The public wifi hotspots are open/unsecured, whereas my cel phone hotspot uses a password with WPA2-Personal encryption, and I previousy had no problems to connecting to any of these.

When I attempt to establish a connection it tries for a few seconds and then reports 'can't connect to this network'. The USB adapter can still detect all the same nearby networks as before but it can no longer connect to any. It can't even connect to the wifi hotspot from my cel phone, which the laptop can connect to using it's built-in network card. (I had to cancel my home internet due to lack of income during the pandemic but realized I could access these networks one evening when on my patio with my cel phone).Įverything had been working fine until about a week ago, when the adapter suddenly stopped being able to connect to any network at all. For the past several months I've been using a generic wireless adapter set up on the edge of my apartment patio, along with a USB extension cable, to access 2 different public wifi hotpsots as well as, very occasionally, the guest network of a local nearby business, on my Windows 10 (圆4) laptop.