problem using wicd to connect to a hidden wep network
 

Greets all-

I'm running slackware-current and having difficulty using wicd to connect to a hidden wireless network that uses WEP.

Going through wicd's network menu to "find a hidden network" simply results in finding no networks at all. I've tried connecting to the appropriate "hidden" entry in the list of networks, but this also fails. It sits around for a while trying to validate authentication and then fails by not being able to acquire an IP address. I don't think it's actually connected to the network when it starts trying to acquire one.

I've also tried manually setting up a configuration section for it in the wireless-settings.conf with no success at connecting to the network.

Okay, big deal, I can use iwconfig to connect to this particular network when I need to, right? Well, it seems that wicd doesn't like to give up control of the interface. as root, setting the essid simply has no effect. subsequent invocations of iwconfig show an empty string as the essid. presumably it doesn't pick up the wep key either, but that's not displayed for me to check.

I have discovered that if wicd initiates a connection and the attempt is canceled before it connects, it briefly gives up control of the interface. During these moments I can set the essid and wep key using iwconfig. Then I can invoke dhcpcd to get an IP address. At this point wicd will show the connected status of the network.

Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks,
--Chad

Which version of wicd are you running? (I think 1.6.0 is the latest release, and several improvements over the 1.5 versions were made.)

From the August 14 -current changelog

Just now tested with 1.6.2 and it seems to have similar problems. I'll have to delve a little deeper before saying that the problem is either the same or different.

I think I forgot to mention that after I attempt to find a hidden network, wicd seems to get stuck with something, and not only do I not find the network, but I can no longer find *any* networks (save the wired one, which is not connected).

I don't see any useful information in the /var/log/wicd/wicd.log. There are entries that say "Setting hidden essidMYESSID". Presumably, the missing space is simply a typo in the code. I'm not sure what I can do to debug this. Is there a way to get more debugging output out of the daemon?

In the AP selection pop-up, click on the "Settings" button and check the "Debugging" check-box.

Caution: The debugging output will included your encryption keys, AP name, etc., in plain text. Don't post that output here without redacting any confidential information unless you don't care to keep it confidential. (The likelihood of a LQ reader finding your post and also being close enough to your AP to use that information seems, to me, to be quite low. But there's no reason to take chances if you don't need to do so. :))