Turtlewiz
Level 1
(19 points)
Q: Help! Why can't Airport connect to the Internet?
I'm at the house of a friend with a good DSL WiFi connection and something has happened to my Airport settings, so I got bumped off the internet. I haven't been able to get back on even when the Airport icon shows all four bars. The problem seems to be my MacBook/OS X/Airport settings because I'm able to access the internet on the tablet I have with me, both with the friend's Wifi and with a MiFi hotspot I have.
Here's what I've done so far:
1. Opened System Preferences/Network and checked to make sure AIrport was selected in the left sidebar, then tried reconnecting by selecting friend's network and re-entering the WPA password, checked "Apply." Icon showed four bars but Network window said, "Airport has a self-assigned IP address and cannot connect to the internet."
2. Restarted and tried again to reset the connection. This time the Airport icon at the top of the screen was dimmed out with an exclamation point ("No internet connection." SysPrefs/Network box now said, "Airport does not have an IP address and cannot connect to the Internet."
3. Restarted and ran Disk Utility/Repair Permissions. No effect.
4. Tried going to SysPrefs/Network/Advanced/TCP/IP and clicking on "Renew DCHP lease." (I think this is only for Ethernet, but hey, why not try?) No effect.
5. Tried running /Assist Me/Diagnostics in Network preferences; entered information correctly (twice), but nothing worked.
6. Checked to see if the Macbook would work with the MiFi network. It gets the signal but still says either "Airport has a self-assigned IP address and cannot connect" or "Airport does not have an IP address and cannot connect."
I have no idea what caused the problem--the only thing I'm aware of is that it started around the time my friend used her computer/wifi to start Skyping with someone. But I don't see how that could have blown my Airport settings. Thanks so much for any help out there!!
Mac OS X (10.6.8)
BobHarris
Level 6
(19,437 points)
Have you tried power cycling your friend's WiFi router?
A lot of times when you connect, but cannot access anything, it is because you did not get working DNS server addresses. Most home routers give out their address as the DNS server and then re-send the DNS lookup requests to the IPS provided DNS servers.
You can give yourself your own DNS servers if you like
System Preferences -> Network -> Wi-Fi -> Advanced -> DNS -> [+]
208.67.222.222
208.67.220.220
Google DNS
8.8.8.8
8.8.4.4
The first address is the most important, as the 2nd address will not be tried until the first request times out, and that would be upwards to 30 seconds or more.
