Asterion

Yep, and unsolved again. Looks like the problems are "haunting" the Echer burnt image as well.

Okay, so we have an a statement that the claim is arping should be in 5.25 as "older", you have pointed out, is older than 5.25 yes. That is I should not have seen the arping "missing" in a freshly burnt 5.25 distro?

Yep, and it may have be a red-herring. What I just discovered was that I had the log you asked me to look at opened in nano via my TerraTerm session over the USB connection. That stopped mid scroll. Used a cgwin console to ssh into the device to find nmtui and nano works fine via my ssh session but the session over usb is fragged. So, it looks almost like another problem were session over USB is getting "broken" - repeatedly using nmtui and randomly in other instances. Note I have setup static IP on my PC as well so its end isn't "floating". OR there is some common mechanism that frags eth0 and usb connections??? Something sitting higher in oversight? Yeah, yeah. Get 3-pin serial going, I hear ya.

All cards used in experiment are freshly bought so this is first use.

Sorry, I am confused here with your use of language. I hadn't set up wlan0 so it shouldn't start. The way you have stated the sentence it reads I get "weird stuff happen" IF wlan0 and eth0 are connected to same AP/router/network, yes? So that is you are telling me not to have eth0 and wlan0 running at same time?

Older than what? 5.25?

Yep, but my reading of the package is SanDisk Ultra microSDHC UHS-1 so I am not convinced I have a SD card quality problem.

Ah! So, armbian doesn't come with arping installed but calls it during startup. I see. Is arping supposed to be there? is it part of the problem or is it just an interesting side discussion? It turns out arping is missing whether the system boots up with IP set or not for example. Happy to install it if it will "fix" something. But, ah ha! Okay, I will look at the wlan0 setting setup and thanks for the hint as to which of the myriad logs would be best to take a peek at - that always is a help. I am being slammed at work so I will get to this again on the weekend.

But that isn't the problem at all as I have now seen the system boot fine (without doing anything else) and arping is still not there !

Bingo! I have locked up my OPiZ using nmtui again. That is, the same behaviour using the Etcher burnt CD. So, I am seeing an malaise that degrades the distro over time when it is run for a couple of days BUT it appears not to clear on reboot.

Yep, did mention I would look into logs. I work for a living so when I get to my next hobby break I will tear into the logs. The question though was had you seen this before? The more pertinent question is whether network manager would drop a connection like this for some reason.

So, back again. I keep seeing the ethernet connection dropped. When logging in by USB the login reports IP <blank> (see picture). I saw this previously (see full set of traumas here https://organicmonkeymotion.wordpress.com/category/orange-pi/). Happens now on freshly burnt image using Etcher. Ran for two days. The problem also manifested using an image burnt with WIN32DiskImager so we can discount any FS corruption assumptions - the Etcher burn reported no errors. Call it "Phantom Ethernet" in honour of Screaming Jeeby - that is the board is haunted wooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! Note when I discovered the problem I also tried logging in by USB. Would not connect. I had to pull power. When board came back up still no ethernet but I can get in by USB. As USB is different route to 3-pin serial I am assuming that is telling? I will dust off 3-pin serial. It might actually be two problems, a crash plus the problem with the connection config disappearing (not enough info yet). I will start poking through logs but if anyone has a hint if you have seen this before that would be grand. Cheers, A root@house:~# journalctl -full -b -u NetworkManager -- Logs begin at Thu 2017-06-29 09:17:03 CEST. -- Jun 29 09:17:12 house NetworkManager[435]: <info> (wlan0) supports 2 scan SSIDs Jun 29 09:17:12 house NetworkManager[435]: <info> (eth0): link disconnected (deferring action for 4 seconds) Jun 29 09:17:13 house NetworkManager[435]: <info> (wlan0): supplicant interface state: disconnected -> inactive Jun 29 09:17:14 house NetworkManager[435]: <warn> Could not send ARP for local address 192.168.0.100: Failed to execute child process "/usr/bin/arping" (No such file or directory) Jun 29 09:17:17 house NetworkManager[435]: <info> startup complete Jun 29 09:17:17 house NetworkManager[435]: <info> (eth0): link disconnected (calling deferred action) Jun 29 09:17:17 house NetworkManager[435]: <info> (eth0): device state change: activated -> unavailable (reason 'carrier-changed') [100 20 40] Jun 29 09:17:17 house NetworkManager[435]: <info> (eth0): deactivating device (reason 'carrier-changed') [40] Jun 29 09:17:17 house NetworkManager[435]: <info> NetworkManager state is now CONNECTED_LOCAL Jun 29 09:17:17 house NetworkManager[435]: <info> NetworkManager state is now DISCONNECTED So, has worked fine. Now fails? Whereis of arping turns up naught! So here is the kicker, reboot a few times (doing nothing else touching nothing else) and IP comes up.

Take your chill pill. There was no abuse. I did point out a fact though. Emasculating was it? And just a point on argument, if no one was having sporadic problems due to FS corruption then there was no need for Etcher.

Cheers, that speaks to the heart of the question. Comes with explanation to help understanding.

Yep, and as I said, at the point I expect to enter the new password, the error pops up. So, I do not get to the point where I can type in the new password.