Has anyone encountered anything like the following?
Start out with a netgear ADSL wireless router, new laptop, XP up to date, and coming into the admin interface of the router through a wired ethernet connection on another computer.
Plug in, and the wireless network is recognised immediately. However there is no authentication or security, and it is recommended to change the SSID. I change it, and reboot the device. The old SSID is now shown in XP, along with the new name as a second network. In the admin interface for the router, at the top level, the new name is shown. Further down in the stack, the old name is shown - there are two menus, one where you change the SSID, the other where you allow or don't allow multiple SSIDs. It is in the second one that the old SSID shows up.
Delete the old network in XP, and try to use the new one. Can't. Delete all of them in both machines, create a new one on the device. Now no network is visible, though the admin interface says its there, and the wlan light is on.
Decide to try creating a new one, on the device. The old one, now supposedly deleted, now appears and can be connected to. What is going on, asks my friend?
I spent a couple of hours on this in increasing embarassment, and not understanding at all what was happening. How could it be that networks which the router thought were there should not be visible from XP, and vice versa? Why did rebooting the device not seem to work as you'd expect?
The devices by the way were on the same table top, so signal strength wasn't an issue.
Was I missing something blindingly obvious? Thought wireless Linux was difficult, but its nothing compared to this!
Peter