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I have Windows 10 laptops for guests visiting our company and they want to connect to WLAN. However, the WLAN they need to conect to, shows an X in a circle:

WLAN showing an X

When clicking on the WLAN, I get an error message which says that it is not possible to connect (exact English error message unknown, since it's a German system). It doesn't even ask for a password.

Background knowledge: all access points have been replaced. They were Sophos access points before and they are Sophos access points now, but a different model.

I have tried, in collaboration with my IT administrator:

  • turning off WLAN and turning it on again (using the blue button of the image above)
  • turning off WLAN and turning it on again (using the Fn+WLAN key of the laptop)
  • turning on flight mode and turning it off again (using the button of the image above)
  • removing all networks from the known WLAN list in the control panel. Since then, it doesn't even ask for a password any more.
  • adding the network in question to the list of known networks. It then asks for the password again.
  • printing the password on paper by printing a WLAN voucher using the Sophos functionality
  • checking the password (multiple times) by pressing the eye-icon to reveal the password
  • running network diagnosis. It just says that I am not connected, but doesn't find any other issue.
  • resetting all network adapters
  • rebooting the PC (multiple times after various steps)
  • checking the power savings options of the network adapter as mentioned in the comments (described here)

This happens on 2 different laptops, so it's not a laptop specific problem.

I'm really running out of ideas (and the admin as well). What else could I do to connect to WLAN again?

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  • failing the english error message, the german one might be of help.I also vaguely wonder if there's some kinda access control that works pre-emptively.
    – Journeyman Geek ♦
    Commented Mar 7 at 10:25

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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This was an issue with the Sophos WLAN gateway configuration. The access point provided WPA 3 networks only, although it should have provided WPA 2 and WPA 3 capabilities.

In order to fix it, the administrator needed to

  1. untick the WPA 2 checkbox
  2. reboot the WLAN access point
  3. tick the WPA 2 checkbox
  4. reboot the WLAN access point

The access point is not providing WPA 2 and WPA 3, and the X symbol on the Windows 10 laptops is gone.

Another side effect is, that older Smartphones can now see the WLAN, where it wasn't even listed when only WPA 3 was provided.

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