Just use iwd

If you:

Use wpa_supplicant on the command line (on Linux) and it works with some access points but not on others, and, especially, if using the -debug flag with wpa_supplicant supplies hints that there may be an authentication problem….

You might resolve your issues by switching to iwd. This daemon, alongside its command-line utility iwctl, is a replacement for wpa_supplicant that’s easier to use and works with a greater variety of access points.

My setup was working fine for the most part, but twice in the past year I encountered WiFi networks that I couldn’t connect to. The second time was a long stay in an AirBnB and it would have been inconvenient to use my phone’s hotspot the whole time.

I was sure that I would be faced with compiling drivers or juggling kernel modules, but was instead delighted to find that I merely needed to use my package manager (apt on Debian) to install the iwd package. I’ll stick with this, as it’s more straightforward to use in general. The package manager (at least on Debian) sets up a systemd service for iwd. You’ll want to uninstall wpa_supplicant or at least disable its systemd service, eventually.