Arch Linux

secretrobotron

Member

Registered: 2010-04-11

Posts: 47

WiFi Troubles: Too many networks

So, normally, I use wicd to connect to wireless networks. Yesterday (and today) I was in a space with a plethora of networks present.

Most of the time, wicd will say there are _no_ networks present, but windows says there are lots (which is correct). I tried just using 'iwconfig -y -S -l' which just gives me an allocation error. For the times that wicd says there _are_ networks, I can't connect to any of them: wicd just reports an error while obtaining an IP.

Any ideas? Similar stories? Anything? Really annoying that I have to use windows all this week at a conference where I could be showing off my awesome arch configuration.

Fingel

Member

Registered: 2009-02-28

Posts: 98

Re: WiFi Troubles: Too many networks

You could just try bypassing wicd all together. Do you get any results from # iwlist wlan0 scan ? If not, do you know the name of the network you want to join? Using iwconfig is actually pretty trivial (plus you'll look cool doing it):
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Wi … nual_setup
Hope that helps.

secretrobotron

Member

Registered: 2010-04-11

Posts: 47

Re: WiFi Troubles: Too many networks

Like I said, 'iwconfig -y -S -l' actually provides an allocation error. Looks like wicd isn't exactly the problem, but it certainly isn't helping.

Probably something deeper.

ewaller

Administrator

From: Pasadena, CA

Registered: 2009-07-13

Posts: 19,822

Re: WiFi Troubles: Too many networks

What is your WiFi chip set? ( If unsure, please post the output of lspci and we will stasrt from there)

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secretrobotron

Member

Registered: 2010-04-11

Posts: 47

Re: WiFi Troubles: Too many networks

I'm not able to just switch over to linux right now because I'm constantly in meetings (F5'ing here, obviously), but I have an X201 Thinkpad, and Thinkwiki and my Windows Device Manager says I have the Intel Centrino Ultimate N 6300 AGN (http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Category:X201).

It usually works. It's just since there was an onslaught of wireless networks around that it stopped working.

Stebalien

Member

Registered: 2010-04-27

Posts: 1,238

Website

Re: WiFi Troubles: Too many networks

I had this same problem and installing wireless_tools-beta (from aur) fixed it for me.
-- edit --
Debian bug report: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=541648

Last edited by Stebalien (2011-04-06 19:36:11)

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secretrobotron

Member

Registered: 2010-04-11

Posts: 47

Re: WiFi Troubles: Too many networks

@Fingel need to apologize: i was using wicd-cli, not iwconfig. derp. Will try.

I did upgrade to wireless_tools-beta from aur, and now at least wicd show me all the available networks. Connecting to them doesn't happen though. In fact, it's even more useless than before, not really reporting any sort of error.