Network on USB LAN Adapter wakes up system from sleep unexpectedly if Wake-on-LAN is enabled

When updating I think yesterday something turned Wake-on-LAN on for my network. I was puzzled at first why I couldn’t get the laptop to sleep, well, at first when closing the lid and opening 5 minutes later I couldn’t login since the account was locked due to 3 failed login attempts (I use Plasma with SDDM[1] kscreenlocker). However it turned out WoL was on although it wasn’t in the past. It was never turned on, that is, I didn’t turn it off myself. I had to do so now with

sudo ethtool -s [devicename] wol d

I wonder why it was turned on yesterday - i didn’t do it. Just checked with my second machine (PC not laptop) that is on unstable. After updating WoL is still turned off. Is there any way to turn WoL on without knowing about it? :thinking:


  1. See post #28 ↩︎

It might be useful to know which packages you updated, and also the post-transaction hooks run. Could you please post the output of:

grep 2026-08-21 /var/log/pacman.log

You may need to change the date to reflect the day of the update where you think the issue occurred.

wake-on-lan and wake-on-wlan is controlled by your firmware.

If the device supports wake-on-lan and has the feature enabled, it will respond to the a magic byte packet sent to your network device’s mac address.

An example is a ThinkPad x13; it has a setting in firmware Config section - Wake On LAN from Dock.

My ThinkStation devices has a related configuration.

See man wakeonlan for more information

DESCRIPTION
       This script sends 'magic packets' to wake-on-lan enabled ethernet
       adapters and motherboards, in order to switch on the called PC. Be sure
       to connect the NIC with the motherboard if necessary, and to enable the
       WOL function in the BIOS.

       The 'magic packet' consists of 6 times 0xFF followed by 16 times the
       hardware address of the NIC. This sequence can be encapsulated in any
       kind of packet. This script uses UDP packets.

It will probably be easier to disable it then to investigate. Otherwise i guess the only way will be to sniff the traffic with wireshark.
Also note, the wol packet can be addressed to this pc or broadcasted to everybody in the net. Which makes it even harder to debug.
Same situation with the ports, in theory you can block port 9 but it doesn’t always work if it is broadcast.
My personal experience is a big headache so i always turn it off on home machines.

P.s.even if in the firmware there is no option for it, there is an option to make the NIC stop responding but you have to investigate youself what parameters and where to put. Is vendor dependent.

Well i turned it off with

sudo ethtool -s [devicename] wol d

already. Beforehand i checked with ethtool [devicename] and it was set to g. However, i’m pretty sure that this wasn’t the case up to this point. The laptop is always connected to LAN, well, it doesn’t have a LAN port so I have a USB to LAN adapter. This alone should have prevented the laptop from sleep, or am I missing anything?

❯ inxi -zv8
System:
  Kernel: 7.2.0--1-MANJARO arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 16.2.1
    clocksource: tsc avail: acpi_pm
    parameters: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-7.2-x86_64
    root=UUID=6af1ea40-9cc2-4608-8968-470bd70db7b6 rw quiet splash
    resume=UUID=bcbc0542-a627-41cb-8aa2-73334358faed udev.log_priority=3
  Desktop: KDE Plasma v: 6.7.4 tk: Qt v: N/A info: frameworks v: 6.29.0
    wm: kwin_wayland with: krunner vt: 1 dm: SDDM Distro: Manjaro
    base: Arch Linux
Machine:
  Type: Laptop System: HP product: HP EliteBook 840 14 inch G10 Notebook PC
    v: SBKPFV3 serial: <superuser required> Chassis: type: 10
    serial: <superuser required>
  Mobo: HP model: 8B41 v: KBC Version 51.45.00 serial: <superuser required>
    uuid: <superuser required> Firmware: UEFI vendor: HP v: 70 Ver. 01.11.00
    date: 11/06/2025
Battery:
  ID-1: BAT0 charge: 40.8 Wh (100%) condition: 40.8/51.3 Wh (79.5%)
    volts: 12.36 min: 11.58 model: Hewlett-Packard Primary type: Li-ion
    serial: <filter> charging: status: full cycles: 21
Memory:
  System RAM: total: 32 GiB available: 30.97 GiB used: 5.46 GiB (17.6%)
  Message: For most reliable report, use superuser + dmidecode.
  Array-1: capacity: 64 GiB slots: 2 modules: 2 EC: None
    max-module-size: 32 GiB note: est.
  Device-1: Bottom-Slot 1(left) type: DDR5 detail: synchronous size: 16 GiB
    speed: spec: 5600 MT/s actual: 5200 MT/s volts: curr: 1 width (bits):
    data: 64 total: 64 manufacturer: Samsung part-no: M425R2GA3BB0-CWMOD
    serial: <filter>
  Device-2: Bottom-Slot 2(right) type: DDR5 detail: synchronous size: 16 GiB
    speed: spec: 5600 MT/s actual: 5200 MT/s volts: curr: 1 width (bits):
    data: 64 total: 64 manufacturer: Samsung part-no: M425R2GA3BB0-CWMOD
    serial: <filter>
PCI Slots:
  Permissions: Unable to run dmidecode. Root privileges required.
CPU:
  Info: model: 13th Gen Intel Core i7-1360P bits: 64 type: MST AMCP
    arch: Raptor Lake level: v3 note: check built: 2022+ process: Intel 7 (10nm)
    family: 6 model-id: 0xBA (186) stepping: 2 microcode: 0x6134
  Topology: cpus: 1x dies: 1 clusters: 6 cores: 12 threads: 16 mt: 4 tpc: 2
    st: 8 smt: enabled cache: L1: 1.1 MiB desc: d-8x32 KiB, 4x48 KiB; i-4x32
    KiB, 8x64 KiB L2: 9 MiB desc: 4x1.2 MiB, 2x2 MiB L3: 18 MiB desc: 1x18 MiB
  Speed (MHz): avg: 400 min/max: 400/5000:3700 scaling: driver: intel_pstate
    governor: powersave cores: 1: 400 2: 400 3: 400 4: 400 5: 400 6: 400 7: 400
    8: 400 9: 400 10: 400 11: 400 12: 400 13: 400 14: 400 15: 400 16: 400
    bogomips: 83558
  Flags: 3dnowprefetch abm acpi adx aes aperfmperf apic arat
    arch_capabilities arch_lbr arch_perfmon art avx avx2 avx_vnni bmi1 bmi2
    bts clflush clflushopt clwb cmov constant_tsc cpuid cpuid_fault cx16 cx8
    de ds_cpl dtes64 dtherm dts epb ept ept_ad erms est f16c flexpriority
    flush_l1d fma fpu fsgsbase fsrm fxsr gfni hfi ht hwp hwp_act_window
    hwp_epp hwp_notify hwp_pkg_req ibpb ibrs ibrs_enhanced ibt ida intel_pt
    invpcid lahf_lm lm mca mce md_clear mmx monitor movbe movdir64b movdiri
    msr mtrr nonstop_tsc nopl nx ospke pae pat pbe pcid pclmulqdq pdcm
    pdpe1gb pebs pge pku pln pni popcnt pse pse36 pts rdpid rdrand rdseed
    rdtscp rep_good sdbg sep serialize sha_ni smap smep smx split_lock_detect
    ss ssbd sse sse2 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 stibp syscall tm tm2 tpr_shadow tsc
    tsc_adjust tsc_deadline_timer tsc_known_freq umip user_shstk vaes vme vmx
    vnmi vpclmulqdq vpid waitpkg x2apic xgetbv1 xsave xsavec xsaveopt xsaves
    xtopology xtpr
  Vulnerabilities:
  Type: gather_data_sampling status: Not affected
  Type: ghostwrite status: Not affected
  Type: indirect_target_selection status: Not affected
  Type: itlb_multihit status: Not affected
  Type: l1tf status: Not affected
  Type: mds status: Not affected
  Type: meltdown status: Not affected
  Type: mmio_stale_data status: Not affected
  Type: old_microcode status: Not affected
  Type: reg_file_data_sampling mitigation: Clear Register File
  Type: retbleed status: Not affected
  Type: spec_rstack_overflow status: Not affected
  Type: spec_store_bypass mitigation: Speculative Store Bypass disabled via
    prctl
  Type: spectre_v1 mitigation: usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer
    sanitization
  Type: spectre_v2 mitigation: Enhanced / Automatic IBRS; IBPB:
    conditional; PBRSB-eIBRS: SW sequence; BHI: BHI_DIS_S
  Type: srbds status: Not affected
  Type: tsa status: Not affected
  Type: tsx_async_abort status: Not affected
  Type: vmscape mitigation: IBPB before exit to userspace
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel Raptor Lake-P [Iris Xe Graphics] vendor: Hewlett-Packard
    driver: i915 v: kernel alternate: xe arch: Xe process: Intel 7 (10nm)
    built: 2022+ ports: active: eDP-1 empty: DP-1, DP-2, DP-3, DP-4, HDMI-A-1
    bus-ID: 00:02.0 chip-ID: 8086:a7a0 class-ID: 0300
  Device-2: Luxvisions Innotech HP 5MP Camera driver: uvcvideo type: USB
    rev: 2.0 speed: 480 Mb/s lanes: 1 mode: 2.0 bus-ID: 3-1:2 chip-ID: 30c9:0096
    class-ID: fe01 serial: <filter>
  Display: wayland server: X.org v: 1.21.1.24 with: Xwayland v: 24.1.13
    compositor: kwin_wayland driver: X: loaded: modesetting
    alternate: fbdev,vesa dri: iris gpu: i915 display-ID: 0
  Monitor-1: eDP-1 model: AU Optronics 0x6da8 built: 2022 res:
    mode: 2560x1600 hz: 120 scale: 105% (1.05) to: 2438x1524 dpi: 216 gamma: 1.2
    chroma: red: x: 0.678 y: 0.318 green: x: 0.267 y: 0.698 blue: x: 0.153
    y: 0.047 white: x: 0.314 y: 0.329 size: 301x188mm (11.85x7.4")
    diag: 355mm (14") ratio: 16:10 modes: 2560x1600
  EDID-Warnings: 1: parse_edid: unknown flag 2 2: parse_edid: unknown tag
    112
  API: EGL v: 1.5 hw: drv: intel iris platforms: device: 0 drv: iris
    device: 1 drv: swrast gbm: drv: iris surfaceless: drv: iris wayland:
    drv: iris x11: drv: iris
  API: OpenGL v: 4.6 vendor: intel mesa v: 26.1.8-arch1.1 glx-v: 1.4
    direct-render: yes renderer: Mesa Intel Iris Xe Graphics (RPL-P)
    device-ID: 8086:a7a0 memory: 30.25 GiB unified: yes display-ID: :1.0
  API: Vulkan v: 1.4.357 layers: 2 device: 0 type: integrated-gpu name: Intel
    Iris Xe Graphics (RPL-P) driver: mesa intel v: 26.1.8-arch1.1
    device-ID: 8086:a7a0 surfaces: N/A
  Info: Tools: api: clinfo, eglinfo, glxinfo, vulkaninfo
    de: kscreen-console,kscreen-doctor wl: wayland-info x11: xdpyinfo,xprop
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel Raptor Lake-P/U/H cAVS vendor: Hewlett-Packard
    driver: sof-audio-pci-intel-tgl alternate: snd_soc_avs,
    snd_sof_pci_intel_tgl, snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 00:1f.3 chip-ID: 8086:51ca
    class-ID: 0401
  API: ALSA v: k7.2.0--1-MANJARO status: kernel-api with: aoss
    type: oss-emulator tools: alsactl,alsamixer,amixer
  Server-1: sndiod v: N/A status: off tools: aucat,midicat,sndioctl
  Server-2: JACK v: 1.9.22 status: off tools: N/A
  Server-3: PipeWire v: 1.6.8 status: active with: 1: pipewire-pulse
    status: active 2: wireplumber status: active 3: pipewire-alsa type: plugin
    tools: pactl,pw-cat,pw-cli,wpctl
Network:
  Device-1: Intel Raptor Lake PCH CNVi WiFi driver: iwlwifi v: kernel
    bus-ID: 00:14.3 chip-ID: 8086:51f1 class-ID: 0280
  IF: wlp0s20f3 state: down mac: <filter>
  Device-2: Realtek USB 10/100/1G/2.5G LAN driver: r8152 type: USB rev: 3.2
    speed: 5 Gb/s lanes: 1 mode: 3.2 gen-1x1 bus-ID: 4-1:2 chip-ID: 0bda:8156
    class-ID: 0000 serial: <filter>
  IF: enp0s20f0u1 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
  IP v4: <filter> type: dynamic noprefixroute scope: global
    broadcast: <filter>
  IP v6: <filter> type: dynamic noprefixroute scope: global
  IP v6: <filter> type: noprefixroute scope: link
  IF-ID-1: wwan0 state: down mac: N/A
  Info: services: NetworkManager,systemd-timesyncd
  WAN IP: <filter>
Bluetooth:
  Device-1: Intel AX211 Bluetooth driver: btusb v: 0.8 type: USB rev: 2.0
    speed: 12 Mb/s lanes: 1 mode: 1.1 bus-ID: 3-10:4 chip-ID: 8087:0033
    class-ID: e001
  Report: rfkill ID: hci0 rfk-id: 1 state: up address: see --recommends
Logical:
  Message: No logical block device data found.
RAID:
  Message: No RAID data found.
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 953.87 GiB used: 46.62 GiB (4.9%)
  SMART Message: Unable to run smartctl. Root privileges required.
  ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 maj-min: 259:0 vendor: Western Digital model: WD PC
    SN810 SDCPNRY-1T00-1006 size: 953.87 GiB block-size: physical: 512 B
    logical: 512 B speed: 63.2 Gb/s lanes: 4 tech: SSD serial: <filter>
    fw-rev: HPS2 temp: 27.9 C scheme: GPT
  Message: No optical or floppy data found.
Partition:
  ID-1: / raw-size: 110 GiB size: 107.72 GiB (97.92%) used: 28.19 GiB (26.2%)
    fs: ext4 dev: /dev/nvme0n1p2 maj-min: 259:2 label: N/A
    uuid: 6af1ea40-9cc2-4608-8968-470bd70db7b6
  ID-2: /boot/efi raw-size: 512 MiB size: 511 MiB (99.80%)
    used: 328 KiB (0.1%) fs: vfat dev: /dev/nvme0n1p1 maj-min: 259:1 label: N/A
    uuid: D652-A9B7
  ID-3: /home raw-size: 835 GiB size: 820.82 GiB (98.30%)
    used: 18.43 GiB (2.2%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/nvme0n1p3 maj-min: 259:3
    label: N/A uuid: d9ebda44-b9de-4add-b4df-428536493ce4
Swap:
  Kernel: swappiness: 60 (default) cache-pressure: 100 (default) zswap: yes
    compressor: zstd max-pool: 20%
  ID-1: swap-1 type: partition size: 8.37 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%)
    priority: -1 dev: /dev/nvme0n1p4 maj-min: 259:4 label: N/A
    uuid: bcbc0542-a627-41cb-8aa2-73334358faed
Unmounted:
  Message: No unmounted partitions found.
USB:
  Hub-1: 1-0:1 info: hi-speed hub with single TT ports: 1 rev: 2.0
    speed: 480 Mb/s (57.2 MiB/s) lanes: 1 mode: 2.0 chip-ID: 1d6b:0002
    class-ID: 0900
  Hub-2: 2-0:1 info: super-speed hub ports: 3 rev: 3.1
    speed: 20 Gb/s (2.33 GiB/s) lanes: 2 mode: 3.2 gen-2x2 chip-ID: 1d6b:0003
    class-ID: 0900
  Hub-3: 3-0:1 info: hi-speed hub with single TT ports: 12 rev: 2.0
    speed: 480 Mb/s (57.2 MiB/s) lanes: 1 mode: 2.0 chip-ID: 1d6b:0002
    class-ID: 0900
  Device-1: 3-1:2 info: Luxvisions Innotech HP 5MP Camera type: video
    driver: uvcvideo interfaces: 5 rev: 2.0 speed: 480 Mb/s (57.2 MiB/s)
    lanes: 1 mode: 2.0 power: 500mA chip-ID: 30c9:0096 class-ID: fe01
    serial: <filter>
  Device-2: 3-7:3 info: Synaptics type: <vendor specific> driver: N/A
    interfaces: 1 rev: 2.0 speed: 12 Mb/s (1.4 MiB/s) lanes: 1 mode: 1.1
    power: 100mA chip-ID: 06cb:00f0 class-ID: ff00 serial: <filter>
  Device-3: 3-10:4 info: Intel AX211 Bluetooth type: bluetooth driver: btusb
    interfaces: 2 rev: 2.0 speed: 12 Mb/s (1.4 MiB/s) lanes: 1 mode: 1.1
    power: 100mA chip-ID: 8087:0033 class-ID: e001
  Hub-4: 4-0:1 info: super-speed hub ports: 4 rev: 3.1
    speed: 10 Gb/s (1.16 GiB/s) lanes: 1 mode: 3.2 gen-2x1 chip-ID: 1d6b:0003
    class-ID: 0900
  Device-1: 4-1:2 info: Realtek USB 10/100/1G/2.5G LAN type: Network
    driver: r8152 interfaces: 1 rev: 3.2 speed: 5 Gb/s (596.0 MiB/s) lanes: 1
    mode: 3.2 gen-1x1 power: 256mA chip-ID: 0bda:8156 class-ID: 0000
    serial: <filter>
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 32.2 C mobo: N/A
  Fan Speeds (rpm): cpu: 963
Repos:
  Packages: 1705 pm: pacman pkgs: 1698 libs: 354 tools: pamac pm: flatpak
    pkgs: 7
  Active pacman repo servers in: /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist
    1: https://mirror.futureweb.be/manjaro/unstable/$repo/$arch
    2: https://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/linux/manjaro/unstable/$repo/$arch
    3: https://manjaro.ipacct.com/manjaro/unstable/$repo/$arch
    4: https://mirror.it4i.cz/manjaro/unstable/$repo/$arch
    5: https://mirror.xenyth.net/manjaro/unstable/$repo/$arch
    6: https://opencolo.mm.fcix.net/manjaro/unstable/$repo/$arch
    7: https://mirrors.sonic.net/manjaro/unstable/$repo/$arch
    8: https://muug.ca/mirror/manjaro/unstable/$repo/$arch
Processes:
  CPU top: 5 of 433
  1: cpu: 12.3% command: konsole pid: 19669 mem: 114.2 MiB (0.3%)
  2: cpu: 6.3% command: zsh pid: 19677 mem: 10.8 MiB (0.0%)
  3: cpu: 2.1% command: brave pid: 19360 mem: 213.6 MiB (0.6%)
  4: cpu: 1.8% command: kwin_wayland pid: 1363 mem: 344.7 MiB (1.0%)
  5: cpu: 0.9% command: plasmashell pid: 1517 mem: 443.7 MiB (1.3%)
  Memory top: 5 of 433
  1: mem: 670.1 MiB (2.1%) command: firefox pid: 1848 cpu: 0.3%
  2: mem: 480.9 MiB (1.5%) command: brave pid: 17899 cpu: 0.1%
  3: mem: 443.7 MiB (1.3%) command: plasmashell pid: 1517 cpu: 0.9%
  4: mem: 393.5 MiB (1.2%) command: firefox pid: 2530 cpu: 0.0%
  5: mem: 344.7 MiB (1.0%) command: kwin_wayland pid: 1363 cpu: 1.8%
Info:
  Processes: 433 Power: uptime: 21h 42m states: freeze,mem,disk
    suspend: s2idle avail: deep wakeups: 12 hibernate: platform avail: shutdown,
    reboot, suspend, test_resume image: 12.31 GiB services: org_kde_powerdevil,
    power-profiles-daemon, upowerd Init: systemd v: 261 default: graphical
    tool: systemctl
  Compilers: clang: 22.1.8 gcc: 16.2.1 Shell: Zsh v: 5.9.2
    running-in: konsole inxi: 3.3.41

So far, I assume it could have been some driver or firmware update. The kernel version didn’t make a difference - I tried with 7.1.8 and 6.18. I need to check whether there is an option in the BIOS, and I’ll have a look at the pacman logs. Unfortunately I can’t recall the exact time.

I think you can safely conclude - this is not a wake-on-lan issue - as the NIC has to be specifically enabled - I really do not think Wake-On-Lan applies to USB network peripherals.

Several factors are in play for a system to be able to utilise wake-on-lan

  • it has to be powered
  • USB devices will usually be powered off when system enters sleep
  • the magic packet need to be crafted for the specific NIC’s mac address
  • this crafting is described on the wakeonlan manual linked above

Well, I just booted up my old laptop and there it is also set to g. :thinking: But on the old laptop the Wake-on-LAN is disabled in the BIOS. (The HP has this setting also in the BIOS and I disabled it there now - I’ll try setting to g and see if the issue reappears)

Now I’m confused. This is probably because I don’t know what WoL is. So here is what happened 100% reproducible. I send the laptop to sleep. Screen goes black but the laptop wakes up directly, i think it didn’t even arrive at sleep. I’m on the login manager kscreenlocker screen, but it tells me the account is locked because of 3 failed attempts.

However, when i pull the LAN cable before sending the laptop to sleep, it goes to sleep fine. I can wake it up. There is no problem on the login lock screen. I can type in my password or use the fingerprint sensor.

The problem occurred out of the blue sky since the day before yesterday.

As i already explained since it doesn’t happen when the LAN cable is disconnected but always happens when the LAN cable is connected I concluded verbatim wake-on-lan. So I went to the ethtool and turned wol off with the given command and everything is like before, so with connected LAN cable the laptop goes to sleep as it always did.

I would likely be confused as well.

I cannot say what is preventing the shutdown - neither do I have any idea what happens with the display manager.

In most networks the IP address is assigned using DHCP. Depending on a number of factors (I do not remember all - often it is configuration you are not able to change) the system going to sleep would signal the DHCP server that the leased address is no longer in use. This is to avoid unnecessary traffic to the offline device and makes the address available for new devices.

Did you disconnect the network cable or did you disconnect the USB device?

If you disconnect the cable the system cannot inform the address assigning service about the intent to go offline.

One can only speculate - if you really, really want to know why - you should setup a a second monitoring computer and capture all traffic on the network relating to the device. Perhaps you could catch what s causing the interference.

I’m just more confused. When i rechecked the settings, the network was already set to g again. Perhaps it isn’t persistent and i did reboot for changing the BIOS. So in the BIOS Wake-on-LAN is disabled now, the network setting is on g, and everything is still fine. The laptop goes to sleep properly and i can wake it up without issues.

The LAN cable only.

As no one is addressing this, it seems everyone knows how the 3 failed login attempts came about. Can someone explain this to me, as I don’t know?

Then the system can no longer communicate it’s intent to shutdown - and therefore the address assigning service (usually your router) will never respond to the broadcast.

I am guessing now - I do not know anything - but it would seem that your router sends the magic packet back in response to a shutdown.

Why it does so - I have not got the foggiest idea.

I suggest you reset your routers configuration.

As for the failed login attempts - your guess is as good as mine - but I would look for signs of the network being compromised.

Set up a second system to monitor the network traffic to and from the device in question.

Then this would be so since the day before yesterday. :thinking: Also, when the device sleeps, the lights on the USB adapter’s LAN port flicker like normal.

If so - did the update contain a new kernel - if yes - then you may be looking at some sort of regression - but I have no idea - I have never been in a similar situation…

Power off the device instead of suspend - quite obviously the suspend/sleep state is just low activity state - and it is kept alive by the network card refusing to let go.

The failed login attempts is hard to ignore…

These seem to be related to the device not going to sleep. I mean, all seems fine now, again. It must also be related to Wake-on-LAN somehow, because this is turned off in the BIOS. I mean i could turn it on again to verify the issue returns :thinking:

Did so, and i can confirm, turning on Wake-on-LAN results in no sleep, turning off lets the laptop sleep. And this no sleep behaviour is new whatever the underlying cause is.

Regarding the 3 failed login attempts. This isn’t the case now. I think this could have been caused with the fingerprint sensor which sometimes fails. Don’t know how this counter works.

Anyway, if the laptop doesn’t got to sleep i can now directly login. My explanation was a bit misleading, but yesterday or when the login manager was in this state it was like sticky. The minutes went down, i could unlock eventually but when trying to put it to sleep for investigation purposes it reappeared with this 3 failures and so-and-so many minutes to wait :man_shrugging:

Regarding the pacman.log there were no firmware updates - kernel updates yes but the 6.18 kernel shouldn’t impacted i think (and it happens with this kernel too). Perhaps

[2026-08-20T16:53:41+0200] [ALPM] upgraded iproute2 (7.1.0-1 -> 7.2.0-1)

but i really have no idea.

Firmware upgrades were a few days before

[2026-08-17T18:11:19+0200] [ALPM] upgraded linux-firmware-whence (20260622-1 -> 20260810-2)
[2026-08-17T18:11:19+0200] [ALPM] upgraded linux-firmware-amdgpu (20260622-1 -> 20260810-2)
[2026-08-17T18:11:19+0200] [ALPM] upgraded linux-firmware-atheros (20260622-1 -> 20260810-2)
[2026-08-17T18:11:19+0200] [ALPM] upgraded linux-firmware-broadcom (20260622-1 -> 20260810-2)
[2026-08-17T18:11:19+0200] [ALPM] upgraded linux-firmware-cirrus (20260622-1 -> 20260810-2)
[2026-08-17T18:11:19+0200] [ALPM] upgraded linux-firmware-intel (20260622-1 -> 20260810-2)
[2026-08-17T18:11:19+0200] [ALPM] upgraded linux-firmware-mediatek (20260622-1 -> 20260810-2)
[2026-08-17T18:11:20+0200] [ALPM] upgraded linux-firmware-nvidia (20260622-1 -> 20260810-2)
[2026-08-17T18:11:20+0200] [ALPM] upgraded linux-firmware-other (20260622-1 -> 20260810-2)
[2026-08-17T18:11:20+0200] [ALPM] upgraded linux-firmware-radeon (20260622-1 -> 20260810-2)

but possibly since i normally only close the lid i might not have realised the issue directly only when this failed login attempts blocked me :thinking:

This is strange. Like @linux-aarhus, I doubt that Wake-on-LAN is the cause. WoL should not work via USB; it requires support from a powered network card. WoL is used, for example, for remote computer maintenance to switch machines on remotely, especially servers. It’s just a guess: Can the attempt to enable the network adapter’s WoL capability, which really should not be possible, prevent your system from going to sleep, even if WoL is disabled in the BIOS/UEFI (check power-saving config)?

Try to rule out the possibility that the login attempts are caused by accidental key presses, mouse clicks or similar action.

If the USB network adapter remains powered while the system is asleep, it may still be able to receive a WoL packet. Depending on how the adapter and USB controller handle wake events, that could potentially generate a USB wake event and either prevent the system from entering sleep or wake it immediately afterward.

On my motherboard, at least, I can configure whether USB devices remain powered during sleep and whether USB activity is allowed to wake the system.

No, i disabled WoL in the BIOS. Since then the laptop goes to sleep fine. The default setting beforehand was “Boot to Harddrive” - I wonder also how this could relate. Now here the ethtool output for my network connection

❯ sudo ethtool enp0s20f0u1
Place your right index finger on the fingerprint reader
Settings for enp0s20f0u1:
        Supported ports: [ TP    MII ]
        Supported link modes:   10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
                                100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
                                1000baseT/Half 1000baseT/Full
                                2500baseT/Full
        Supported pause frame use: No
        Supports auto-negotiation: Yes
        Supported FEC modes: Not reported
        Advertised link modes:  10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
                                100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
                                1000baseT/Full
                                2500baseT/Full
        Advertised pause frame use: No
        Advertised auto-negotiation: Yes
        Advertised FEC modes: Not reported
        Link partner advertised link modes:  10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
                                             100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
                                             1000baseT/Half 1000baseT/Full
        Link partner advertised pause frame use: Symmetric Receive-only
        Link partner advertised auto-negotiation: Yes
        Link partner advertised FEC modes: Not reported
        Speed: 1000Mb/s
        Duplex: Full
        Auto-negotiation: on
        Port: MII
        PHYAD: 32
        Transceiver: internal
        Supports Wake-on: pumbg
        Wake-on: g
        Current message level: 0x00007fff (32767)
                               drv probe link timer ifdown ifup rx_err tx_err tx_queued intr tx_done rx_status pktdata hw wol
        Link detected: yes

The little “g” on Wake-on should mean it is enabled.

Yes it does. It seems to be a low sleep or standby. I can see the laptop is in this state when the light on the power button blinks. Wake-up is fast.

Well, I can now reproduce these failed login attempts, and i’m getting a bit of a clearer picture. So, if i hit Meta+L to go to the login lock screen, and then i move the mouse pointer with the built-in touch pad to the sleep button, click it this counts as a login attempt. The laptop goes to sleep an i wake it up with the touch pad and the login is grayed out and shaking indicating a failed login, although there wasn’t really anything. If i do so a few times, then the account is locked down.

To me it looks like there is faulty behaviour. This WoL doesn’t work like it is supposed to, perhaps there isn’t even a proper magic packet send but just some activity that triggers the wake-up by mistake. And SDDM kscreenlocker thinks mouse movements and a click to the sleep button count as login attempt. What can you say :man_shrugging:

In any case, the “g” is inconsistent with the WoL function being disabled in the BIOS, because it indicates that the adapter’s WoL capability is enabled. Taking @pwx’s comment in consideration, I think an attempt should be made to put USB devices into power-saving sleep mode separately (keywords: ErP, EuP). If a keyboard or mouse is connected via USB, you should consider the possibility of a time lag after opening the laptop lid and input confusion. It might help to wait a few seconds before typing in your login credentials.

No idea about the login attempts, that is very strange.
But you using usb adapter for ethernet crates one more point of failure AND control. Me personally, as xfce user i use TLP and there are options for port suspend, pretty sure powerdevil has those too, that means you can control if the usb ports are on or off on suspend. THAT will probably also work from bios, if you disable usb ports to wake up the pc.
Of course that will be inconvenience if you use external keyboard or mouse and wake up the machine with those, if it is a laptop which it is in this case.

p.s. the bios wol setting will mean nothing for a usb device, forget it. Look for the bios usb setting.

I had thought the same thing, and yet he confirmed that it solved his problem.