[CLOSED]Wicd takes a long time

[josefko]

Re: Wicd takes a long time

Maybe it is worth trying to set LAN subnet mask the same as WAN, e.g. 255.255.254.0, if it was not set by DHCP.

[plant17]

Re: Wicd takes a long time

My router will not allow that. The LAN subnet mask must be 255.255.255.x

Whether it is set by DHCP or not, I can't say, I don't know enough about it.

[josefko]

Re: Wicd takes a long time

As an administrator I have seen computers waiting and doing nothing several minutes many times and always it was some bad path to unimportant non-existing folder, like to normal.dot template in Word and the computer tried to connect again and again and at the end it skipped over. So I hoped that you fill some bad ip address. But if you are sure about it I can't help you and I looks like nobody can.

[wizard10000]

Re: Wicd takes a long time

...But if you are sure about it I can't help you and I looks like nobody can.

I'm sure we can. Nobody here is smarter than everybody

Sorry for the late reply - I was out of town for the weekend and when I returned we got caught up in the storms y'all may have heard about in the midwestern US. Flooded my basement and we lost power for about 24 hours. Everything's fixed now

Let's try scripting the connection just for fun.

wpa_passphrase ssid "wpa_key" > ~/wpa_supplicant.conf

SSID and WPA key go on the command line. If your WPA key contains spaces it must be enclosed in single or double quotes. This will create a text file in your home directory called wpa_supplicant.conf

then do this -

sudo wpa_supplicant -D wext -i wlan0 -c ~/wpa_supplicant.conf -B

This will connect you to the wireless access point - then do

sudo dhclient wlan0

to get an IP address.

Maybe this will tell us where the process hangs.

Hope this helps -

[josefko]

Re: Wicd takes a long time

Nobody here is smarter than everybody

I just saw, that the last try to help is three days old, you came just in time.

[wizard10000]

Re: Wicd takes a long time

I just saw, that the last try to help is three days old, you came just in time.

I was one of the people who helped get him fixed up last time - even though we took the long way around

[plant17]

Re: Wicd takes a long time

Thanks again team, I am grateful for every suggestion.

But I am a beginner.

Let's try scripting the connection just for fun.

wpa_passphrase ssid "wpa_key" > ~/wpa_supplicant.conf

SSID and WPA key go on the command line. If your WPA key contains spaces it must be enclosed in single or double quotes. This will create a text file in your home directory called wpa_supplicant.conf

I don't know what to do with this and I don't know what scripting is.

John.

Sorry 'bout your weather problems, today is the first day of summer and it's snowing on my balcony?

John

[wizard10000]

Re: Wicd takes a long time

Sorry, John - I'm usually pretty good at making the technical stuff fit the audience. I really wasn't paying a whole lot of attention this time

I'll share something with you that's almost universal in geek support forums - when you see something in monospaced type and/or embedded in [ code] tags that stuff is supposed to be executed in a terminal window. Not always, but it's a safe bet most of the time.

The reason I don't use [ code] tags here is because of a bug in this particular version of forum software that really messes up your browsing experience if you enter a long line of code, but that's just me.

Anyway, "scripting your connection" means I'd like to try to connect using manual commands rather than using wicd so maybe we can see where the process is hanging.

The wpa_passphrase line creates a short configuration file that wpa_supplicant can use to connect to your wireless access point (AP). The wpa_supplicant line actually connects to and authenticates to your AP but you need a little more than that to get the AP to give you an IP address, hence the dhclient line.

All we're doing is exactly what wicd does - we're just doing it manually.

If we separate the connection process from the getting an IP address process maybe we can see where things are hanging up. I think it may be the connection process as in my experience if dhclient can't get an IP address in about three minutes it gives up and the connection fails.

Hope this clears things up a little -

[plant17]

Re: Wicd takes a long time

Thanks for the explanation, I guessed it might be so.

I did all that.

After sudo dhclient wlan0 nothing happened for a few minutes and then the normal command line ("mymachine":~$ ) came up. Was there supposed to be some information?

[wizard10000]

Re: Wicd takes a long time

Thanks for the explanation, I guessed it might be so.

I did all that.

After sudo dhclient wlan0 nothing happened for a few minutes and then the normal command line ("mymachine":~$ ) came up. Was there supposed to be some information?

Nope - that's exactly what it should have done. The -B switch on the command line tells wpa_supplicant to run in the background.

Once you get the command prompt back you should be able to issue

sudo dhclient wlan0

which should return to a command prompt almost immediately. At that point you should be connected to your AP, should have an IP address and should have a solid internet connection.

You say the connect took several minutes? On my machine the same process connects to the access point in about 15 seconds.

[wizard10000]

Re: Wicd takes a long time

Okay, let's pull it all together and see if we can find out exactly where the problem is. This will require *two* terminal windows, since we're gonna run wpa_supplicant in the foreground so we can see error messages.

First, please make sure wicd is set to *not* connect automatically. You'll find that in your connection preferences within wicd.

In the first terminal window, please do this -

sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart

This will restart all your networking services and insure we're starting with a clean slate. You'll see an error message which you can ignore, but what you're looking for is an [ok] that networking services have restarted.

Next, please enter this in the same terminal window.

sudo wpa_supplicant -D wext -i wlan0 -c ~/wpa_supplicant.conf

This is the reason for two terminal windows. We dropped the -B switch from the wpa_supplicant line, which means that it will run in the foreground - which will show us any errors but it also monopolizes the terminal session so you can't run anything else in that window. When you close that window your wireless will disconnect, which is why the -B switch is handy

What you should see is at least one failed connection while your wireless card gets up to speed, then eventually you should see the thing connect. When it does connect it won't return to a command prompt - it'll just sit there.

When you do get connected to the AP, please go to the second terminal window and do this -

sudo dhclient wlan0

This will request an IP address from the access point. That should happen fairly quickly and at that point you should have a working internet connection.

I'm interested in the content of the wpa_supplicant window and how long it takes to connect. I would like to see the contents of the window, but if you get a zillion of the same error messages I only need to see a couple of them.

cheers -

[plant17]

Re: Wicd takes a long time

The

sudo wpa_supplicant -D wext -i wlan0 -c ~/wpa_supplicant.conf


command yielded this fairly quickly:

john@linux-laptop:~$ sudo wpa_supplicant -D wext -i wlan0 -c ~/wpa_supplicant.conf
Trying to associate with 00:1b:11:a5:1f:26 (SSID='alpina' freq=2437 MHz)
Associated with 00:1b:11:a5:1f:26
WPA: Key negotiation completed with 00:1b:11:a5:1f:26 [PTK=TKIP GTK=TKIP]
CTRL-EVENT-CONNECTED - Connection to 00:1b:11:a5:1f:26 completed (auth) [id=0 id_str=]

and after the

sudo dhclient wlan0

command connected without too long a wait.

John

[wizard10000]

Re: Wicd takes a long time

Okay, now we need to figure out why wicd isn't doing exactly the same thing

[GreyGeek]

Re: Wicd takes a long time

It's time to plug an Ethernet cable from the back of your wireless to your PC, and then use your package manager to remove EVERYTHING related to KNetworkManager, network-manager and wicd. Then reboot, do a "sudo apt-get autoremove", and then use the packagemanager to install the wicd programs.
See the graphic for the list of wicd programs to install:

[dibl]

Re: Wicd takes a long time

Question: Is the router set to be a DHCP server?

I would like to see these 3 outputs (some or all might need a "sudo" prefix):

cat /etc/resolv.conf

cat /etc/network/interfaces

cat /etc/wpa_supplicant/ifupdown.sh

I assume the ifconfig output shown above remains unchanged? Do you have a different result when you connect with a cable? If so, I would like to see that output.