Waiting forever when USB ethernet is configured but not present

Just trying to see if others can reproduce this problem…

If USB ethernet is enabled, but no USB ethernet adapter is present, and DHCP is selected, it seems to sit there waiting for an address until the end of time.

I would have expected some sort of timeout to occur (as it does if no ethernet cable is connected), but it seems like the lack of a USB ethernet adapter causes a log-jam somewhere.

Escape allows things to move on, but it’d be nice if it could happen automatically.

I can confirm this is the case, using a Pi Zero (the only thing I could find without a built in ethernet port!) with RISC OS 5.24.

I guess the DHCP timeout only occurs if a DHCP request is refused or not acknowledged, whereas without the USB Ethernet adaptor being present, it cannot even be sent in the first place?

One of many “known” issues with the DHCP Module, even when its working correctly it sometimes doesn’t apply the DNS and/or route and can take many seconds to act on an offer it received within 300ms.