Comment 1 for bug 180209

The problem you're seeing is actually a problem with wpa_passphrase. You need to escape certain characters with a '\' for the psk to be generated. Using this passphrase should work for you: "]t(8gYrOY|:/#/\")\"*pq>r{Oxxxxxxxxxxxxx0T"
Notice the '\' characters before both of the double quotations. I might go ahead an have wicd search passphrases for potential problem characters and add the '\' automatically down the line, but for now you have to add them in yourself.

Out of curiosity, what distro are you running wicd with? And how did you install it. I ask because I noticed daemon.py is running out of /usr/lib/wicd, which isn't default right now (though it will be in a future release).

Also, not sure why you're seeing the zombie ethtool. Haven't noticed that happening on my box, but I'll look into it.