wpa_supplicant CTRL-EVENT-SCAN-FAILED error

Question

I have two WiFi cards, as I use one as a hotspot. My /var/log/syslog is filled with wpa_supplicant errors:

Jul  2 07:50:44 ubuntu1 wpa_supplicant[1347]: wlp5s0: CTRL-EVENT-SCAN-FAILED ret=-95 retry=1
Jul  2 07:55:00 ubuntu1 wpa_supplicant[1347]: message repeated 256 times: [ wlp5s0: CTRL-EVENT-SCAN-FAILED ret=-95 retry=1]
Jul  2 07:55:01 ubuntu1 CRON[2708510]: (root) CMD (command -v debian-sa1 > /dev/null && debian-sa1 1 1)
Jul  2 07:55:01 ubuntu1 wpa_supplicant[1347]: wlp5s0: CTRL-EVENT-SCAN-FAILED ret=-95 retry=1

My cards are

  *-network                 
       description: Ethernet interface
       product: I211 Gigabit Network Connection
       vendor: Intel Corporation
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:04:00.0
       logical name: enp4s0
       version: 03
       serial: 70:85:c2:ae:42:71
       capacity: 1Gbit/s
       width: 32 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi msix pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet physical tp 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt-fd autonegotiation
       configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=igb driverversion=5.6.0-k firmware=0. 4-1 latency=0 link=no multicast=yes port=twisted pair
       resources: irq:36 memory:d9500000-d951ffff ioport:2000(size=32) memory:d9520000-d9523fff
  *-network
       description: Wireless interface
       product: Dual Band Wireless-AC 3168NGW [Stone Peak]
       vendor: Intel Corporation
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:05:00.0
       logical name: wlp5s0
       version: 10
       serial: 18:56:80:92:f3:2e
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless
       configuration: broadcast=yes driver=iwlwifi driverversion=5.4.0-40-generic firmware=29.1654887522.0 ip=10.42.0.1 latency=0 link=yes multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11
       resources: irq:95 memory:d9400000-d9401fff
  *-network
       description: Ethernet interface
       product: I211 Gigabit Network Connection
       vendor: Intel Corporation
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:06:00.0
       logical name: enp6s0
       version: 03
       serial: 70:85:c2:ae:42:6f
       capacity: 1Gbit/s
       width: 32 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi msix pciexpress bus_master cap_list ethernet physical tp 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt-fd autonegotiation
       configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=igb driverversion=5.6.0-k firmware=0. 4-1 latency=0 link=no multicast=yes port=twisted pair
       resources: irq:34 memory:d9300000-d931ffff ioport:1000(size=32) memory:d9320000-d9323fff
  *-network
       description: Wireless interface
       product: Wi-Fi 6 AX200
       vendor: Intel Corporation
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:07:00.0
       logical name: wlp7s0
       version: 1a
       serial: 5c:80:b6:fd:b4:7f
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress msix bus_master cap_list ethernet physical wireless
       configuration: broadcast=yes driver=iwlwifi driverversion=5.4.0-40-generic firmware=48.4fa0041f.0 ip=192.168.0.182 latency=0 link=yes multicast=yes wireless=IEEE 802.11
       resources: irq:42 memory:d9200000-d9203fff

Answer 1

I have a similar issue. One WLAN card, one Ethernet. WLAN is set up to automatically create a hotspot when I start my computer and keep it on at all times. I had no connectivity issues at all, but my log file was absolutely filled with:

CTRL-EVENT-SCAN-FAILED ret=-95 retry=1

with a new log entry every single second (for months).

Adding:

[device]
match-device=driver:<YOUR-DEVICE-NAME>
wifi.scan-rand-mac-address=no

to /etc/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.conf seems to have solved it.

<YOUR-DEVICE-NAME> in my case was gathered from running ifconfig in a terminal and locating my WLAN card, which was wlp4s0 in my case.

Answer 2

You don't happen to have turned the WiFi off by accident (e.g via some function key)? There have been some regression chats in the past time concerning this problem

I'd try to create a file as /etc/NetworkManager/conf.d/intel_sp.conf with following content:

[device]
match-device=driver:iwlwifi
wifi.scan-rand-mac-address=no

Reboot and try. Each driver is different, but this might help

Answer 3

frogpeople's answer did not work for me. Finally I found that adding the following section to /etc/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.conf works well:

[keyfile]
unmanaged-devices=mac:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx