[SOLVED] NetworkManager/iwd: Authorization supplicant failed

HisDudeness · 2026-04-19 15:53:01

And a good day to you, sirs! I recently had to retire my beloved laptop and upgrade to a newer one, and proceeded to install my system back from scratch. One of the differences with my previous system is using a different supplicant. I'm running a KDE Plasma desktop environment, with NetworkManager to handle my connectivity, but in my previous system I had wpa_supplicant to handle networks logins, while I've now decided to switch to iwd, both for it being supposedly more lightweight and less bloated, and because of the live iso using it directly to handle connections.

I have two wireless connections in my home network: a 2.4GHz one, complete with a password for guests, and my main 5GHz one. I can log into the former, but not the latter, which is faster.

The main culprit is my password, which contains a peculiar special character that maybe isn't handled properly encoding-wise. This is the Yen/Yuan sign (¥).

I tried different methods, from connectin to the network from the command line (iwctl) which displays two dots when I input the character, to manually creating the .psk file in /var/lib/iwd (checking that the character is displayed correctly inside the file and that this is in UTF-8 encoding) to giving it to the graphical connection manager. Still, everytime I try to connect to the network from the applet, it asks me for the passphrase telling me the one it has is incorrect. Typing it again in there instantly gives me the message "Authorization supplicant failed". I've checked dozens of times and the password is correct. In fact, feeding it an incorrect one will lead to some seconds in waiting time, to finally get the message "No secrets were provided", instead.

To specify, I point out that my previous system never had any problems connecting to it.

What am I doing wrong? What can I do to fix this? What output may I provide to further investigate? Thankie!

Last edited by HisDudeness (Yesterday 15:14:39)

HisDudeness · 2026-04-19 16:23:28

As usual, I've sort of found a solution after long unsuccessful attempts right after posting. Basically, a workaround to feed something that doesn't involve the special unicode character which is probably the culprit.

I used wpa_passphrase, part of wpa_supplicant which unfortunately I have to keep in my system (even when using iwd as supplicant and disabling wpa_supplicant service, NetworkManager has it as a dependency so I can't uninstall it) to output the PreSharedKey.

wpa_passphrase <ssid> [passphrase]

network={
ssid="<ssid>"
#psk="[passphrase]"
psk=[long preshared key]
}

then took the last line and pasted it in my .psk file

nano /var/lib/iwd/ssid.psk

Auto-generated from NetworkManager connection "<ssid>"
# Changes to that connection overwrite this file when enabled by NM's [main].iwd-config-path value
[IPv6]
Enabled=true
[Security]
PreSharedKey=[long preshared key]

After doing this, I was able to connect by simply clicking the connection in the applet.
I have to add that, having two working connections, I made priorities for them (higher for my main 5GHz connection) by editing them in KDE settings, then rebooted to see if everything seemed to work flawlessly and the system connected automatically to the main connection and not the 2.4GHz one. However, it failed both, asking for the password again.
Inspecting the .psk file, I saw the changes reverted and the passphrase was explicitly listed in place of the preshared key I pasted. I repeated the procedure again ,and now the changes stuck after reboot, so maybe that was due to my editing in the GUI settings to give priorities. Should I do something specific to avoid future reverts, or should I be good to go from now on?

Last edited by HisDudeness (2026-04-19 16:24:20)

seth · 2026-04-19 17:18:34

even when using iwd as supplicant and disabling wpa_supplicant service

When using NM, *neither* must be enabled, https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Networ … Fi_backend

Please always remember to mark resolved threads by editing your initial posts subject - so others will know that there's no task left, but maybe a solution to find.
Thanks.

HisDudeness · Yesterday 15:13:58

Yeah, I forgot to specify that I disabled iwd too to let NetworkManager activate and handle it as its own supplicant, instead of it running standalone.

I'll mark my post as solved even if my solution feels more like a workaround. Still, it seems to do the trick. Apparently, iwd having problem with unicode characters is a known issue, maybe it'll get handled in some future update. In the meantime, should someone have a "cleaner" solution, I'dd say feel free to suggest it.

Arch Linux

#1 2026-04-19 15:53:01

[SOLVED] NetworkManager/iwd: Authorization supplicant failed

#2 2026-04-19 16:23:28

Re: [SOLVED] NetworkManager/iwd: Authorization supplicant failed

#3 2026-04-19 17:18:34

Re: [SOLVED] NetworkManager/iwd: Authorization supplicant failed

#4 Yesterday 15:13:58

Re: [SOLVED] NetworkManager/iwd: Authorization supplicant failed

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