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Cannot connect to wireless network

Hello - I am having a reasonably bizarre problem. I have returned home after being away for a bit, and I cannot connect to my wireless router. I was connected to another secure network whilst overseas, it worked without a problem. My home network uses WEP encryption, and the network is part of my preferred networks on my MacBook. It has always connected in the past easily. I have tried rebooting, turning the wireless off and on again (being an ex Microsoft user, power cycling comes naturally!). The Airport sees the network, and when I try to manually connect, I either get a 'connection timeout' or 'incorrect password' notification.

A few other observations:
i) there are other computers in my home which connect wirelessly, they have seen no change in performance or connectivity;
ii) My MacBook connects successfully through an ethernet cable.

The only other bit of (potentially bad?) information is that I was in a Virgin Atlantic lounge yesterday, was using the laptop over their network (which was unprotected).

Any diagnostics would be welcomed.

MacBook, Mac OS X (10.6.2), iMac, Ready NAS NV+, iPhone 3GS, iPod 8G!

Posted on Jan 2, 2010 11:11 AM

Reply
5 replies

Jan 2, 2010 11:20 AM in response to gpblasius

gpblasius wrote:
I am having a reasonably bizarre problem. I have returned home after being away for a bit, and I cannot connect to my wireless router. I was connected to another secure network whilst overseas, it worked without a problem. My home network uses WEP encryption, and the network is part of my preferred networks on my MacBook. It has always connected in the past easily. I have tried rebooting, turning the wireless off and on again (being an ex Microsoft user, power cycling comes naturally!). The Airport sees the network, and when I try to manually connect, I either get a 'connection timeout' or 'incorrect password' notification.


You might try resetting your connection settings using the steps listed in this message:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=10695921&start=1

They're not guaranteed to solve the problem, but they'll only take you a minute or so to try.

Jan 2, 2010 11:25 AM in response to gpblasius

That's curious. Especially with the other devices working.

A few things that I would try, but first a note: WEP is fairly trivial to break, so if you want to deter any but the most casual hacker, think about switching to WPA/WPA2.

1. Remove the network from your Preferred Network list and delete the password entry using Keychain Access... Try rejoining then and if it works make it the preferred network again.

2. Try resetting the wireless router to factory setting and re-set up from scratch. Sometimes these things get terminally confused and a power cycle may not be enough.

3. Crank up console (in Utilities) and report back on any interesting Airport-related errors showing up in the logs. They should give a but more detail.

Oh - what OS version are you running?

Chris

Jan 2, 2010 1:05 PM in response to Chris Noble

I have partially tried 1) (not sure how to delete Keychain password), but deleted airport entry and re-established and tried to connect...no luck.

Have a very large console dump (searched for Airport), some are related to an application called iStumbler, but many aren't - what's the best way to communicate this to you?

Will power cycle router - factory reset may cause too much pain at this point in time!

Using OS 10.6.2.

Also notice laptop is running extremely slowly... now worried about possible virus.

Cannot connect to wireless network

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