Numeric WPA key causes applet UI to not display wireless networks

[Peter Laird]

WICD 1.6.1 on Ubuntu 9.10

My wireless network is WPA2/PSK protected. My key was a 20 digit number. After setting up my wireless network, I found that the WICD applet would not render any of the wireless networks (mine and my neighbors) as usual. It would render the section for a wired network, but that was it. Using iwlist I could see the networks were being found. Also, when right clicking on the applet icon in the tray, and choosing Connect, the popup menu would correctly show the list of networks.

After some Googling, I found some references to problems when the key is numeric. I changed my WPA key to all characters, and this problem was resolved.