Saturday, August 30, 2008

Airport Not Always Connecting to Preferred Wireless Network


I love my mac… and I love my shiny new wireless home network. But each morning, when I turn on and log into my computer, I get a little pop-up: "None of your preferred [wireless] networks are available. Please choose another network". So I find my home network in the list of available networks. I choose it, type in my snazzy password, check the box that says "remember this as a preferred network". And dive into my morning.

But then tomorrow comes, and I'm back at square one. It's nothing big — but I can't really start my day until I'm online, so it's a bit of a hassle. So yesterday I turn to my friend Google: "mac not connecting automatically to a preferred network", I type. And voila! There's a wonderful thread over at the Mac Rumors Forums: Airport Not Always Connecting to Preferred Wireless Network. I don't know who JSweeny is… but their response was a day-maker:
  1. Move “System Preferences.app” back to “Applications\”.
  2. Delete all instances of “Preferred Networks” in “Network Preferences”.
  3. Delete all “Airport network password” instances in “Keychain Access”.
  4. Restart your Mac.
  5. Add/Join applicable preferred network using the Airport pulldown menu or in Network Preferences (as if for the first time). Use “Advanced” in “Network Preferences” to confirm the existence of your preferred network and the correct settings. Use “Keychain Access” to confirm the existence of the applicable “Airport network password” instance and the correct settings.
  6. Restart your Mac. The OS should now find your preferred network and join it on its own.

Problem solved.

Man, I love the internet!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love the internet too! I'm glad that your problem is solved! And I am so glad for the technology that allows me to work from home. :)-Barb

Anonymous said...

Hey Silus!
Apparantly this is a widespread problem, obviously under all users who organised their messy application folder.
However, Google referred me to so many forums where they didn't solve the problem! Almost went bananas...
Until tonight! Thanks a lot!
If you can, make sure to get a good google pole position on that one, you're gonna be a hero;)
Cheers