Re: flakey wifi access

[Matt Ventura <mattventura@mattventura.net>]

On 6/30/2014 5:20 PM, Brian Flaherty wrote:
> On 06/29/2014 07:50 PM, tom arnall wrote:
> > my wicd agent is unable to connect to wifi at mcDonald's, both in
> > mexico and the states. it's fine with my home wifi and the coffee shop
> > i go to. it also fails on the network at the campus where i teach in
> > mexico.
>
> I had used wicd for months without problems, but last spring, I was 
> unable to get on a WPA/WPA2 access point. The password was correct. 
> Several other devices were connected. After a few days, I was able to 
> get a cable connection and install networkmanager. I tried it and 
> worked without problem. Didn't have time to work out what the issue 
> was and I'm still just using networkmanager.
In my case, the issue was with the underlying driver with the card plus 
wicd's poor handling of failures. The connection would drop, but wicd 
would continue to try to do DHCP on the connection, so it would sit 
there for a while spinning its wheels. Networkmanager would actually see 
the failures and restart the connection process until it worked. Using 
NM instead of wicd can be a good way to cover up driver issues.