WiFi & Catalina (10.15.7)
I've recently encountered something of an odd situation. I'd appreciate any advice/direction anyone may have.
Here's the deal:
I've got a NetGear router, dual-band (2.4g/5g) and a MacMini running Catalina. It had been working fine. I have been connecting to the 5g network, but I had started to notice that Facebook would come up with messages like, "You are not connected to Internet" (or something to that effect) though everything was working fine, then it got to where sites would timeout altogether. Then, it was as if the Internet "died" altogether. NOTHING would connect. My first instinct was to blame my ISP. I went and checked my modem, and everything was showing it was working as it should be. I power-cycled the modem and router, it didn't make any difference. I checked via my phone, and it would connect (via WiFi, Mobile Data turned off) just fine. As part of the troubleshooting process, I switched my Mini to the 2.4g network, and it worked fine. Both my phone and my tablet will connect without issue to the 5g network, just my MacMini seems to have some issue with the 5g network. Keep in mind, the Mini will CONNECT to the 5g network, it just seems to not want to work with the Internet while it is. I've gone into "System Preferences" and reviewed the Network settings while connected to both networks, I see ZERO differences in settings between the two. Again, both my phone and my tablet work without issue on either network. It is only the MacMini, on the 5g network that I see the issue. As further information, I have the devices on my network configured with static IP addresses. I have, as a troubleshooting check, also switched the MacMini back to DHCP, and the results are the same. It will connect to the Internet over 2.4g without issue, but as soon as I switch to the 5g network and refresh a page, I get a timeout.
What is REALLY weird here is, I have also tried to PING other devices on my local network from the Mini. On the 2.4g network I will get several "Request timeout for icmp_seq" whatever number, and then it will come back with several successful ping's, but more timeouts than successful attempts. However, when I switch to the 5g network, I get absolutely ZERO timeouts.
