Connnecting to WPA Through Terminal Edimax ew-7811un error ioctl[SIOCSIWENCODEEXT]: Invalid argument

Question

I've been trying to learn how to connect to my WPA secured wireless router for a while and no matter how much I research I can not find the fix for this error. I get the error(ioctl[SIOCSIWENCODEEXT]: Invalid argument) twice before getting a long repeating output involving my device(wlan0) being busy, followed by an error claiming my authentication is wrong. I have tried the command on my laptop as well using it's default wireless card and it returns the same error. In addition to this, occasionally after running the wpa_supplicant command with the same disappointing results, my wlan0 device will be set to DOWN. I am attempting to connect from a Edimax ew-7811un usb wifi dongle.

my wpa.conf file: /home/me/wpa.conf:

# reading passphrase from stdin
network={
        ssid="######"
        #psk="#############"
        psk=#############################################
}

wpa_supplicant command:

sudo wpa_supplicant -D wext -i wlan0 -c /home/me/wpa.conf

following this I remove my assigned ip:

sudo dhclient -r

and assign a new one:

sudo dhclient wlan0

I am doing all this while connected to the internet through eth0 if that matters however i have tested this while eth0 is down. I have also uninstalled and reinstalled wpa_supplicant several times. I have also put my wpa.conf file in /etc/wpa_supplicant.

the output of wpa_supplicant with some parts censored:

Successfully initialized wpa_supplicant
ioctl[SIOCSIWENCODEEXT]: Invalid argument
ioctl[SIOCSIWENCODEEXT]: Invalid argument
ioctl[SIOCSIWSCAN]: Device or resource busy
wlan0: Trying to associate with XXXXXXXXXXXXXX (SSID='XXXXXXX' freq=2437 MHz)
wlan0: Associated with XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
wlan0: CTRL-EVENT-DISCONNECTED bssid=XXXXXXXXXXXXX reason=0
ioctl[SIOCSIWSCAN]: Device or resource busy
wlan0: Trying to associate with XXXXXXXXXXXXX (SSID='XXXXXXXXXXXXX' freq=2437 MHz)
ioctl[SIOCSIWFREQ]: Device or resource busy
wlan0: Association request to the driver failed
wlan0: Associated with XXXXXXXXXXXXX
wlan0: CTRL-EVENT-DISCONNECTED bssid=XXXXXXXXXXXXX reason=0
ioctl[SIOCSIWSCAN]: Device or resource busy
wlan0: Trying to associate with XXXXXXXXXXXXX (SSID='XXXXXXXXXXXXX' freq=2437 MHz)
ioctl[SIOCSIWFREQ]: Device or resource busy
wlan0: Association request to the driver failed
wlan0: Associated with XXXXXXXXXXXXX
wlan0: CTRL-EVENT-DISCONNECTED bssid=XXXXXXXXXXXXX reason=0
ioctl[SIOCSIWSCAN]: Device or resource busy
wlan0: Trying to associate with XXXXXXXXXXXXX (SSID='XXXXXXXXXXXXX' freq=2437 MHz)
ioctl[SIOCSIWFREQ]: Device or resource busy
wlan0: Association request to the driver failed
wlan0: Associated with XXXXXXXXXXXXX
wlan0: CTRL-EVENT-DISCONNECTED bssid=XXXXXXXXXXXXX reason=0
wlan0: CTRL-EVENT-SSID-TEMP-DISABLED id=0 ssid="XXXXXXXXXXXXX" auth_failures=1 duration=10
ioctl[SIOCSIWSCAN]: Device or resource busy