Can't connect to unsecured networks

Whenever I try to connect to an unsecured network, I get an error saying I've been disconnected without even being connected. Any help would be appreciated.

 

I'v experienced the same, but you have to remember that even if a network seems "unsecured" it could be using mac filtering or other measures to prevent connection, which will show up like you describe.

 

Right, maybe I should try some other public hotspots

 

Same thing is happening here.
I was even driving around the city for 2 hours, and trying to connect to 20-30 networks that came up as "unsecured".
I find it hard to believe that all those "unsecured" networks were secured after all.

The battery of my other laptop is f**ked, so I can't get around to double-check those networks with that machine.

Any others who may have double-checked ?

 

Well I went to a Starbucks and was able to connect to the "tmobile" and "attwifi" unsecured networks but those are hotspot services you need a user name and password for. As for the "linksys" network that was in the same area, I still couldn't connect. The only thing I can think of that would be preventing a connection to a unsecured network would be a device connection limit or a MAC filter, other than that there is no reason why this should be happening.

I'll email Acer about this, maybe they can shed some light on the situation.

Are XP or other Linux distro users having this problem? It could be a driver or hardware problem.

 

I am having exactly the same problem with an 150l. The wifi on this is pretty good, I can pick up more networks than on my other bigger laptop but I can't connect to any unsecured ones. I've tried various public ones (such as btopenzone) in different locations, but always get disconnected after it attempts to connect. I'm going to put windows on it at the weekend, so I'll be interested to see if that cures the problem.

 

Correction, I've tried again this evening and I've now managed to connect successfully, it does seem to be a bit fussy though.

 

It is weird after chainging my home network to an unsecured one, it could connect just fine. But testing other unsecure networks with my Macbook I had the same result. It is still seems strange to me.

I got a reply from Acer online tech support and they no help at all. My problem "was not a known problem" so they advised me to call their hotline.

 

It's possible there's already too many other people on those routers stealing their Wifi, but I really doubt every one you would try would have that problem. Though it's possible that some of them also aren't hooked up correctly, or have some other kind of security on them. So maybe (though unlikely) you're just getting unlucky? I'll have to try it when I'm in range of some unsecure networks on my 120GB HDD XP version.

 

its very possible that luck is not on my side but it just seems really weird.

 

I get this problem too. Every so often I am able to connect to an unsecured network, but most of the time I just get a message saying "the network connection has been disconnected." Some of the networks I have tried it on I am absolutely sure do not use MAC filtering.

 

I noticed that, too. When my home network is unsecured it connects just fine. But yesterday when I took my car to the dealer for service, I couldn't connect to their wi-fi, which was named custserv, so I know it was supposed to be open.

 

I too have had this problem over the last few weeks. My home network was fine but connecting to unsecured public wifi networks did not work. I finally found a solution yesterday which was to change proxy settings in Firefox. These public networks typically expect you to acknowledge terms and conditions before they let you in. They do this by using a proxy to display the agreement page when you open Firefox.

Open Firefox and go to Edit>Preferences>Advanced>Network>Settings. I changed the Proxy setting from "Direct connection to the Internet" to "Auto-detect proxy settings for this network". After that it worked fine for me, both on unsecured public wifi and on my home network.

Dave