[SOLVED] Weird Wireless issues with wicd and broadcom wireless card

mdshann · 2009-10-09 22:18:57

Ok I got my wireless working great with the driver from Broadcom, but I am having a strange issue with WICD. When I am at home it seems to be fine. At home I have a WPA2 PSK network. At work however with the WEP network I am having issues connecting with thw WICD gui. When I click connect it just sits there and says 'Closing active connections...' on the bottom. Trouble is, there is no active connection! When I open a terminal and go

sudo iwconfig eth0 essid "essid" key somekey
sudo dhcpcd eth0

it will connect and then WICD sees the connection and shows it's status.

This is weird because with the WPA2 connection I turn on the laptop and login and and it connects automatically.

Last edited by mdshann (2010-01-26 00:16:18)

Lich · 2009-10-10 05:30:25

mdshann wrote:

Ok I got my wireless working great with the driver from Broadcom, but I am having a strange issue with WICD. When I am at home it seems to be fine. At home I have a WPA2 PSK network. At work however with the WEP network I am having issues connecting with thw WICD gui. When I click connect it just sits there and says 'Closing active connections...' on the bottom. Trouble is, there is no active connection! When I open a terminal and go
sudo iwconfig eth0 essid "essid" key somekey
sudo dhcpcd eth0
it will connect and then WICD sees the connection and shows it's status.
This is weird because with the WPA2 connection I turn on the laptop and login and and it connects automatically.

Start wicd, and open the "Properties" window of the WEP connection BEFORE you connect to the AP using the console. let us have a look at how you set it up.

Last edited by Lich (2009-10-10 05:30:38)

mdshann · 2009-10-10 19:09:12

I have 'Use these settings for all networks that share this SSID' checked and 'Use Encryption' checked. Encryption is set to WEP (HEX [0-9/A-F]) and my key is typed into the box. It is a 26 character hex key. I have retyped it a few times to make sure it is correct. It is the same before and after connecting to the network.

EDIT: For some reason one time when I started the laptop the wireless module was not loaded. I rebooted and it was fixed except the interfaces had swithed from eth0 (wireless) eth1 (wired) to the opposite. I connected and then WICD said my wired was connected then I went to preferences and switched the adapters to eth1 (wireless) and eth0 (wired). Then WICD showed my wireless connection being active. That was yesterday. This morning I booted the laptop and noticed that the interfaces had switched back to normal so I had to switch them in WICD again! I then had to use th CLI to connect.

Weird thing is after I installed all this crap it was working for the first couple of days through WICD.

Last edited by mdshann (2009-10-10 19:16:38)

Lich · 2009-10-10 20:24:31

mdshann wrote:

I have 'Use these settings for all networks that share this SSID' checked and 'Use Encryption' checked. Encryption is set to WEP (HEX [0-9/A-F]) and my key is typed into the box. It is a 26 character hex key. I have retyped it a few times to make sure it is correct. It is the same before and after connecting to the network.

EDIT: For some reason one time when I started the laptop the wireless module was not loaded. I rebooted and it was fixed except the interfaces had swithed from eth0 (wireless) eth1 (wired) to the opposite. I connected and then WICD said my wired was connected then I went to preferences and switched the adapters to eth1 (wireless) and eth0 (wired). Then WICD showed my wireless connection being active. That was yesterday. This morning I booted the laptop and noticed that the interfaces had switched back to normal so I had to switch them in WICD again! I then had to use th CLI to connect.
Weird thing is after I installed all this crap it was working for the first couple of days through WICD.

Please paste the "MODULES" line from your rc.conf

mdshann · 2009-10-12 00:52:31

I have the following in the modules section:

MODULES=(lib80211_crypt_tkip wl !b43)

Lich · 2009-10-12 09:16:09

mdshann wrote:

I have the following in the modules section:
MODULES=(lib80211_crypt_tkip wl !b43)

what's that wl? is that your wireless driver? For my broadcom, I use b43. Also in your wicd config you may have some weird settings (for example what app to use to get the ip etc). Play with those. I don't have wicd at hand now.
tbh if you can get it to connect from the console, it's definatly a wicd config problem. run wicd from the console maybe you get some valuable info

Bahumat · 2009-10-12 09:25:21

Lich wrote:

mdshann wrote:
I have the following in the modules section:
MODULES=(lib80211_crypt_tkip wl !b43)
what's that wl? is that your wireless driver? For my broadcom, I use b43.

Look here: Broadcom BCM4312

Last edited by Bahumat (2009-10-12 09:32:10)

Bahumat · 2009-10-12 09:31:42

mdshann wrote:

I have the following in the modules section:
MODULES=(lib80211_crypt_tkip wl !b43)

I reinstalled the broadcom-wl package today because of some other strange issues and there was a hint after installing it about the entrys for the modules array in rc.conf:

MODULES=(lib80211 wl !b43 ...)

So, "lib80211_crypt_tkip" changed to "lib80211" ?!? Maybe that helps...

Last edited by Bahumat (2009-10-12 09:32:38)

Lich · 2009-10-12 09:55:21

Bahumat wrote:

mdshann wrote:
I have the following in the modules section:
MODULES=(lib80211_crypt_tkip wl !b43)
I reinstalled the broadcom-wl package today because of some other strange issues and there was a hint after installing it about the entrys for the modules array in rc.conf:
MODULES=(lib80211 wl !b43 ...)
So, "lib80211_crypt_tkip" changed to "lib80211" ?!? Maybe that helps...

He should/could try that, but since he can connect from the console it's definetly a wicd problem of some sort. If it was the driver, he wouldn't be able to connect at all.

mdshann · 2009-10-12 23:25:00

Yes wl is the wireless driver. I have a BCM4321 wireless b/g/n card and it is not supported by bcm43xx or b43. I did not have this problem using the same driver on my Ubuntu install, but that was with networkmanager instead of wicd. I went with wicd because it seemed like it would be easier to configure and use in desktop environments other than gnome/kde/xfce. I am using xfce right now but hope to get a *box type environment working in a way that I find usable for me. I find gnome and KDE to generally be slower than what I want. For right now I have a script that I can run to make it a little easier. I just type sudo ./workwireless or sudo ./homewireless depending on where I am when I want to connect. Not the best fix but it requires a lot less typing!

EDIT: Where would I go if I wanted to report this as a bug? Would I submit it to Arch or wicd? Or both?

Last edited by mdshann (2009-10-12 23:26:00)

mdshann · 2009-10-13 01:43:37

What I'm also wondering is weather or not my daemons line in rc.conf is in the right order:

DAEMONS=(syslog-ng dbus !network fuse wicd netfs crond hal mpd)

Bahumat · 2009-10-13 05:37:04

mdshann wrote:

What I'm also wondering is weather or not my daemons line in rc.conf is in the right order:
DAEMONS=(syslog-ng dbus !network fuse wicd netfs crond hal mpd)

The order is wrong. HAL/DBUS must be started before wicd. If you want, take a look at the Wicd Wiki.

You can move hal to the position where dbus is now. By the way, hal automatically starts dbus, so you can safely replace dbus with hal.

Last edited by Bahumat (2009-10-13 13:38:42)

mdshann · 2009-10-15 00:55:14

I replaced dbus with hal and rebooted the computer. Didn't fix it. So now my DAEMONS line looks like this:

DAEMONS=(syslog-ng hal !network fuse wicd netfs crond mpd)

So I guess that means it's a bug in wicd? wicd still just sits there and says "Closing active connections..." when I open it and click connect.

Lich · 2009-10-15 05:41:41

Have you tried reinstalling wicd? remove all references to it before installing, like configs etc

R00KIE · 2009-10-15 20:45:53

Try removing wicd, then delete /etc/wicd and reinstall wicd again (you will need to reconfigure all your connections again). One of the latests updates (for some people at least) seems to have some kind of problem with the "old" configs.

Edit:
killed a typo

Last edited by R00KIE (2009-10-15 20:46:14)

mdshann · 2009-10-16 01:31:46

I wish I could say SOLVED but the problem still exists. I am posting a bug report to wicd now...

mdshann · 2010-01-26 00:15:39

I know this is a really old post but I thought I would mark it as SOLVED. The new version of wicd fixed the problem.

Arch Linux

#1 2009-10-09 22:18:57

[SOLVED] Weird Wireless issues with wicd and broadcom wireless card

#2 2009-10-10 05:30:25

Re: [SOLVED] Weird Wireless issues with wicd and broadcom wireless card

#3 2009-10-10 19:09:12

Re: [SOLVED] Weird Wireless issues with wicd and broadcom wireless card

#4 2009-10-10 20:24:31

Re: [SOLVED] Weird Wireless issues with wicd and broadcom wireless card

#5 2009-10-12 00:52:31

Re: [SOLVED] Weird Wireless issues with wicd and broadcom wireless card

#6 2009-10-12 09:16:09

Re: [SOLVED] Weird Wireless issues with wicd and broadcom wireless card

#7 2009-10-12 09:25:21

Re: [SOLVED] Weird Wireless issues with wicd and broadcom wireless card

#8 2009-10-12 09:31:42

Re: [SOLVED] Weird Wireless issues with wicd and broadcom wireless card

#9 2009-10-12 09:55:21

Re: [SOLVED] Weird Wireless issues with wicd and broadcom wireless card

#10 2009-10-12 23:25:00

Re: [SOLVED] Weird Wireless issues with wicd and broadcom wireless card

#11 2009-10-13 01:43:37

Re: [SOLVED] Weird Wireless issues with wicd and broadcom wireless card

#12 2009-10-13 05:37:04

Re: [SOLVED] Weird Wireless issues with wicd and broadcom wireless card

#13 2009-10-15 00:55:14

Re: [SOLVED] Weird Wireless issues with wicd and broadcom wireless card

#14 2009-10-15 05:41:41

Re: [SOLVED] Weird Wireless issues with wicd and broadcom wireless card

#15 2009-10-15 20:45:53

Re: [SOLVED] Weird Wireless issues with wicd and broadcom wireless card

#16 2009-10-16 01:31:46

Re: [SOLVED] Weird Wireless issues with wicd and broadcom wireless card

#17 2010-01-26 00:15:39

Re: [SOLVED] Weird Wireless issues with wicd and broadcom wireless card

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