network manager won't let me connect to wifi

[Matthew Nuzum]

Binary package hint: network-manager

When I boot up my computer, I log in with my username and password. I am then prompted to enter my password again to unlock my network manager configuration. Once I do this, the network icon starts to show two circles with a little blob circling through them. If you mouse over it, the tooltip says "Waiting for Network Key for the wireless network 'OurHouse'..." (OurHouse is the ssid for my network). After a long time, it times out.

If I disable and then re-enable the wireless network the spinning icon starts again, this time no tooltip when I hover over it.

If I right click the icon and choose Connection Information, I see an IP addresss listed and a connection speed, but the network doesn't work. Eventually this times out.

Sometimes I've been able to get my network to work by clicking on a neighbors wlan and then switching back to mine. However the last couple times this hasn't worked. The most recent success i had was to suspend my laptop, then resume, enter my password to unlock, then enter my password again for network manager. The network pops up almost instantly.

Just to clarify, in Dapper and Edgy my wifi worked perfectly. The only change I've made is the Feisty beta and subsequently to network manager. I've evaluated nm in the past however was not using it before the update. I have an Intel 3945 wireless card and I got a warning when I logged in the first time saying that I'm using a restricted driver. Even when network manager can't connect to the wifi, it shows my network and a nearly full strength bar, often times also showing neighbors' wifi networks as well.

I tried setting up my network in "System" --> "Administration" --> "Network" but the configuration there doesn't seem to help anything.

Please catch me on IRC to discuss this issue (although it usually takes me 20 min to get reconnected) as I'm eager to help diagnose and resolve this. I'm newz2000 on freenode.

[Matthew Nuzum (newz)]

Brian Murray helped me work through this... it appears that there were static configuration lines in /etc/network/interfaces causing a problem. These lines had configuration options for the wireless networking as well as configuration for ethernet interfaces not on the computer. Once removed, the wifi started working fine.