Networking :: Wlan0: Option 43 Has Zero Length, Failed To Parse Packet?

I have a thread started on the Slackware forum about the possibility of installing Slackware on an older P4 laptop. Well, it installed fine and most things are working, but I am experiencing one problem that I need to solve before I progress to working on other things.

I hope the mods will not consider this a double thread because it is a networking issue and the other thread was started about a different subject, and I thought there might be more networking specialists there (though everyone I meet on the Slack forum is very knowledgeable, this one has not been solved.)

I am trying to connect wireless with an RT2500 chipset, the correct module loads and the machine is connected to the network, but with a "failed" IP address (169.254.167.101). This also occurs with a wired connection. The exact error is:

Code:
err, wlan0: option 43 has zero length
failed to parse packet

It times out then assigns the failed IP address and connects to the network, but of course nothing works.

I use WPA psk and I have another laptop with the same configs and works perfectly with Slackware -current, so I followed the same routine to set this one up. When that didn't work, I backed up the existed /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1 and wpa_supplicant.conf, and copied the working files to the new setup. Same result.

There does not seem to be any information about this error either here on LQ, or on the net. I have certainly never encountered it before.

Because it connects with good signal strength, and because it also occurs with wired connections, I can only assume that it is related to WPA in some way. I have not reset the router because I have a number of other machines connected. All of the other machines work, and this one connects, so it is not hardware related.