Odd hidden wireless issues

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I am a convert from Ubuntu and on both Ubuntu 11.04 and 11.10 I have had a similar issues to this.... Basically I am tying to connect to a hidden wireless network (it not my network so other that asking for a brief period - a couple of minutes see below - it has to be hidden). On Ubuntu the workaround I had was to ask for a couple of minutes of broadcasting, connect while visible and once hidden again all was well it would find it, auto connect etc without issues. I have the same issue so tried the same workaround with Linux Mint but as soon as the network is hidden again I lose connection and cannot reconnect, although the network is shown in the list so is "seen" at least. When I try to connect I get the network manager circling icon for about 1 minute then it asks for the passphase again? Tried WICD (as a test only as need Gnome NM for easy connection of mobile broadband/VPN which WICD does not support) and the same issue is seen....

I know my network card is working and using the correct driver it works with any none hidden network and if I hide my wifi on my home router it continues to work as normal and retains the connection OK it just seems to be this single hidden connection that I cannot get to connect.... I have also verified the WPA passphase a number of times.... I can only assume that there is some other in compatibility between the Linux network set-up and this router maybe?

EDIT - Worth noting that the only thing which has changed between this connection working and its current not working state is my change from Ubuntu 11.nn to Linux Mint 11.... Also the problem hidden network is up and working as there are a number of other devices connected OK including my own Android phone....

Any ideas/suggestions gratefully received - thank you in advance

System: Asus 901 - Network card rt2680 using rt2680 driver - Linux Mint 11
Problem Router: Netgear "Mimo" type router - model unknown (not my router)
Home router (which works OK as above with hidden network): Linksys WRT54GL with RAF Tomato VPN firmware.

[Paped]

Only just had chance to run the Mintwifi script while trying to connect (via Gnome Network Manager) today, the output below shows it while trying to connect to the hidden network and while not trying to connect to anything as a comparison...

While trying to connect:

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* I. scanning WIFI PCI devices...
-- Ralink corp. RT2860
==> PCI ID = 1814:0781
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* II. querying ndiswrapper...
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* III. querying iwconfig...
lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

wlan0 Ralink STA ESSID:"" Nickname:"RT2860STA"
Mode:Auto Frequency=2.412 GHz Access Point: Not-Associated
Bit Rate:1 Mb/s
RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:off
Link Quality=10/100 Signal level:0 dBm Noise level:-97 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

-------------------------
* IV. querying ifconfig...
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:22:15:6b:f1:d9
UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:4
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)
Interrupt:44

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:160 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:160 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:11676 (11.6 KB) TX bytes:11676 (11.6 KB)

wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:15:af:e6:3e:16
inet6 addr: fe80::215:afff:fee6:3e16/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:17175 errors:38 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:992 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:1620370 (1.6 MB) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)
Interrupt:19

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* V. querying DHCP...
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* VI. querying nslookup google.com...
;; connection timed out; no servers could be reached


Default not connected:

-------------------------
* I. scanning WIFI PCI devices...
-- Ralink corp. RT2860
==> PCI ID = 1814:0781
-------------------------
* II. querying ndiswrapper...
-------------------------
* III. querying iwconfig...
lo no wireless extensions.

eth0 no wireless extensions.

wlan0 Ralink STA ESSID:"" Nickname:"RT2860STA"
Mode:Auto Frequency=2.412 GHz Access Point: Not-Associated
Bit Rate:1 Mb/s
RTS thr:off Fragment thr:off
Encryption key:off
Link Quality=10/100 Signal level:0 dBm Noise level:-97 dBm
Rx invalid nwid:0 Rx invalid crypt:0 Rx invalid frag:0
Tx excessive retries:0 Invalid misc:0 Missed beacon:0

-------------------------
* IV. querying ifconfig...
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:22:15:6b:f1:d9
UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:4
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)
Interrupt:44

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:172 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:172 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:12696 (12.6 KB) TX bytes:12696 (12.6 KB)

wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:15:af:e6:3e:16
inet6 addr: fe80::215:afff:fee6:3e16/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:20050 errors:45 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:1018 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:1915130 (1.9 MB) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)
Interrupt:19

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* V. querying DHCP...
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* VI. querying nslookup google.com...
;; connection timed out; no servers could be reached