"Connection timeout" error occurs while attempting to connect to a WPA AP

Provide specific feedback to Apple directly - as the forums are a user community rather than an Apple feedback service.

Does it only happen on WPA networks? Or does it also happen with WPA2?

Happening to me, too. I've resorted to plugging the macbook pro into the back of my wireless router to try to find a solution online....

A

Any idea of the manufacturer of the access points with which you've been having this issue?

For example, Westell 327W gateways are notorious for causing this, and in that case it's fixed by updating the Westell's firmware.

Here's one example:

http://www.jaharmi.com/2007/11/22/verizondsl_westell_327w_gateway_andleopard

Hi William,

It's a netgear DG834GT wireless router. I'll take a look for a firmware update - thanks for the tip.

Ade

I updated the Netgear firmware to v1.02.14, yesterday, but it hasn't helped. I'll keep looking for a fix and post back if anything works. Next step I think will be to email Netgear.

Ade

My experience is that this problem is related to the WLAN signal strength/quality. My accesspoint (Fritz!Box fon WLAN 7141) is located in my living room and I had no problems configuring WPA or WPA2 on my wii and MacMini (Mac OS X 10.4.11) located within the same room. Even online gaming and streaming video are working perfectly.

I ran into trouble when configuring my PC (MS Windows XP) and my MacBook (Mac OS X 10.5.4) both located in my office just 5 meters away from the AP with one big wall in between. First I was unable to get a stable connection on my PC, it was not always able to obtain an IP-address. Setting the AP WLAN channel to an unused channel solved this issue. But on my MacBook I still couldn't connect to the AP via WPA2 because of a "Invalid password" error. In the console I found the following messages:
04-08-08 13:25:00 airportd[137] Error: Apple80211Associate() failed -25
04-08-08 13:25:00 SystemUIServer[93] Error: airportd MIG failed = -25 ((null)) (port = 70151)
04-08-08 13:25:00 airportd[137] Error: process commanddict() failed
04-08-08 13:25:00 SystemUIServer[93] Error joining FRITZ!Box Fon WLAN 7141: Invalid password (-25 Invalid master key)

After many trail and error iterations changing local and AP settings, without any luck. I took my MacBook to the living room and after one "Connection timeout" I got access.

So I think the "Invalid password" and "Connection timeout" errors are related to the signal strength/quality. My AP (Fritz!Box fon WLAN 7141) is not a real good WLAN signal receiver/transmitter having only one small antenna. A good multi antenna AP would do better. The signal strength/quality dependence explains also why my iPhone so often gives a "Unable to join network" error, because of it's weak WLAN transmitter/receiver.

More to notice is that the "Invalid password" error is misleading and could better changed in "Authentication failure". The error text now indicates a wrong password or maybe a wrong security configuration, but the error can also occur when something else within the authentication process goes wrong.

Same problem here, but with all kinds of networks, for instance this when trying to connect my MBP to my Airport Express:

05/08/08 00.00.32 airportd[3790] Error: Apple80211Associate() failed -6
05/08/08 00.00.32 SystemUIServer[155] Error: airportd MIG failed = -6 ((null)) (port = 76823)
05/08/08 00.00.32 airportd[3790] Error: process commanddict() failed
05/08/08 00.00.32 SystemUIServer[155] Error joining netværk: Timeout i forbindelse (-6 timeout connecting)

I began having the problem after 10.5.4, and deletion of a lot of network preferences, caches, everything that I can think of has not helped. I just ordered a replacement airport card, as I have no problems whatsoever on my iMac.

I've a FRITZ!Box Fon WLAN 7170 Annex A, Firmware version 58.04.57 (latest) and an aluminum iMac 20" and a 12" iBook. Both run 10.5.4, one Intel, the other PPC of course.
Today the iMac stopped connecting to the Fritz, the iBook worked after a few tries. There was a problem with the DSL connection, it would not synchronise, but that's not the issue.
The OSX system.log gives the same errors as seen above, while the Fritz goes:

30.08.08 12:52:43 WLAN registration failed: Authorization failed. Computer name: imac, Mac address: 00:1E:C2:9C:D0:37.

The iMac also seems to fail authentication and time-out. The computers are 20 cm away from one another, so signal strength (which looks perfect) should not be an issue.
Does anyone know if this has been taken up with Apple? Or a solution?
I've ran Onyx on the iMac to clear all system and kernel caches, I've re-typed the password over and over, nothing helps.

I've also seen one other strange thing. The channel list reported in the log does not include channel 12, and sometimes there's an error in the system.log that says channel 12 for FRITZ... is not supported; however the FRITZ's configuration says it's running on channel 1. Bizarre.

Thanks for your input!