Wireless Connection Problems
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- Sandman_1982
More of a tech related question than design but I need to discuss my problem with the Mac community. So here goes...
I've been using my Macbook Pro for just over 3 months now and could connect to the internet wirelessly at home without any problems.
This weekend I downloaded some software updates and now I get the message 'There was an error connecting to the network'.
I did some searching on the net, seems like a lot of people have had the same problem but have not been able to solve it.
I'm interested in finding out if anyone else experienced something similar to this and if they found any solutions?
- Stugoo0
this came up a while ago. dont know if it helps.
http://www.qbn.com/topics/585225…
- Ambushstudio0
Sand, what kind of message do you get? does it tell you the airport card is not connected? I had the same problem a month ago.
- ribit0
It helps if you tell us more detail... like where do you see "There was an error connecting to the network'.
And do these things work?
- Are you connected to the WiFi network?
- Has your Mac been assigned an IP address by the router? (In System Preferences > Network > Airport)
- If you have an IP address you are on the LAN, the next thing is do you have internet connectivity? (this is where it gets tricky)
- Sandman_19820
Basically, I select my network using the drop down menu when clicking on the signal bar at the top right of the screen. Then I am prompted to enter my WPA Password for the network, which I enter correctly. Then I have a pop-up window with the message "There was an error connecting to the network 'Vlsise' (the name for our internet)
- Sandman_19820
I can obviously see the network as I can select it from the list shown in the drop down menu, but it will no longer connect for some reason. Not sure about the IP address to be honest, can't check it until I get home from work tonight. I thought that the Laptop should be assigned with a different I.P. address each time it connects to a different network?
I have no internet connectivity, that is my issue. Although I can connect to the internet wirelessly on the same router with my intel iMac.
- Dancer0
Can you plug straight into it with an Ethernet cable and get it working?
- ribit0
So you aren't even connecting to the base station. You have to approach this stuff in the correct order...
For a start, connect to the base station using an ethernet cable and turn off WPA and WEP so the WiFI network is open. Only try to turn wifi security (WPA or WEP) back on again after you have successfully:
- connected to the WiFi network
- the base station has assigned a (local) IP address to your Mac
- you've successfully conected from your Mac to the internet.Your base station will be assigning a local IP address to your Mac (like 192.168.0.2). It might be fixed (if you want it to be) or usually you would have it set to DHCP (automatic) and the base station dishes out IP addresses as it likes to the connected computers. If it shows something like 169.254.198.71 in the Network preferences then your Mac has not been assigned an IP address by the base station.
- Sandman_19820
Cheers Ribit, I'll give that a go tonight. Fingers crossed!
- BuddhaHat0
Ribit's on the money. Strip out all wireless encryption, then put it back on, layer by layer. The best balance of ease of use and encryption is WPA2 Personal with AES encryption (TKIP can be cracked). With all the latest updates, your Mac should have no problem doing this.
If you still have problems, then check your manufacturer's website to see if there is firmware available for your router. Firmware upgrades can fix a lot of performance issues. It definitely did on mine.- It was the firmware update which caused my problem!boobs
- Sandman_19820
Cheers BuddhaHat, and the rest of the dudes helping me out. I'm pretty useless when it comes to technical stuff so it's all greatly appreciated.
- Sandman_19820
Boobs :-) Did you resolve the issue by doing the above?
- raf0
Last Airport/Time Capsule update fucked up my network.. just saying.
- Sandman_19820
"If it shows something like 169.254.198.71 in the Network preferences then your Mac has not been assigned an IP address by the base station."
This is exactly what it says when it establishes some kind of connection to the network. So how do I go about assigning an I.P. address to the Macbook?