issues connecting to wireless router

[antikythera]

When fedora initially starts up, the network manager shows all the available wireless connections available to me. However, when I select my wireless connection, it will go through the loading process where it shows the two green dots and the circular moving blue streak, then it prompts me to put in the wpa password.

this is where the trouble starts...when i input my wpa password, it will proceed to attempt to connect to my network but it never succeeds in doing so--it will keep on asking me to input my wpa password. when i finally get sick of doing it over and over again, i just hit cancel instead of retrying to connect.

after i stop trying to connect, the network manager no longer shows all the available wireless networks--the list is completely empty, and i can find no way to get the list to show up again, with the exception of restarting my computer.

i am able to connect to the internet with a wired ethernet, but id like my wireless to work. any help would be much appreciated.

[stoat]

Hello antikythera,

A couple of things to try...

One is to give some thought to your ASCII WPA passphrase. Even though spaces and special characters are supposed to be okay for WPA passphrases, I recommend that you try not using them and see if something good happens. Those things have caused issues in the past anyway.

Next is to delete all existing connections in the Wireless tab of the NetworkManager applet and try connecting again (right-click the applet icon, "Edit Connections...", "Wireless" tab, "Delete").

No promises.

P.S.: I forgot to mention the obvious thing: make sure you are entering the correct passphrase. Don't roll your eyes. I'm no longer embarrassed to admit that on two occasions I sat there like a giant trained parakeet pecking in the wrong passphrase over and over and over while hopefully staring at the twirling green dots each time. And I am not the first person here to admit having done that.

[forkbomb]

Originally Posted by stoat

One is to give some thought to your ASCII WPA passphrase. Even though spaces and special characters are supposed to be okay for WPA passphrases, I recommend that you try not using them and see if something good happens. Those things have caused issues in the past anyway.

Theoretically any standards-compliant implementation of WPA and WPA2 should be fine with any printable ASCII byte.

It is, however, possible that it's a software issue rather than a protocol or encoding issue - it's possible that NetworkManager is mangling input for some eldritch reason (i.e. an obscure bug). Have you tried typing the key into a plaintext editor temporarily and then tried a copy and paste? (no need to even save.. just try it for a copy & paste)

I have a 63-character (no, that's not a typo) WPA2 PSK with mixed ASCII that works flawlessly with NetworkManager on F12. (dd-wrt on a WRT54G for the AP.) But maybe try going to a alphanumeric key at least temporarily to see if that changes anything. My key has no spaces.

And I am not the first person here to admit having done that.

+1

[ozjd]

Are you sure it is the wpa password that is being asked for and not the password manager's password? Normally after you enter a network password for the first time you are given an option to save it and then asked for a password.