reaver - [!] WARNING: Failed to associate with xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx (ESSID: (null))

Question

I am familiar with dict-password cracking but I recently moved on to reaver. When I run reaver, it pops up with an error [!] WARNING: Failed to associate with xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx (ESSID: (null)).

I searched for some methods to solve it, but every time it was the same. Yes, I did set my interface to monitor mode. Can someone help me?

Things I tried:

  $reaver -b xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx -i mon0
  $reaver -i mon0 -b xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx -vv -d 0
  $reaver -b xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx -i mon0 --d-small
  $reaver -i mon0 -b xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx -vv --dh-small
  $reaver -i mon0 -b xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx -c 48 -f -a -w -vv -K 1
  $reaver -i mon0 -b xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx -vv
  $reaver -i mon0 -b xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx -c 48 -f -a -w -vv 
  $reaver -i mon0 -b xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx -c 48 -vv
  $reaver -i mon0 -b xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx -v --lock-delay 610 -d 0 -c 48
  $reaver -i mon0 -b xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx -v -d 0 -c 48

(xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx = ESSID)

Answer 1

To associate to an AP with reaver you must have a good signal. That's the first important point. And sometimes depending of your Chipset could not be possible. For example, if you have (like me) an Alfa Networks usb device with chipset Ralink RT3070 you can't use reaver. Simply is not compatible. Ralink chipsets doesn't work with reaver. For that chipset you must use bully which is a "cousin of reaver" :D

What I want to say is that there are a lot of factors... and one very important is the chipset. The tight solution is to handle both softwares "reaver" and "bully" and test everything with both.

As a personal suggestion, I can recommend to you to use a very easy to use bash script which automatize all of these tasks called airgeddon. The script can do a lot of things more... but it has a WPS menu for testing all of this using reaver and bully. Give it a try.