Dance of the WiFi/Airplane/Bluetooth modes

Desktop
1

I believe this GNOME bug is fairly old by now(10 years maybe?) but recently I’ve had struggles with it again since I need to use my ethernet cable instead of WiFi on my Tuxedo laptop.

Most around here probably know that turning off Wi-Fi enables Airplane mode, turning off Airplane mode turns on Bluetooth, and turning off Bluetooth finally has them all turned off. It always feels like playing rock/paper/scissors when I have to use my cabled internet.

I was wondering if there is any current band-aid fix for this behavior?

I’m unsure where this gnome settings entanglement occurs in the codebase but if someone could point me in a direction I’d love to dig into it.

2

Hm I just tried it out and got a different result.

Starting from:

  • :ballot_box_with_check: WiFi
  • :ballot_box_with_check: Bluetooth
  • ☐ Aeroplane Mode

… I disabled WiFi and got:

  • ☐ WiFi
  • :ballot_box_with_check: Bluetooth
  • ☐ Aeroplane Mode

So no Aeroplane Mode here since Bluetooth (as I expect it to) keeps it off.

I then disabled Bluetooth and got:

  • ☐ WiFi
  • ☐ Bluetooth
  • :ballot_box_with_check: Aeroplane Mode

I then enabled Bluetooth again and got:

  • ☐ WiFi
  • :ballot_box_with_check: Bluetooth
  • ☐ Aeroplane Mode

Turning on and off WiFi also toggles Aeroplane Mode accordingly.

Could you see if you can find the bug report perhaps?

3

Hah, that’s interesting indeed.
What distribution and versions are you on?

I’m currently on Arch(6.13.5) and Gnome Shell 47.5 but I’ve had this exact behavior happen on older Ubuntu versions as well.
Normally I’d never run into it because the device would either always use WiFi or always be cabled but in this case I’m using a cable in my laptop so I need to disable WiFi.

Here’s what my behavior looks like:

I’ll try and find the bug report in the meantime.

4

Found it!

https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=761051

seems there’s more discussion about it than I originally thought:

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=211250
https://www.reddit.com/r/gnome/comments/q2urbi/when_i_turn_off_wifi_using_the_top_bars_menu_air/

I can only add 3 links as a new user so that’s all I can share unfortunately xD

5

Ah now I understand what you mean.

I read “turning off Wi-Fi enables Airplane mode” as if Aeroplane Mode would turn
on when you disabled Wi-Fi even though Bluetooth was still enabled.

What you really mean seems to be:

When I turn off Aeroplane Mode both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth is enabled even
though only one of them was enabled when I enabled Aeroplane Mode.

Is that correct? I’ve never even considered that this happening could be an issue but I think I
see it now.

My best workaround for this is to just ignore the Aeroplane Mode button:

  1. If you want to keep Bluetooth always off but toggle WiFi on and off depending
    on whether you have access to Ethernet or not I would just use the WiFi
    toggle button. Toggle WiFi on when you want to use it, and off when you
    don’t. Just ignore the Aeroplane Mode button.

  2. If you want to do the opposite. That is always keep WiFi off but toggle
    Bluetooth on- and off depending on what devices you’re using, then just
    toggle Bluetooth on- and off and ignore the Aeroplane Mode button.

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6

Bottom line is: ignore the Aeroplane Mode button in both cases :slight_smile: got it!

Thanks for thinking with me on this.

1 Like