I have a 16" 2021 MacBook with M1 Max chip. I needed to erase it because of some problems I ran into. Once it rebooted and I selected the language it needs to be activated. It says to select a WiFi network from the WiFi icon at the top right of the menu bar. But there is no WiFi icon there. There is a battery icon and a select input icon (to select alphabet.) And that's it.
How do I get the WiFi menu to appear?
Thanks,
Judy
I just had a similar situation with my MacBook Pro. It started on a black screen that said Activate Mac across the top and "Recovery Assistant" in the menu bar. It was asking me to connect to the Internet with either WiFi or Ethernet. But there was no wifi menu available nor a wifi symbol near the upper top right corner of the screen, only an A icon and a battery icon.
After digging through a handful of almost-helpful articles online, I found one that did the trick. It said to hold down the physical power button on the Mac until it powered off. Wait 30-seconds, then power it back on.
As I did so, there were a couple of odd schematics that showed up during the reboot (one looked like a mouse from the bottom, the other looked like a menu bar in miniature)… but eventually, I ended up at the Activate Mac screen again AND the wifi icon was in the upper right corner of the screen. That allowed me to manually enter my network name and password under the "Join Other Network" option.
I hope this helps…
Ron
judyereese Said:
"Activate Mac -- no WiFi menu to select network: I have a 16" 2021 MacBook with M1 Max chip. I needed to erase it because of some problems I ran into.: [...] There is a battery icon and a select input icon (to select alphabet.) And that's it. How do I get the WiFi menu to appear? Thanks, Judy"
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Start with another restart.
I had this problem on my work computer at a brand new job. None of the solutions explained here worked. I was about to erase the whole computer and lose all of my files when I tried restarting, holding the physical power button + command + shift when I got an icon that said “Options.” Once I clicked that, I returned to the activation screen with the WiFi symbol there at the top right corner.
Hey Judy,
Chiming in here to offer an alternative. I had the same problem not so long ago with my M1 chip Macbook Air. I realized when plugged to a power socket the option to select the internet at the top right corner disappears. So I simply disconnected the laptop from the power socket and hovered to the top right corner where the wifi icon popped up. Note even so it was still invisible but hovering on there revealed the wifi options to connect to. Something Apple should def work on.
I read all the answers below but still didn’t work.
Thankfully i tried pressing the power button for long maybe 5 seconds. Then it shutdown. Then press again for 5 seconds or longer and the setting setip appear. When I clicked next it profeed on the Activate Mac window setup and the grayed wifi menu was appeared.
hopefully you got it too.
This may help to show the wifi menu item:
Very Top right. The Wi-Fi icon is grayed out. Very hard to see.
I went to "Recovery Assistant" then chose "Erase Mac". After erasing my MacBook, the wifi icon showed up on the top right corner and I was then able to connect to wifi. This solved the problem for me.
I had the same exact thing happen when I tried to erase my Mac Mini M1. I ended up connecting my Macbook Air to my Mac Mini and running Apple Configuration and it loaded the system onto my Mac Mini M1 and reinstalled the operating system then rebooted and then it showed then it showed the Wi-Fi symbol at the top right of screen greyed out. I was then able to click on it and connect to Wi-Fi and everything worked fine from there.
Reinstalled system and everything is working fine now.
I ran into this as well. It looks like it was because the Mac was encrypted. After a bit of testing, it turned out if I decrypted before doing Erase All Content and Settings, when it restarted into Recovery Assistant and tried to activate, the WiFi menu was available, but it wasn't if I left it encrypted.
Hope this helps!
Listen to me. For Reasons we will never understand, the wifi logo is dark dark dark grey in the upper right hand corner. You cannot see it because like me your eyesight isn't programmed to MAGIC EYE level discernment. The Wifi Logo is there. It's just dark dark grey on a black background. For a company that prides itself on design, this is wildly frustrating. The wifi logo is there, you just have to squint.
I tried what someone else stated “hold down the physical power button” that didn’t work for me… i also have an air not a pro what did work for me was to go to the recovery assistant section and click erase mac and after the prompts i clicked erase and then i immediately held the power button and it took me to the beginning aka where you choose the language and where the nearby wifi connections were at.
If you don't have Ethernet cable, which Apple really don't like you using because if they did.... (I'll stop ranting here), you can follow these steps which should work for you:
Hope this helps someone that doesn't have the time, patience, or money to play the Apple's game of choice: "Get this $40 adapter if you want the things that worked to continue to work"
Hi judyeresee,
My System Specs:
MacBook Air M1 2020 (512GB)
Here is what worked for me:
agreed, though *trying* to boot in safe mode made wifi icon appear in the menu bar. and that’s the only way it helped me to connect to wifi, no other option helped discussed here.
I ran into the same problem, but the problem is preety minor; just click on the recovery assistant and click on erase mac this would reasrt the mac. upon restart the wifi logo on the menu bar would reappear.
Activate Mac -- no WiFi menu to select network
