Ubuntu users who have faced difficulties connecting to new password-protected Wi-Fi networks at the login screen will be relieved to know that a fix is being deployed. This bug affects both Ubuntu 24.04 LTS and Ubuntu 24.10. When attempting to connect to a Wi-Fi network that requires a password at the login screen (GDM), users have found that the password input prompt fails to appear, resulting in a failed connection.
The issue arises because the login screen operates in a "greeter" mode where GNOME Shell is launched. In this mode, when GNOME Shell attempts to establish a new Wi-Fi connection, it checks with the org.freedesktop.secrets service to see if the password is stored. However, this query fails due to restricted access in "greeter" mode, leading to an aborted connection attempt.
Canonical software engineer Bartosz Woronicz, who reported the original bug, explained that since the login screen doesn’t operate under a logged-in user account, it cannot access stored passwords, making the password check ineffective.
To address this, Canonical’s engineers have proposed a solution that ensures users are always prompted to enter a Wi-Fi password for new connections initiated in "greeter" mode. This solution has been accepted and integrated into the GNOME 48 release.
Although Ubuntu does not backport new GNOME versions to stable releases, it does incorporate patches and fixes as needed. Consequently, the fix is included in the gnome-shell 46.0-0ubuntu6~24.04.8 update for Ubuntu 24.04 LTS and the gnome-shell 47.0-2ubuntu3.24.10.1 update for Ubuntu 24.10. Users experiencing this issue should check for these updates, which are rolling out this week.
For more details, you can refer to the original bug report.