Comment 2 for bug 661674

Hello from 2019. I'm having similar issues, and have for a long time, when connecting to unsecured wifi like at coffee shops and hotels. I see several other bugs in the DB that reflect this same issue, so I'm redirecting them here to increase attention - although wicd looks like it's in trouble, regarding, attention, in general.

My issue - specifically: when I use wicd to connect to non-wep non-wpa unsecured wifi, wicd fails by eventually timing out during the "obtaining ip address" phase (it's using dhcp). If I watch the output of iwconfig while wicd is "obtaining ip address", it reports "Access-point: Not Associated".

I found another post on the Internet recommending running "iw dev ${device} connect" while wicd is trying to obtain an ip address. This has resolved my issue in almost every case, causing iwconfig to report an association, and wicd to complete the obtain ip address phase.

So - how does wicd associate with an ap? It's in wnettools.py - function Associate. First it uses function SetEssid. That executes "iwconfig ${device} essid -- ". Plenty of Internet posts recommend this syntax for associating with an AP - running this from a command line should associate.

However -
On my specific system (Linux macbook pro 2011 4.19.0-2-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 4.19.16-1 (2019-01-17) x86_64 GNU/Linux), it does not. I get "Access-point: Not Associated". I actually try things like taking the "ip link" down, "ifconfig down", "ap off" then "ap auto"... No dice - iwconfig is basically refusing to associate with the unsecured AP.

IF YOU ARE HAVING THIS BUG TOO - I'D LOVE IT IF YOU'D TRY THIS TEST TOO!

iwconfig is considered deprecated by lots, now, so maybe this is a result of that.

My solution - modify the SetEssid function to use "iw dev" instead of ifconfig. Making that mod, then deleting the .pyc and .pyo files, and restarting the daemon - I can now connect to the AP.