Re: Little white window SECRET

[Brian Morrison <bdm fenrir org uk>]

On Wed, 23 May 2012 13:02:03 +0200
Timothy Murphy <gayleard eircom net> wrote:

> Brian Morrison wrote:
> 
> >> I don't know what password is wanted, even if I could enter one.
> > 
> > It wants the password, or phrase, for your wireless connection
> > whether it is Wi-Fi or some other flavour.
> > 
> > You should be able to type in the field, it may not show the whole
> > string entered, but it should be there. Cut and paste would probably
> > help if you have your password/phrase/key somewhere accessible.
> 
> As I said, it does not allow any input into the window,
> even if I click "show password",
> which is in fact the only thing I can do in the window.

Ah, I didn't realise that you couldn't, I thought you were saying that
the window was very small and didn't allow you to see what was entered.

> 
> Do you see this "Secret" window?
> If so, does it accept input?

I am not currently using NM but back in the dim and distant past I used
it for WiFi on my laptop, I did occasionally get a similar window, I
think it was used by the GNOME key storage program rather than directly
by NM. 

> 
> Who provides this window, incidentally?
> Is it NM?

See above.

> 
> I'm afraid this incident highlighted for me
> how bad NM is when it doesn't work.
> (I emphasize that this is only 5% or less of the time.
> 95% of the time it works fine.)

I'd guess that this could be a problem in your wireless driver rather
than directly in NM itself, but I'm not the best person to ask about it.

Perhaps someone else could comment if you add in a bit more information
about which hardware you have and which driver versions you're using. I
think it's known that some wireless drivers are less solid than others,
but it's probably also AP dependent too. WiFi standards are, well, not
actually standards at all, the WiFi Alliance testing is more like a set
of interoperability tests with 'gold' APs and hence it's possible for
specific problems to fall through the cracks.

-- 

Brian Morrison