# wicd and linksys wlan router [solved]

## menschmeier

Recently I noticed that my laptop isn't able to connect to my Linksys WRT54GL WLAN router anymore. Did a lot to make it work again. I reseted the router, all the wireless settings, .... After more than one hour I got it working again.

Today it happened again, the 3rd time in two months. Before I will return it to my dealer. I want to be sure that the problem is caused by the router not by my laptop or wicd. 

I am using the wicd-gtk client. Trying to connect to my access point fails with the message "Connection Failed: Bad password"

At the bottom of its window one I see the status messages. 

 *Quote:*   

> None: putting interface up
> 
> None: validating authentication
> 
> black_hole: validating authentication
> ...

 

What does this mean? Was the authentication on my side OK, but not on the routers side?

I switched off all wireless security mechanisms and run the wlan unsecured. Then I got the message: "Connection Failed: Unable to Get IP Address"

Does any has an idea how I can find out more?

In my cellar somewhere I do have an old Zyxel WLAN router which is only capable using WEP as security algorithm. But there are many boxes down stairs, so it will be quite hard to find it ...

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## doc235

let wicd handle all the connection stuff by itself.

i have read and seen on IRC support for gentoo at chat.freenode.net that talked about this yesterday

the solution was to shutdown net.eth0 and then let wicd do the rest i can't recall a lot of the conversssaation and my logs reset every day so i don't have that to help me.

i wwish i could offer more but there IS this https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-842022-start-0.html that is similar to your issue and may help if you dig thru the stuff not related, but i don't think the router is BAD. this is usually a matter of configuration.

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## menschmeier

i will bring the route into my office and test it using M$ windows. I will if I still have trouble with this device. If not I have to check my system.

This router did well for one year. Then the trouble started ...

I will keep you informed whats going on.

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## menschmeier

My router seems not to be the problem. with other system it was not problem to connect to. 

So I have to rebuild my system ...

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## cach0rr0

just dodgy wireless on the client side, not heaps i can expand on that. 

wicd tends to upchuck "bad password" no matter what sort of error it encounters, if it happens at a particular phase in the exchange (association? auth? dunno)

The test to include/exclude something like WICD is to run wpa_supplicant from the command-line first, with wicd stopped, and see if wpa_supplicant can associate and authenticate to the AP

e.g.

wpa_supplicant -Dwext -i wlan0 -c /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf

where wpa_supplicant.conf contains something like

```

network={

ssid="crackme"

scan_ssid=1

key_mgmt=WPA-PSK

psk="zomgepicpassword"

}

```

if it associates and authenticates, fire off dhcpcd by hand. 

I get this bad password thing from time to time, and it's for no reason other than...my laptop's wireless card is crap, and my WRT400N is crap. Yes, that's the technical explanation - they are crap. 

Just today it popped up after months without issue (although my connectivity was crap). 

rebooting didnt work. Had to shut the machine down and leave it off for a while. It could well be that I was overly abusing the wireless with too many connected hosts, dont know, but none of the other ones (a PS3, mobile phone, other laptop, then a wired connection to the desktop) had any issues, only the one with the crap wireless NIC. 

When this popped up, for me, wpa_supplicant would not connect to my AP either, and it seemed that my AP was just going up and down regularly - but wait, everything else stayed connected! 

So surely it must just be my crap wireless NIC on this laptop, right? Well, no, i turn on wifi tethering on my mobile phone, set it right next to my laptop, and hey, it authenticates/associates just fine, i get an IP from dhcpcd, and can browse! 

Some things are just crap. Sometimes one side being crap is not an issue, because the other side isn't crap. When both sides are crap, well...

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## menschmeier

I returned the router to the dealer. For now I am using a wired network with wicd. All network related problems are solved this way.

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