wpa_supplicant nl80211 hangs linux mint frequently

This is a known bug, check this launchpad bug report. There is only one suggestion offered to fix it, message n.24:

Oops this has been going on since 2009 and a developer did respond that it is simply for roaming in corporate environments with multiple access points to connect to. If you only have one AP at home go into network manager, select "Edit Connection", highlight your AP / wlan0 and click "Edit". Then click the down arrow next to BSSID which is blank. Then select the mac address that was hidden before.