network location "automatic" is missing

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network location "automatic" is missing

I had an iMac with Mojave and for some time I have needed to change the network location to get the internet connection to work at startup

At some stage I accidentally removed the "Automatic" location setting.

I have now a new iMac with Catalina

I populated the new Catalina iMac with the contents of Mojave machine.

Now Automatic is still missing for the Network setting

& I still need to create a new location for time to time

so...

2 questions

Is "Automatic" just a name (same a a created new one) or is it some kind of special location setting

2 Is there a preferences file that controls the locations?

I tried removing and re creating a new wi-fi network but the Locations did not re-set

I'd like to remove or replace that preferences file (I have a copy of preferences form a fresh instal of Catalina)

iMac 27″, macOS 10.15

Posted on Aug 8, 2020 10:23 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Barney-15E

Level 10

112,944 points

Aug 9, 2020 6:40 PM in response to smartabrett

Is "Automatic" just a name (same a a created new one) or is it some kind of special location setting

Yes.

Is there a preferences file that controls the locations?

/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/prefernences.plist

There is also a NetworkInterfaces.plist which contains info on all of the Network Services.

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Answer 2

Barney-15E

Level 10

112,944 points

Aug 9, 2020 8:29 PM in response to smartabrett

It's just the SystemConfiguration preferences.

They are just text files. You can open them in a text editor to see what is in them. You have to wade through a lot of XML, but you can get the gist.

The first half of the file is all of the Services' settings.

The second half, "Sets," are the Locations.

It then has some Back to My Mac settings, Host names, and virtual network interfaces.

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Answer 3

smartabrett Author

Level 1

8 points

Aug 10, 2020 6:37 PM in response to Barney-15E

ok - great - I re-named preferences.plist to preferences-old.plist

restarted

A new preferences.plist was created

Automatic has now re-appeared in my network settings and the ones I had created are gone

all other system settings seem to be as they were

thanks for the help

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Answer 4

smartabrett Author

Level 1

8 points

Sep 5, 2020 8:56 PM in response to smartabrett

further to the above issue

I have a situation where I need to regularly re set the internet connection by SYSTEM PREFS > NETWORK > and change the LOCATION from auto by setting a new one

It started on my previous iMac using Mojave and I put up with it as I knew I’d be getting a newer machine soon & thought it may be network hardware related.

I now have a newer machine (re-furb iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2015 4ghz i7, 16gb ram) which runs Catalina

I set up the newer iMac using the time machine backup from my old iMac - the problem still exist (so I guess it’s not hardware related)

I googled some info and replaced some preferences files

nameley

com.apple.airport.preferences.plist

com.apple.network.eapolclient.configuration.plist

com.apple.wifi.message-tracer.plist

NetworkInterfaces-pre-upgrade-new-target.plist

NetworkInterfaces-pre-upgrade-source.plist

NetworkInterfaces.plist

preferences-pre-upgrade-new-target.plist

preferences-pre-upgrade-source.plist

hoping that that my fix the problem - however the problem still exists - any suggestions?

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Answer 5

Barney-15E

Level 10

112,944 points

Sep 6, 2020 3:32 AM in response to smartabrett

I would have tested the new Mac without migrating any data.

You could try erasing the drive completely and reinstall macOS. See if you still get that problem. When you create a new user account, make sure it is different from what you will migrate, later.

If you still have a problem, it may be some conflict with your router that prevents it from reconnecting. Maybe the router is cutting off the DHCP lease and the Mac doesn't know that it should renew.

But, other than that, I have no idea.

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Answer 6

smartabrett Author

Level 1

8 points

Sep 6, 2020 2:25 PM in response to Barney-15E

I should have mentioned that I ran my old machine , updated with Catalina clean install , for two weeks and the problem didn't arise

pretty sure it came over from my time machine backup - I've got way to many preferences & settings etc to re-set up set uo without using time machine

I was just hoping to pinpoint a prefernces file or something that could be causing it

maybe there is a way to log startup to see where the problem might be?

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Answer 7

Barney-15E

Level 10

112,944 points

Sep 6, 2020 2:37 PM in response to smartabrett

pretty sure it came over from my time machine backup - I've got way to many preferences & settings etc to re-set up set uo without using time machine

That always presents a problem. I wish you could be more selective in what gets migrated. But, I can't remember how granular the system settings were in Migration.

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Answer 8

smartabrett Author

Level 1

8 points

Aug 9, 2020 6:42 PM in response to Barney-15E

thanks

is that just the location prefs or will it remove other prefs as well if I remove it

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network location "automatic" is missing

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