Unavailable MAC address

[Antony Stone]

Hi.

I'm running Android-x86 4.4-RC2 on an Acer Aspire 722 netbook.

Both the wireless and the cabled ethernet interfaces work fine.

If I go to Settings - About tablet - Status, I can see my IP address (both
IPv4 and IPv6), but the Wi-Fi MAC address is "Unavailable".

If I open a terminal window and type "cat /sys/class/net/wlan0/address" then
it shows me the correct MAC address for the wireless card.


Is this a known bug / is there anything I can do to get Android to show the
MAC address correctly under Settings - Status?


The reason it's important is that I'm trying to install an application which
links a purchased licence key to the MAC address of the machine, and I end up
in the bizarre situation that I can:

- download the app from the Play Store over a working wireless link

- start the app and have it download some data over a still-working wireless
link

- have it tell me that I need to select more data to download before I can
use the app (which is correct)

- have it tell me there is no network connection available, and give up

The network connection at this point is still working perfectly okay (I can be
using it with something else at the same time), but the app decides that
because it can't obtain the wireless MAC address, the interface must be turned
off.

Okay, I know that's also an indication of a rather stupidly-written app, but
even if it would download stuff for me, it still needs to find the MAC address
so that I can get the licence key installed and make the app run past its demo
period.


Can anyone help?


Thanks,


Antony.

--
All matter in the Universe can be placed into one of two categories:

1. Things which need to be fixed.
2. Things which need to be fixed once you've had a few minutes to play with
them.

Please reply to the list;
please don't CC me.

[rbg]

had some funny situations myself...finally realized that some apps depend on wifi only it seems...so am now using

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=xda.usbhost.test

from play store....gives me an indicator when ethernet is connected and allows me to shut down ethernet BEFORE connectecting wireless....

good app to use if you have BOTH ethernet and wifi.....

so now can switch between wifi and ethernet without issues.....every thing I read says theirs and interlock in the

code and you can't have both however the code doesn't ever seem to be that correct in handling it....this did the trick for me..

[Antony Stone]

On Friday 20 June 2014 at 01:21:51, rbg wrote:

> had some funny situations myself...finally realized that some apps depend
> on wifi only it seems...so am now using
>
> https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=xda.usbhost.test
>
> from play store....gives me an indicator when ethernet is connected and
> allows me to shut down ethernet BEFORE connectecting wireless....
>
> good app to use if you have BOTH ethernet and wifi.....

Okay, I've tried that, and:

1. If I start the app and let it enable eth0, I can't get wlan0 back again
without a reboot

2. My eth0 and wlan0 seems to switch quite sensibly between them whenever I
un/plug the cable, without the app installed, therefore I don't need it

3. With or without the app, I still don't get a MAC address shown on the
Status screen, therefore it doesn't solve my problem.

My problem is not that I have a genuine connectivity problem - my problem is
that an app can't find the machine's MAC address.


I'll repeat the question - is it a known bug that I don't see the MAC address
on the Status screen; is there anything I can do so that it does get shown?


Thanks.

Anyone that's normal doesn't really achieve much.

- Mark Blair, Australian rocket engineer