Comment 59 for bug 259157

I also recommend Wicd as a workaround solution to this issue as it solved what I thought I had 'fixed' the problem in #291848. With "Automatically reconnect" checked in the preferences, I watched as the connection would drop and Wicd would immediately reconnect without any hiccups to network activity. With Network Manager, I would have just gotten the spinning animation and a dialog box to enter the WAP passphrase. Keep in mind that instead of using madwifi you simply use wext.

A restart isn't necessary; just log out and log back in for the notification applet to appear.