If you don't know the pattern, use -a 3 with progressively complex masks. A brute-force mask attack on an 8-character password (lower, upper, digit, symbol) would take millennia, but a targeted mask on an 8-character ISP default takes hours.

: WPA/WPA2 passwords are salted with the network's SSID during the PBKDF2 hashing process. If the SSID was captured incorrectly, the cracking process will fail regardless of the wordlist used. Recommended Next Steps Dictionary · Issue #242 · derv82/wifite2 - GitHub

Your dictionary was too weak or too outdated for the password the router was using in 2021.

By 2021, many routers began shipping with unique, randomized 12-character alphanumeric keys by default. These will never be in a basic "probable" list. 2. Switching to "RockYou.txt"

This article breaks down exactly what that error means, why it happened, and – most importantly – how to move beyond it in 2021 (and beyond).

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