i believe it is a wpa_supplicant problem. running ubuntu 10.04 on a toshiba netbook. i have my account which cannot connect to internet, wicd returns an error that it cannot obtain ip address. cannot even connect to a unesecure network for that matter.

if i switch users to another user and do the quick switch users i can get internet then i switched back to my main account and here i am postings.

how do i begin to hunt down the problem
logs, settings

how do some of you begin to hunt down the cause of this and where it would be located.

what logs give me the stepping stones.

please reply even if this is kinda vague or easy. i can't get this worked out and need assistance.

It sounds like a permission issue. Compare the groups for the user that can connect to the user that can not. The answer might be quite obvious from that standpoint. After making changes to the groups make sure to log that user out and back in again.