WiCD not responding to wireless networks

[shafishstix]

Hey all, ive recently updated to BT4 R2 and got madwifi drivers working for my ar5001x+ chip thru synaptic. My problem is i cant get wicd to function correctly, it detects my wired network with no problems but cant seem to scan and detect any wireless networks within my vicinity.

It could be possible that they are hidden and i cant tell the difference because im a noob, though they can be spotted with an atheros utility in windows. I have no problems scanning them in kismet or connecting to them with airodump.

I think the wifi has no problems being intialized when Backtrack is first loaded and the wicd icon loads on the taskbar (automatically connecting my wired connection). Ive checked the wicd log file and nothing abnormal there. In wicd's preferences ive changed the wireless interface to "ath0".

I have tried the command: ifconfig ath0 up
Followed by: iwlist ath0 scan
(which returns "no scan results")

Could it be the madwifi drivers which are fault here? Any suggestions?

Hi again,

Previously i had updated from Backtrack 4 to Backtrack 4 RC2. I did it through this funky command - apt-get update && apt-get upgrade

I just downloaded a fresh ISO of Backtrack 4 RC2, installed it, and now wicd is working fine. I will try synaptic and get the madwifi drivers for my Atheros, if wicd stops functioning after that i may make a further reply in this thread.

Ok so ive tried the madwifi drivers out by uninstalling them through synaptic, reinstalling them through a tarball i found on the wifi site. I then enter these commands -

ifconfig ath0 up
iwlist ath0 scan

This is displayed: "No scan results"

Strange thing is, when the madwifi driver is unloaded, "wlan0" (the same wifi) gets good results with the above commands.

So because kismet, aireplay and airodump can initialize and work with the card through the madwifi drivers (ath0), im wondering what it is that these programs are telling the operating system for the wifi to kick in.

Maybe i could use "that" to get the card "active" for wicd?

Any ideas? Also ive heard about ath5k and ath9k maybe i could try them instead of madwifi?

[tanago]

I have the same problem and i'm trying to fix it for 2 weeks now.Every driver and kernel and distro ive got in my hands shows ra0 No scan results.

[shafishstix]

I think im ok now, for those who are interested i added the ath_pci back to the black list (/etc/modprobe.d/blacklist). I rebooted and doing so loaded the default wifi driver which reverts ath0 back to wlan0.

I put this command in to start wlan0 in monitor mode -
airmon-ng start wlan0

From the output i see that it has used the ath5k driver for wlan0 and mon0. (which i guess is what i want)

After putting wlan0 into wicd's preferences for wireless interface i found that wicd correctly scans as it should.

I also put in some command which i cant remember but it confirmed that my setup supports injection.

Apparently the commands "sudo athload madwifi" or "sudo athload ath5k" might be a shortcut rather than modifying the blacklist file. (i havent tried it, nor will i now)

Oh yeah the command to figure out if your setup "can potentially" inject packets is -
aireplay-ng -9 mon0 (mon0 being my card in monitor mode)

I might try and get my usb TL-WN321G working too, just for fun. (Its got crap range)