Macbook Pro 2012 Catalina 10.15.6: Wifi will not turn on.

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Level 1

13 points

Macbook Pro 2012 Catalina 10.15.6: Wifi will not turn on.

Macbook Pro 2012 13 inch non-retina, Catalina 10.15.6:

Today the wifi turned off and will not turn back on. Clicking "Turn Wifi On" on the Network page has no effect. The computer was on and in sleep mode, and displayed this problem after waking. I have tried to restart several times.

Sometimes the wifi symbol at the top of screen is blank inverted triangle, or sometimes it has faded lines. Based on the options shown when clicking the symbol, sometimes it thinks the wifi is on (only gives option to turn off, even when the wifi symbol is blank. When the wifi symbol shows faded lines, it will not display / identify any wifi signals.

On the network screen, it always shows that the wifi is off, and clicking to turn it on has no effect. Internet works fine through ethernet connection though. Other devices currently work fine with wifi.

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 10.15

Posted on Aug 3, 2020 10:28 AM

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Answer 1

EIF1966

Level 1

28 points

Aug 3, 2020 12:02 PM in response to bpmangano

Ok, Can you connect to internet via ethernet?

If so then you could backup your data to a storage device (USB, NAS, online storage, etc.)

Then restore your Mac OSX based on these 2 articles:

https://osxdaily.com/2020/07/17/how-clean-install-macos-catalina/

https://osxdaily.com/2020/07/14/how-make-bootable-macos-catalina-install-drive/

Please be advices to backup all your data. I did this once to with an old MBP 17".

If you are not technically the please ask for help of a friend that know OSX.

I hope this helped.

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Answer 2

EIF1966

Level 1

28 points

Aug 3, 2020 10:48 AM in response to bpmangano

Maybe you can delete the wifi and then create a new one from the network dialog.

Click on the wifi icon in the menubar
Select network preferences
Delete the wifi entry in the list.
Restart the laptop
If the wifi isn't automatically created ad one by hand and connect to your wifi

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Answer 3

bpmangano Author

Level 1

13 points

Aug 3, 2020 11:02 AM in response to EIF1966

Yes, based on another thread, I tried this, and now I cannot get the wifi back in the network options. When I click to add it back, there is no option given (just thunderbolt, ethernet, bluetooth, etc). In fact, my computer doesn't seem to be recognizing the wifi hardware at all.

I upgraded to catalina several months ago, so I don't know why this happened out of nowhere. I had a zoom meeting on wifi this morning that worked fine.

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Macbook Pro 2012 Catalina 10.15.6: Wifi will not turn on.

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