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Unable to connect mini to Apple Airport Network

I have an Apple airport network in my house. All of my Apple and other devices are able to connect to it just fine. I have a mini that had Catalina on it and I just upgraded to Monterey. This was happening before the upgrade and because of it I actually did a wipe and fresh install of Monterey.


I wanted to put this mini on the Airport wifi. I can see the wifi network in the list to choose and I have a MAC filter set up in the airport and made sure that the MAC address is in there. I tried both typing in the pass phrase as well as letting my iPhone share it with the mini and every time I try this it takes the password and then a few seconds later asks for the password again. I have tried connecting the mini to my iPhone's hotspot and that works OK. I even remove my iPhone from the wireless network and then re-added it and that all worked OK. I have never had an issue connecting any device to this wireless network as long as the PW was right and I'd put the MAC address in the list on the airport. Looking for any ideas.




Mac mini, macOS 10.14

Posted on Nov 1, 2021 3:34 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Nov 1, 2021 5:30 PM

This was happening before the upgrade and because of it I actually did a wipe and fresh install of Monterey.


My guess would be a failure of the wifi card. At least in 5ghz.. it might work ok on 2.4ghz on the phone.


Anyway we can check by doing a few things.


1/ What model is your airport router? How old is it?

Just as a starting point.. any airport older than 5 years it is time to update regardless.


2/ Save the current configuration.

Using the Airport utility in a Mac.. open the airport by clicking on it's icon. Then click the edit in summary.

On the top menu select Export Configuration File.




Now reset the Airport to factory and reconfigure it.. this time do not use ANY filters.

Do use only short names with no spaces and pure alphanumerics.. as mine shows.. Time Capsule is tc5e.

Same for wireless.. short no spaces and pure alphanumeric.. same wifi name as the Airport if you like.

Password for WPA2 personal .. pure alphanumeric with say 8 characters or more. Important mixed case and numbers only.


Save and load all that..

Does the Mini now work.. if so you won.. the issue is Apple changed to SMB protocol and airport is still stuck with SMB1 which is deprecated on ALL OS.. Apple gave up routers in 2018 and are not updating further.


Does the Mini still fail.. if so you can reset the wifi with no password at all.. just to briefly check if that works..

If it still fails my guess is the wifi card has issues that are not going to be fixed.. you will either need to replace the wifi card in the mini or use ethernet.

Or get another brand router and see if it works. i.e. one that has modern up to date wifi.. preferably wifi6 with WPA3.


You can go back to the Exported Configuration if you wish at this point.

NOTE MAC address filtering adds NO extra security over WPA2 personal. But causes lots of issues on your side.


You can try running the Apple hardware check on the mini but previous experience suggests it is not over helpful.


You can set a fixed IP on the wifi in the correct range for the airport.. with correct DNS and Gateway (router in Apple speak). See if that works.. DHCP can fail.. where a manually set IP does work.. occasionally.


If you cannot plug the mini into ethernet let me suggest you do it with another Airport..

Airport setup in Extend wifi mode.. this will work just as well as the internal card in the mini if not better. Our term for it is wireless bridge.. so you are using a second airport to bridge from wifi to ethernet.


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4 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Nov 1, 2021 5:30 PM in response to jhyieslame

This was happening before the upgrade and because of it I actually did a wipe and fresh install of Monterey.


My guess would be a failure of the wifi card. At least in 5ghz.. it might work ok on 2.4ghz on the phone.


Anyway we can check by doing a few things.


1/ What model is your airport router? How old is it?

Just as a starting point.. any airport older than 5 years it is time to update regardless.


2/ Save the current configuration.

Using the Airport utility in a Mac.. open the airport by clicking on it's icon. Then click the edit in summary.

On the top menu select Export Configuration File.




Now reset the Airport to factory and reconfigure it.. this time do not use ANY filters.

Do use only short names with no spaces and pure alphanumerics.. as mine shows.. Time Capsule is tc5e.

Same for wireless.. short no spaces and pure alphanumeric.. same wifi name as the Airport if you like.

Password for WPA2 personal .. pure alphanumeric with say 8 characters or more. Important mixed case and numbers only.


Save and load all that..

Does the Mini now work.. if so you won.. the issue is Apple changed to SMB protocol and airport is still stuck with SMB1 which is deprecated on ALL OS.. Apple gave up routers in 2018 and are not updating further.


Does the Mini still fail.. if so you can reset the wifi with no password at all.. just to briefly check if that works..

If it still fails my guess is the wifi card has issues that are not going to be fixed.. you will either need to replace the wifi card in the mini or use ethernet.

Or get another brand router and see if it works. i.e. one that has modern up to date wifi.. preferably wifi6 with WPA3.


You can go back to the Exported Configuration if you wish at this point.

NOTE MAC address filtering adds NO extra security over WPA2 personal. But causes lots of issues on your side.


You can try running the Apple hardware check on the mini but previous experience suggests it is not over helpful.


You can set a fixed IP on the wifi in the correct range for the airport.. with correct DNS and Gateway (router in Apple speak). See if that works.. DHCP can fail.. where a manually set IP does work.. occasionally.


If you cannot plug the mini into ethernet let me suggest you do it with another Airport..

Airport setup in Extend wifi mode.. this will work just as well as the internal card in the mini if not better. Our term for it is wireless bridge.. so you are using a second airport to bridge from wifi to ethernet.


Nov 1, 2021 7:14 PM in response to LaPastenague

I have a mesh network in the house with the Airports and I also use it some for work, so I hate to take it all down just to test this as I can surely plug the mini in via Ethernet. There must be something wrong with the Airport ... but not sure either. everything that is currently connected to the Airport seems to work OK. But I've been unable to connect the mini or an older Apple TV that has never before been on the airport wifi. However, I have another Wifi in the house for work and both will connect to that just fine. My current airport is obviously old and running 7.9.1. The naming is just a single text word and, as I said, I've never had an issue connecting to it before and everything that is connected to it now, that's currently in my house works just fine.

Unable to connect mini to Apple Airport Network

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