[okoj]

I recently changed the encryption type on my wifi router from WEP to WPA, I then updated the network settings on my macbook. The connection worked fine until I disconnected airport and later tried to reconnect, airport says it's connected but safari disagrees.

I can get it to work, I just have to choose 'other...' in airport and put in the same settings and then connect. It comes back with an error message but safari now connects.

However, I would much prefer for it to work automatically as it did before.


Any help/ideas would be much appreciated.

[Mojo]

I just spent over 30 minutes trying to find info on how I fixed this problem in the past and just when I was about to give up I found the info. At the time I wrote it I was using a Linksys router; now I have an Airport Base Station.

Excerpts:

"The main trick appears to be that the WPA-enabled network has to be selected in the Airport menu accessible from the Finder menu bar (if you have that option enabled), and the name/pass phrase entered in the appropriate fields. I had to enter the pass phrase several times before it was accepted.

Then one needs to open the Internet Connect system preference and do the same process, select "other" network and use the menu button to obtain new fields where the network name and pass phrase can be entered again. After I did that I began automatically connecting without having to reenter the pass phrase."

If you previously had your WEP password stored in your Keychain I suggest deleting it and seeing if Keychain then asks if you want the data saved next time you try to connect to the Internet.

[okoj]

Cheers,

I tried what you said and thought it had worked, I turned airport off and then on again and it reconnected fine. Then I tried rebooting and it failed to connect again, although 'internet connect' still says it's connected. However, if I turn airport off and on again in 'internet connect' it works fine, without prompting for the password...



Thanks for trying.

[Mojo]

Try disabling WPA and see if the problem persists. If it does, then you know that it is something to do with your WPA settings.

And pardon me if this seems like a stupid question... you say that Internet Connect is indicating that you are connected, but Safari acts like you are not. I have found that when one of my Macs wakes from sleep, etc. that Safari or my e-mail program will attempt to connect before Airport has established the connection, so I get a connection error message from one of the applications. Could this be your problem?

Other ideas:

1. You haven't said which wireless router you are using, OS version, etc. WPA works better or worse depending on your router, OS version and Airport card version (assuming it isn't built-in.) Since your problem appears to be WPA-related, try a specific Google search combining WPA with your router name in the search field and see what comes up. If you are having this problem so are other folks...

2. Start from scratch on the MacBook and reenter everything. This has worked for me in the past...

3. If you cannot get WPA to work, consider using a VPN service, where you get online via an encrypted VPN connection using a commercial server set-up to provide the service. (VPN is essential if you tend to use public wireless and wired Internet connections, since such "hotspots" are almost always unencrypted and your data can be intercepted by someone monitoring the network.) Since you are in England and I am in the U.S. my options may not work for you, but here they are:

Personal VPN (http://www.witopia.net/) My current favorite. Inexpensive, the most secure VPN type, excellent speed in the U.S. It takes a day or so to get the VPN certificate back from Witopia.

Public VPN (http://publicvpn.com/) Immediate set-up using the Mac's built-in VPN client software. More expensive, not the most secure VPN connection but probably more secure than WPA anyway.

Both services come with detailed instructions for the relatively easy set-up and customer service is good at both companies. A VPN connection will slow down your Internet access. Another plus when using VPN: your ISP cannot keep a record of where you go on the Internet nor read your data (since it is encrypted when it passes through its server) and the VPN server uses a bank of IP addresses that cannot be traced back to your computer.

[analogika]

For some reason, in some Airport networks, DHCP no longer seems to work (I believe it's since the 10.4.7 update).

I'm getting the same symptoms at work, and I recently had a customer with the same symptom.

Airport menu said it was connected, but Safari refused. And in the Network pref pane, you could see that the computer had a *self*-assigned IP address (169.xxx.xxx.xxx), i.e. it didn't get it through DHCP from the router.

On his machine, after I told the machine to connect to "Other..." network and re-entered the password, it worked flawlessly - both after sleep and after a restart.

I have been less lucky on my own machine.

[ghporter]

This belongs in the Networking forum, not the iBook forum.

And sometimes it's just a good idea to restart an AirPort Base Station. In fact, when you encounter a networking problem common to more than one computer, it's a great idea to start by restarting the common part first-in this case the base station.

Moving to the right forum...