GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 465187
Access to hidden SSID with network-manager and WPA
Last modified: 2008-01-03 20:10:02 UTC
Please describe the problem: Can not connect to connect to wireless network with hidden SSID when using a WiFi NIC with Atheros (madwifi) chipset 5212. The connection is smoothly created when reconfiguring the router not to hide the SSID. Tested with a both Lenovo ThinkPad buildin Atheros based NICs, Netgear WG511T and different Access Points (Cisco, Netgear and D-Link), same negative result for different distros and different kernels and network-manager 6.4.x and 6.5.x. Creating a wpa_supplicant.conf file and connecting with wpa_supplicant works for both hidden and not hidden SSIDs. Steps to reproduce: 1. Boot your system with the Atheros Wifi adapter 2. Right-click KNetworkManager and select "Connect to another wireless network..." 3. Fill in the name of the hidden SSID under Name (ESSID) 4. Mark encryption and select encryption "WPA-Personal" 5. Fill in the password (passpharse) for the SSID 6. Leave WPA version as WPA 1 and WPA protocol as auto selected 7. Press the Connect bottom Actual results: The network-manager tries to connect to the access point, but times out after approximately 60 seconds, stating that it can't connect to the SSID. Expected results: A connection is made to the access point, and a IP address should bee assigned to the interface (ath0). Further more iwconfig should show wireless extentions with a SSID assigned to the interface. Does this happen every time? Yes Other information: Additional tests using Intel 2200BG and 2915ABG based adapters instead of Atheros based adapters works great for both hidden and not hidden SSIDs, with the same configuration.
If it works with the intel cards, this sounds very much like a problem in the atheros drivers, not NM.
What a simple solution Christopher !. In fact the Atheros drivers work with wpa_supplicant without any problem, so I can't understand your answer. Also the K/Ubuntu team has released a fix with "their" NM, which has been implemented in the 7.10 release - and it works fine. For further explanation of the bug solution see posts around the date 2007-10-15 : https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/50214 Some problems still persist with other hardware Broadcom and RaLink etc. though.
Well, the patches that are supplied complain that it is a driver issue. Someone just found a workaround. Thanks for the link to the launchpad tracker. Looks like they have already sent the patch to us in another bug, so going to mark this a dupe of that instead.
*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 464215 ***