network manager says "device not managed"

Solution 1:

wired device not managed

Most probably your interface appears in /etc/network/interfaces. By default, NetworkManager does not manage interfaces that appear in /etc/network/interfaces. You can change this behaviour.

To do this - in a terminal:

sudo nano /etc/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.conf

change the line managed=false to managed=true

Save, stop and start network manager:

sudo service network-manager restart

Alternatively, you can remove the interface from /etc/network/interfaces.

backup the current interfaces file:

sudo cp /etc/network/interfaces /etc/network_interfaces_backup

Then open the file:

sudo nano /etc/network/interfaces

Delete everything in that file and copy and paste the following:

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

Save, stop and start network manager:

sudo service network-manager restart

Double check in network manager (click on the indicator) that you have Enabled Networking ticked and you should also force deletion of old "wired connections" and selecting the new wired connection shown in the network manager indicator.

Solution 2:

None of the given solutions worked for me. I was having this problem on an Ubuntu 16.04 machine I hadn't booted in a long time. After some more searching this command is what worked for me.

sudo touch /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/10-globally-managed-devices.conf

Solution 3:

wired device not managed

I had the same problem with a fresh install on my Asus Eee PC 1005HA. The live environment worked with no problems, but once installed I couldn't get the connection to respond or to not read "device not managed". When I changed the text in this configuration file and restarted Network Manager everything worked!

gksudo gedit /etc/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.conf

for lubuntu:

gksudo leafpad /etc/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.conf

Now the text editor will open. Find the line managed=false and replace false with true and save the file (ctrl+s) and close the file.

Restart your computer or the NetworkManager service (sudo service network-manager restart).

Solution 4:

wireless device not managed

I've also found this issue after installing the Ubuntu 11.10 alternate version.

In my case, the /etc/network/interfaces was configured during installation to download new packages, and the conflict arose after the NetworkManager was set up during the first session.

The solution I've found was commenting the lines related to the wlan interface in the /etc/network/interfaces (in console, sudo vim /etc/network/interfaces or your editor of choice):

# The primary network interface
#auto wlan0
#iface wlan0 inet dhcp
#    wpa-ssid [your_ssid]
#    wpa-psk [your_wpa_password]

And then, as Joseph VanPelt proposed, set managed=false in the /etc/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.conf and running sudo service network-manager restart.

Solution 5:

wired device not managed

This is a simple command which does the same as the accepted answer non-interactively.

Run this command in a Terminal to use it:

sudo sed -i 's/^managed=false/managed=true/' /etc/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.conf

You may have to restart the network manager afterwards with this command:

sudo service network-manager restart