Cannot connect to WiFi with nmcli, although secrets are provided

Question

I am using nmcli on ArchLinux (version 1.14.5dev+17+gba83251bb-1 from the official package repository) to connect to wifi. This works perfectly for all wireless networks apart from this one Vodafone EasyBox network.

Trying to activate the connection with the correct password gives me the following error message:

Passwords or encryption keys are required to access the wireless network 'EasyBox-123456'.
Warning: password for '802-11-wireless-security.psk' not given in 'passwd-file' and nmcli cannot ask without '--ask' option.
Error: Connection activation failed: Secrets were required, but not provided

However, 802-11-wireless-security.psk is stored, as you can see here:

$ nmcli con show EasyBox-123456
connection.id:                          EasyBox-123456
connection.uuid:                        <hidden>
connection.stable-id:                   --
connection.type:                        802-11-wireless
connection.interface-name:              --
connection.autoconnect:                 yes
connection.autoconnect-priority:        0
connection.autoconnect-retries:         -1 (default)
connection.multi-connect:               0 (default)
connection.auth-retries:                -1
connection.timestamp:                   0
connection.read-only:                   no
connection.permissions:                 --
connection.zone:                        --
connection.master:                      --
connection.slave-type:                  --
connection.autoconnect-slaves:          -1 (default)
connection.secondaries:                 --
connection.gateway-ping-timeout:        0
connection.metered:                     unknown
connection.lldp:                        default
connection.mdns:                        -1 (default)
connection.llmnr:                       -1 (default)
802-11-wireless.ssid:                   EasyBox-123456
802-11-wireless.mode:                   infrastructure
802-11-wireless.band:                   --
802-11-wireless.channel:                0
802-11-wireless.bssid:                  --
802-11-wireless.rate:                   0
802-11-wireless.tx-power:               0
802-11-wireless.mac-address:            <hidden>
802-11-wireless.cloned-mac-address:     --
802-11-wireless.generate-mac-address-mask:--
802-11-wireless.mac-address-blacklist:  --
802-11-wireless.mac-address-randomization:default
802-11-wireless.mtu:                    auto
802-11-wireless.seen-bssids:            --
802-11-wireless.hidden:                 no
802-11-wireless.powersave:              0 (default)
802-11-wireless.wake-on-wlan:           0x1 (default)
802-11-wireless-security.key-mgmt:      wpa-psk
802-11-wireless-security.wep-tx-keyidx: 0
802-11-wireless-security.auth-alg:      open
802-11-wireless-security.proto:         --
802-11-wireless-security.pairwise:      --
802-11-wireless-security.group:         --
802-11-wireless-security.pmf:           1 (disable)
802-11-wireless-security.leap-username: --
802-11-wireless-security.wep-key0:      <hidden>
802-11-wireless-security.wep-key1:      <hidden>
802-11-wireless-security.wep-key2:      <hidden>
802-11-wireless-security.wep-key3:      <hidden>
802-11-wireless-security.wep-key-flags: 0 (none)
802-11-wireless-security.wep-key-type:  unknown
802-11-wireless-security.psk:           <hidden>
802-11-wireless-security.psk-flags:     0 (none)
802-11-wireless-security.leap-password: <hidden>
802-11-wireless-security.leap-password-flags:0 (none)
802-11-wireless-security.wps-method:    0 (default)
802-11-wireless-security.fils:          0 (default)
ipv4.method:                            auto
ipv4.dns:                               --
ipv4.dns-search:                        --
ipv4.dns-options:                       ""
ipv4.dns-priority:                      0
ipv4.addresses:                         --
ipv4.gateway:                           --
ipv4.routes:                            --
ipv4.route-metric:                      -1
ipv4.route-table:                       0 (unspec)
ipv4.ignore-auto-routes:                no
ipv4.ignore-auto-dns:                   no
ipv4.dhcp-client-id:                    --
ipv4.dhcp-timeout:                      0 (default)
ipv4.dhcp-send-hostname:                yes
ipv4.dhcp-hostname:                     --
ipv4.dhcp-fqdn:                         --
ipv4.never-default:                     no
ipv4.may-fail:                          yes
ipv4.dad-timeout:                       -1 (default)
ipv6.method:                            auto
ipv6.dns:                               --
ipv6.dns-search:                        --
ipv6.dns-options:                       ""
ipv6.dns-priority:                      0
ipv6.addresses:                         --
ipv6.gateway:                           --
ipv6.routes:                            --
ipv6.route-metric:                      -1
ipv6.route-table:                       0 (unspec)
ipv6.ignore-auto-routes:                no
ipv6.ignore-auto-dns:                   no
ipv6.never-default:                     no
ipv6.may-fail:                          yes
ipv6.ip6-privacy:                       -1 (unknown)
ipv6.addr-gen-mode:                     stable-privacy
ipv6.dhcp-duid:                         --
ipv6.dhcp-send-hostname:                yes
ipv6.dhcp-hostname:                     --
ipv6.token:                             --
proxy.method:                           none
proxy.browser-only:                     no
proxy.pac-url:                          --
proxy.pac-script:                       --

I tried several things, including restart NetworkManager/wpa-supplicant, the router, and disabling PMF, but nothing worked.

Specifying --ask asks me for a password, but gives me the same error message afterwards. Removing and recreating the connection using nm-connection-editor didn't work either. It works without any problems on my Android device.

How can I connect to this Network?

Answer 1

It's a bit late but I found a potential workaround. According to the documentation of nmcli you can connect to your AP providing a passwd-file with the content of the file:

802-11-wireless-security.psk:secret12345

and the command:

nmcli con up <connection name> passwd-file <filename>

Hope, it helps.

Answer 2

For anyone else who comes across this issue, as I did recently after moving to a new ISP, this message is also caused by a mis-spelled password in nm-connection-editor. This was true for both Oracle Linux 7 and Oracle Linux 8.

Answer 3

I just solved that litterally 2 minutes ago:

I made a PyGUI script that started up nmgui and navigated to the right tab, input my password and saved, because for some reason nmgui works but nmcli does not.

Maybe this helps you too? It's slow and very unsafe + unstable, but better then typing it in each time I guess?

Answer 4

I had exact same error message on a Raspberry Pi Zero 2W, running Debian 12 Bookworm. Issue was my home WIFI 2.4Ghz and 5G networks share the same SSID. I tried Wifi Hotspot with my phone "5ghz preferred" setting, same result. specify BSSID also didn't help.

To confirm your device does have a working Wifi and its a software fault, do try a scan first:

nmcli device wifi list

Solution: I switched Android hotspot to 2.4Ghz and Wifi connection worked 100%. So either 5Ghz is not supported by all Wifi chipsets properly in Linux driver, or its some silly NN software bug overlooking the posibility for dual 2.4+5ghz SSIDs, which is fairly common.