Firefox always starts in offline mode. Konqueror cannot access Internet at all
 

Hello All,

Upgraded from OpenSUSE 10.2 to 10.3 ... the new version
is much faster, but very different ... in 10.2 dhcp client
would start automatically, my wireless card was a 'required'
device and I was on the Internet automatically at the coffee
shop.

10.3 requires that I start dhcp client manually. That's
ok though I wonder why this has changed after being the
same from SuSE 9.0, 9.3, OpenSUSE 10.2 and now all of a
sudden it has changed. Firefox starts in offline mode
no matter what I do. I even created a new profile and
that doesn't help. Konqueror will not connect to
the Internet at all even when I'm connected. The error
message is: "offline mode active" ... I've read
Konqueror handbook and searched documentation - can't
find any reference. Any ideas?

tia,

The GNUinator

Fixed it myself! The fix is to turn off NetworkManager
and go back to the traditional ifup and ifdown scripts
that I'm familiar with from pervious versions. Installation
is on a ThinkPad T30 with a 10/100 ethernet card on the planar
(that's IBMspeak for the motherboard) and a minipci Orinoco
gold 802.11b wireless card as eth1. I put eth1 as a required
device at boot --- now sure enough dhclient starts right up
on boot the way it did in previous versions. Now, if there
is a wireless connection Firefox starts in online mode and
Konqueror is able to connect to the Internet.

I'm posting this in case it helps someone else.

The GNUinator
Sacramento / Fort Collins

in the unlikely event that you are using Fedora 8 with eth0 onboot and network manager running this also happens if you used remi's repo to install the newly released firefox 3
many thanks for the quickfix

also gave up on Network Manager and changed to wpa_supplicant. Wpa_supplicant and wpa_supplicant_gui are available as packages on the SuSE 10.3 DVD, Network Manager has to be disabled for the purpose (go yast -> network devices -> network card -> global options, change from Network Manager to ifup/ifdown).
I installed these and configured my network as follows: Contrary to most tutorials the wpa_supplicant configuration goes to /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf instead of /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf on my SuSE 10.3 machine.
My /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf works and looks like this:

ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant
ap_scan=1

network={
ssid="dlink"
key_mgmt=NONE
}
network={
ssid="MyWirelessHomeLAN"
key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
psk="MySooperSecretPassPhrase"
}
network={
ssid="MyFriendsWirelessLAN"
key_mgmt=NONE
wep_key0="HerPasswd"
wep_tx_keyidx=0
}
network={
scan_ssid=1
key_mgmt=NONE
}

Also, the system needs to be told to use wpa_supplicant by changing /etc/sysconfig/network/ifcfg-eth1 (or similar) as follows:

BOOTPROTO='dhcp'
BROADCAST=''
PREFER_WPA_SUPPLICANT='yes'
ETHTOOL_OPTIONS=''
IPADDR=''
MTU='1500'
NAME='Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection'
NETMASK=''
NETWORK=''
REMOTE_IPADDR=''
STARTMODE='auto'
USERCONTROL='no'
WIRELESS_AP=''
WIRELESS_AUTH_MODE='open'
WIRELESS_BITRATE='auto'
WIRELESS_CA_CERT=''
WIRELESS_CHANNEL=''
WIRELESS_CLIENT_CERT=''
WIRELESS_CLIENT_KEY=''
WIRELESS_CLIENT_KEY_PASSWORD=''
WIRELESS_DEFAULT_KEY='0'
WIRELESS_EAP_AUTH=''
WIRELESS_EAP_MODE=''
WIRELESS_ESSID='dlink'
WIRELESS_FREQUENCY=''
WIRELESS_KEY=''
WIRELESS_KEY_0=''
WIRELESS_KEY_1=''
WIRELESS_KEY_2=''
WIRELESS_KEY_3=''
WIRELESS_KEY_LENGTH='128'
WIRELESS_MODE='Managed'
WIRELESS_NICK=''
WIRELESS_NWID=''
WIRELESS_PEAP_VERSION=''
WIRELESS_POWER='yes'
WIRELESS_WPA_ANONID=''
WIRELESS_WPA_IDENTITY=''
WIRELESS_WPA_PASSWORD=''
WIRELESS_WPA_PSK='' .

Eventually, I had to modify the way SuSE 10.3 configures a network during startup. To do so I changed every line that reads "ifup $INTERFACE -o dhcp" to "ifup $INTERFACE -o dhcpd" in /etc/sysconfig/network/scripts/dhcpcd-hook (please note the "d" at the end).

After having rebooted my computer it came up with the right configuration straight away.

tweiers

I didn't have a problem with knetworkmanager in SuSE10.3. Prior to 10.3, wpa wasn't supported very well. You could try rerunning the YaST2 -> network setup. If you use KDE, make sure that kwalletmanager is installed. knetworkmanager uses it to hold the wpa_psk.

In SuSE 10.4 knetworkmanager has problems for me. The YaST configuration starts knetwork manager and then tries to download a package on the internet. I'm guessing that the package it is trying to install is needed for knetworkmanager to work.

The original problem sounds like you need these two lines in /etc/sysconfig/network/ifcfg-<device>: