Comment 1 for bug 522200

I have a similar problem. My SSID is hidden and contains a mix of characters, numbers and underscores.
wicd shows my network as "\x00\x00....\x00" (the number of \x00 is equal to the length of the SSID)
To get connected I have to do the same operation as described in the bug => "Find hidden network"...
Then wicd finds the SSID, displays it in the GUI and I can click on "Connect" to get connected.
It has to be done by almost each reboot. Once it connected automatically without problems but it was an exception (strange)