How do I get a new Kindle Touch wifi to connect to AirPort?

Question

Level 1

11 points

How do I get a new Kindle Touch wifi to connect to AirPort?

I have read various posts on this site and also visited Amazon, but I cannot find the step-by-step directions I need to get my Kindle Touch to connect to AirPort. (We seem to have AirPort Extreme 4th generation.) I know next to nothing about computers and nothing at all about AirPort, so the instructions I have found are not understandable. The Kindle tells me that our house's wifi is available and it also tells me if I have entered the wrong password. So, the Kindle Touch knows the network is there and I know that it is accepting the proper password. The house's wifi is working perfectly with our laptop.

One post I read referred to "internet sharing." That is turned off. I tried turning it on, but it seemed to require ethernet or firewire (and I have no idea what those are). There were also references to WEP and WPA2 and other things that I have no knowledge about.

We stopped at the Vermont Welcome Center, and I was briefly able to connect using their wifi. However, I then put the Kindle in my coat pocket so it could download books while I wandered, but somehow a button must have gotten pressed because when I looked at it a few minutes later, there was an ad on the screen, the books had stopped downloading, and the connection was lost. The Kindle would not reconnect to the wifi network.

I have tried restarting the Kindle and that did not work.

If anyone can provide explicit instructions, I would appreciate it.

Also, I thought this might just be a Mac problem, but the fact that I also ran into some kind of problem at the Welcome Center makes me think that it might be a wider issue.

Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Nov 24, 2011 4:52 PM

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Answer 1

kostby

Level 4

2,940 points

Nov 24, 2011 8:56 PM in response to bhadash

Your Macintosh settings have NOTHING to do with your Kindle Touch not connecting to your AirPort Extreme WiFi router.

A brief search with a popular search engine revealed this thread on Amazon.com

http://www.amazon.com/forum/kindle%20customer%20service%20q%20and%20a?_encoding= UTF8&cdForum=Fx1GLDPZMNR1X53&cdThread=Tx1X2ZQPBWDCBH0

As someone else suggested in your thread over on the Amazon.com forums, you need to enter a 26-character hexadecimal string rather than the text password in order for your Touch to connect.

Midway through this Amazon forum post is this response explaining how to access that string (my boldface emphasis):

Mark Gilliland says:

OK, so success! Problem solved thanks to ShirleyKat's previous posting... I went back into Airport Utility and figured out how to get the WEP key (HEX) equivalent of the network password. This is a 26 character string. I entered it into the TOUCH and bingo! Connected. So, for those with Airport-basd networks (such as Airport Extreme or Express), log into your Airport router and then on top menu bar select BASE STATION -> EQUIVALENT NETWORK PASSWORD which will popup a window showing you the string to use.

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Answer 2

kostby

Level 4

2,940 points

Nov 24, 2011 9:20 PM in response to kostby

Again, confirming the password must be entered into your Kindle in hexadecimal, I found this on the Amazon Kindle forum troubleshooting pages (boldface emphasis is mine)...

http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/?nodeId=200730210#password

Ensure you've entered a complete WEP or WPA key.

Some brands of wireless routers automatically generate a simple text passphrase from the WEP key. The Kindle Touch is not compatible with passphrases. You must enter the complete WEP key, which contain letters a-f and numbers 0-9. WEP key lengths are as follows:

64-bit WEP keys -- 10 digits
128-bit WEP keys -- 26 digits
256-bit WEP keys -- 58 digits

The reason your Kindle started to connect at the Welcome Center is likely because their router was unsecured and required no password. I can't speak to why it disconnected there, but perhaps it had something to do with the pop-up ad.

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Answer 3

bhadash Author

Level 1

11 points

Nov 24, 2011 10:40 PM in response to kostby

Thank you for the information and for trying to help. I know nothing about any of this. I followed the directions you provided, but "equivalent network password" is greyed out in the Base Station menu, so it is not an option in our AirPort Utility that I can choose. I have no idea why or what that means (other than that I cannot use the directions to get a 26-character WEP key, whatever that is).

I also have no idea what "hexadecimal" means.

Nor do I know how to find a WPA-2 key code.

If it matters, our wifi password is 8 characters (digits and lowercase letters).

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Answer 4

kostby

Level 4

2,940 points

Nov 25, 2011 9:16 AM in response to bhadash

One more thing to try before returning to the Amazon support forums.

Remove all the saved WiFi locations from your Kindle, then reset the device one more time, and manually attempt to add your AirPort Extreme. (Instructions from amazon.com)

1. Remembering and Forgetting Wi-Fi Networks

After you have successfully connected to a Wi-Fi network once, your Kindle Touch will automatically connect to it again when it detects a signal from that network.

You can tell Kindle Touch to forget a Wi-Fi network so that your device doesn't connect to it automatically in the future.

From the Home screen, tap Menu.
Select Settings.
Select Wi-Fi Networks to display a list of detected Wi-Fi networks. You may have to wait a moment as your Kindle Touch detects networks in range.
Tap the name of the network with a tick symbol next to it to disconnect from the network.

2. Manually Adding a New Wi-Fi Network

If you don't see the network you want to connect to in the list of detected networks, you can add it by selecting Join at the bottom of the list of detected networks.

First, make sure you are within range of the network you want to add, and that you know the network name and password (if required).
From the Home screen, tap Menu and select Settings.
Select Wi-Fi Networks to display a list of detected Wi-Fi networks.
Tap Join to enter network details.
Use the onscreen keyboard to enter the name of the Wi-Fi network that you want to add.
Once the Network Name has been entered, tap the Password box and enter Wi-Fi password / Network Key using the onscreen keyboard (if required).
Tip: Tap the 123 key to enter numbers or symbols. Tap the ABC key to return to the regular keyboard. Tap the Shift key (up arrow) to enter uppercase characters. Your password may include non-English letters (accents, umlauts, etc.). To view accent options, press and hold a letter down, and accent options appear.
Tap Connect.

If your Kindle Touch fails to connect to the new Wi-Fi network, it will display an Unable to Connect message. You can manually enter all the network information for the Wi-Fi network by choosing Set Up when you see the Unable to Connect message. If you don't know the network information, try connecting to a different network, or contact the person who setup the network.

Tip: Once your Kindle Touch connects to a Wi-Fi network, that network displays "forget" next to it in the list of available networks. Selecting "forget" disconnects your Kindle Touch from that Wi-Fi network and also prevents your device from automatically connecting to it in the future.

Link to amazon.com support document: http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200729930#manualsetup

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Answer 5

bhadash Author

Level 1

11 points

Nov 25, 2011 3:22 PM in response to kostby

I really appreciate all of the time you are giving to try and help me. I will follow the directions and see what happens. People have suggested looking at MAC address filtering, automatic channels, and so on. I have clicked my way through AirPort looking for all of them and seem to have found them all (except for that 26-character WEP key). Unfortunately, none of the offered solutions has been relevant (e.g., we do not seem fo have address filtering turned on, so that did not seem to be the problem; and we are already set to automatic channels, so that did not appear to be an issue). I'll try manually adding the network and see if it helps. I might just have to wait for a rare day when my husband is out of the house so I can have unfettered access to the desktop computer and then ask Amazon to give me a call.

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Answer 6

bhadash Author

Level 1

11 points

Nov 27, 2011 8:48 AM in response to bhadash

This is what finally worked for me to get my Kindle Touch to connect with our Mac’s (OS 10.6.8) AirPort wifi network at the house:

1. Open the AirPortUtility (if you cannot find it, click on the magnifying glass in the upper right corner of the desktop, then type in AirPort, and then click on AirPort Utility in the list that comes up)

2. Double click on the network with the green dot next to it on the left-hand side of the screen that comes up.

3. At the top of the next window that comes up, click once on AirPort

4. The click once on Wireless

5. Change the Radio Mode to the option that ends with b/g (not the one with n in it).

6. Try having the Channel Selection on automatic, or change it to manual and then pick channel 6

7. Go to Access Control (it is right next to where you clicked on Wireless in step #4) and make sure MAC Address Access Control is not enabled.

8. At the bottom of the AirPort window that you are on choose Update.

9. After AirPort updates and connects to the internet again, go to the top of the AirPort window (that is, where you clicked on AirPort in step #3), and now click on Internet.

10. Click on TCP/IP

11. Use the information on that screen (along with your AirPort password -- we have an 8-character WPA2 Personal one and do not have to worry about a 26-character WEP key) to manually set up the network on the Kindle Touch. Those step sare

a. From the Home screen, tap Menu and select Settings.

b. Select Wi-Fi Networks to display a list of detected Wi-Fi networks.

c. If your network is listed, tap on it. (If it is not listed, tap on Join and enter the network’s name and password, and tap Connect).

d. If your Kindle Touch fails to connect, it will display an Unable toConnect to WiFi message.

e. You can manually enter all the network information for the Wi-Finetwork by choosing Set Up and then Advanced when you see the Unable to Connect message. Use the up and down arrows to get through the various screens so you can enter the information from step #11 above.

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Answer 7

kostby

Level 4

2,940 points

Nov 29, 2011 7:24 PM in response to bhadash

Glad you found a solution. Thanks for posting the specific steps you followed, so others can learn from you!

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Answer 8

Jan 30, 2012 5:00 PM in response to bhadash

When I finally actually counted the digits in my WEP password (which I found in my Keychain Access) I discovered it was 26 digits PRECEEDED by a $ dollar sign. If I leave out the $ dollar sign, the WEP password works with my new Kindle. Hurray !

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Answer 9

dferdog

Level 1

7 points

Jun 12, 2014 10:05 AM in response to bhadash

After reading about this on other forums I foumd the answer that worked for me. My wifi name had an apostrophe in it i.e.Geoff's. I removed the apostrophe and all suddenly was well. Weird eh?

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