WIFI automatically at boot, but I got the following message when I run nmcli con:

** (process:4433): WARNING **: Could not initialize NMClient /org/freedesktop/NetworkManager: Method "GetAll" with signature "s" on interface "org.freedesktop.DBus.Properties" doesn't exist

Error: nmcli (0.9.6.4) and NetworkManager (unknown) versions don't match. Force execution using --nocheck, but the results are unpredictable.

And from systemctl:

NetworkManager.service                              loaded active running       Network Manager

Now if I restart NetworkManager.service, it works. Why is that?

Solution 1

This is a known issue and several bug reports have been submitted.

There is also a workaround for ubuntu, but I don't think it will work for Arch users because they no longer use init scripts. I bet their fix can be ported but I don't know enough about systemd to do it.

Here is a solution from the Fedora forums that looks like it works:

• Right-click on the NetworkManager applet
• Edit Connections
• Click the Wireless tab (if that's what you're using)
• Select your connection and click the Edit button
• Go to the IPv4 Settings tab
• Click the Routes button
• Check "Use this connection only for resources on its network."
• Press OK
• Uncheck "Available to all users"
• Press Save

Solution 2

I had that issue on CentOS 7 and I did this as root:

systemctl mask network

That command blocks network.service. That is because network.service and NetworkManager.service do the same thing and sometimes, one service does not allow the other to work fine.

Comments

[Admin]

“nmcli (0.9.6.4) and NetworkManager (unknown) versions don't match”. Have you tried fixing that? Where do nmcli and NetworkManager come from?

[Admin]

@Gilles they both belong to networkmanager 0.9.6.4-1, official repository of Arch, and it looks like a DBUS problem

[Admin]

I have a similar anomaly. NetworkManager will drop the wireless connection after a while and NetworkManger restart is required. Arch Linux and Gnome 3.6 on systemd

[Admin]

After deprecating Gnome 3.6 and fresh install of ArchLinux/Xfce 4.1, the problem still occurs. In addition, after restart of NetworkManager.service, the NetworkManger applet disappears.

[Admin]

@keepitsimpleengineer i don't know, but the problem disappeared now ... and I don't use a panel