I updated my RPi 3 last night, and my network connection has been highly unstable (frequent drops, often times requiring a reboot, and manually reconnecting to my router) ever since.
Given that this update was supposed to improve WiFi stability, I’m at a bit of a loss as to why it’s worse.
Here is my log, captured right after I was forced to manually reconnect again: http://paste.osmc.tv/oqivevemuv
Edit: So, it just happened again, while I was watching the Network Info page, and the MAC address kept going back and forth from “Busy” to the actual MAC address.
Here’s another log from after that happened, and I was forced to manually reconnect again: http://paste.osmc.tv/behifenoko
You have Network Manager installed. OSMC uses ConnMan.
Jan 10 13:17:05 osmc NetworkManager[400]: <info> [1515619025.4027] NetworkManager (version 1.6.2) is starting...
Jan 10 13:17:05 osmc NetworkManager[400]: <info> [1515619025.4029] Read config: /etc/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.conf
Jan 10 13:17:05 osmc NetworkManager[400]: <info> [1515619025.4311] manager[0x562af108]: monitoring kernel firmware directory '/lib/firmware'.
Jan 10 13:17:05 osmc NetworkManager[400]: <info> [1515619025.4313] monitoring ifupdown state file '/run/network/ifstate'.
The two are probably in conflict, so instability is to be expected.
The only network oriented program I’ve installed is OpenVPN (via apt-get) and Zomboided’s VPN Manager (GitHub - Zomboided/service.vpn.manager: VPN plugin for Kodi); everything else network related I’ve left alone.
Surprised WiFi works at all.
Get rid of NM. They will otherwise fight for each other.
Get rid of Network Manager, or the VPN Manager?
What I’m confused about is that my system was running absolutely fine until last nights update; as soon as I updated, I immediately started to have this issue.
NetworkManager.
Your system updated to a very different underlying userland. It could be as simple as new versions of NetworkManager hogging soft rfkill.
Jessie → Stretch shows significant changes to NetworkManager implementation.
I am genuinely surprised you got away with running NM under OSMC. It’s unnecessary and would have caused problems eventually.
By NetworkManager are you referring to Zomboided’s VPN Manager, or something else; because, like I said, I never installed anything called NetworkManager. Network wise, I’ve only installed OpenVpn via apt, then the VPN Manger in order to manage my VPN connection.
I’m talking about NetworkManager. I don’t know what the VPN Manager is but assume it’s a Kodi add-on.
Okay, then that’s where I’m confused. How did NetworkManager end up on my system when everything system related like that I never touched. Furthermore, what’s the safest way to uninstall it without anything breaking … since merely updating OSMC last nigh broke my network connectivity.
The problem with considering things a ‘mere’ update is that if you diverge from what’s actually supported and maintained directly by OSMC, there are no guarantees.
Your log is a ring buffer, so only shows an update to NM (as the update was large and contained many packages). This means it was present for some time before the update.
sudo apt-get remove --purge networkmanager will probably do it. But I’m not sure if you have other, problematic packages on your system. If you still have problems, it’s best to reinstall.
That’s the thing: the plugins I have don’t do anything at the system level beyond OpenVPN (which is supported), and I never personally installed Network Manager, so I have no idea how it got there. That, and everything was fine until yesterdays update.
I’ve remove Network Manager (and rebooted), and so far things seem to be working (including VPN Manager), but I’m still at a loss as to how Network Manager got installed (if it wasn’t a part of OSMC), and why all was fine until yesterdays update
Well “someone” executed the install command on 18th November 2017 at 21:26:18 
Start-Date: 2017-11-18 21:26:18
Commandline: /usr/bin/apt-get-real install network-manager-openvpn
Install: libnm-glib4:armhf (0.9.10.0-7, automatic), libpkcs11-helper1:armhf (1.11-2, automatic), libnm-glib-vpn1:armhf (0.9.10.0-7, automatic), libnm-util2:armhf (0.9.10.0-7, automatic), network-manager-openvpn:armhf (0.9.10.0-1), iproute2:armhf (3.16.0-2, automatic), openvpn:armhf (2.3.4-5+deb8u2, automatic)
End-Date: 2017-11-18 21:26:34
Why would installing OpenVPN via apt (that was right around the time I installed OpenVPN) also install a network manager that would conflict with an OS? Or was there something in the OS update that conflicted with OpenVPN?
Installing OpenVPN sudo apt-get install openvpn would not but install the networkmanager-openvpn package (sudo apt-get install network-manager-openvpn) would!
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I have a similar problem where after the January update I have to manually connect to the wifi and it’s only connected for maximum 5min. I tried to remove the network-manager-openvpn, but that did not fix it. I have pasted a log here: http://paste.osmc.io/gitumubova.vhdl (I am using a Raspberry pi 3)
Hi,
From looking at your logs network-manager & network-manager-vpn are still installed:
Created symlink /etc/systemd/system/network-online.target.wants/NetworkManager-wait-online.service -> /lib/systemd/system/NetworkManager-wait-online.service.
Created symlink /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/NetworkManager.service -> /lib/systemd/system/NetworkManager.service.
Setting up network-manager-openvpn (1.2.8-2) ...
Installing new version of config file /etc/NetworkManager/VPN/nm-openvpn-service.name ...
Installing new version of config file /etc/dbus-1/system.d/nm-openvpn-service.conf ...
Setting up network-manager-openvpn-gnome (1.2.8-2) ...
It would probably easier to back up your settings and start a fresh.
Thanks Tom.
“start fresh” are you saying the best solution is to reinstall OSMC? 
yes, if you’ve tried to remove network manager and its still there and also its probably installed other dependency packages which are probably not ideal.
Tom.
Balls. Thanks anyway, maybe I’ll just buy the Vero instead.
Hi,
Dilthedog just spotted something I missed, you maybe able to avoid a re-install. by completly removing network-mananger:
sudo apt-get remove --purge networkmanager
or
sudo apt-get purge network-manager
As for purchasing a vero, I’ve got a vero4k and I think its great, would certainly recommend.
Thanks Tom.