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Emma · Apr 14, 2007, 12:41 PM

Hi there

I am French in London for an internship. I took a flat to share with an other girl. My father advised me to take a Mac for my specific utilisation (internet, music, movies...) and Macs are so cool exept for internet in my case. It doesn't work at all. The network of my landlord is hidden. So, I go in "other", I type manually the network name and the WEP password... Always the same message : There was an error joining the Airport network "NameOfTheNetwork". I tried several times with always the unlucky result.
My landlord said that there wasn't this kind of problem with her other flatmates before me...
I am pratically sure that the problem doesn't comme from my Mac because I reached to join an unprotected other network which appear sometimes (but the signal is not enought strong).
Is there an incompatibility between my Mac and the setup Network? And what do I have to to do to fix it?
I visited a lot of forums but :
1-I didn't find any topics on my specific problem
2-There explanations (when the topic is closed to my issue) are not clear and seem not to correspond to my issue.

Is there someone who can help me please? I really need internet!!!!!

Emma

SWFan · Apr 14, 2007, 10:56 PM

Is this landlord using an actual Apple Airport base station or some other brand of networking gear?

Assuming he's providing something other than Apple networking hardware, are you entering the hexadecimal WEP code, or the textual WEP password? When connecting a Mac to a non-Apple network the WEP password always has to be entered as a hexadecimal code.

So if the network password were say login123 the hex equivalent might look like HXQ38923D22FG8299052

Emma · Apr 15, 2007, 07:31 AM

I was sure that there was a simple explanation to this comon problem...

TODAY, THERE IS AN INCOMPATIBILITY BETWEEN THE MACBOOK AIRPORT CARD AND SOME BOX-ROUTERS!!! IT IS INEVITABLE!
And if you want your Airport connexion to work, you have to buy another router or use the ethernet connexion!

As far as Am concerned, my landlord will not allow me to connect via ethernet and don't want to change her router, so Am in trouble!

ghporter · Apr 15, 2007, 10:29 AM

The "error" can be from a lot of potential causes. One is the wrong password or key for the security your landlord is using. Apple chose to use somewhat different terminology for a lot of things that every other wireless manufacturer or vendor uses the same terminology for. For WEP security, Apple also chose to "make things easy for the user" but ignore the fact that users may not have all Apple equipment, so the way an AirPort card handles WEP keys is different from any other vendor's equipment; an AirPort card assumes that any WEP "password" is plain text, and the card converts that text to hexadecimal internally.

SWFan seems to have provided some misinformation. Hexadecimal characters are only the digits 0-9 and a-f, so 'H,' 'X,' and 'Q' would not be included. The example provided is also pretty long; the longest standard hex key for WEP would be 13 characters, not 20 or 21.

If the landlord gave you a hexadecimal key (which would include ONLY digits 0-9 and letters from a-f or A-F), then you need to tell your AirPort card that it's hexadecimal by starting the entry with a dollar sign ($). There is also a checkbox or button (I forget which) to explicitly tell the card that the entry is in hex. Of course if the landlord gave you some different kind of key, then we'll need to know what kind of key she's using.

Give that a try and tell us how it worked.

Emma · Apr 18, 2007, 03:53 AM

Thank you very much ghporter. Am gonna try that this evening
Emma

Emma · Apr 20, 2007, 12:26 PM

I tried to put a & at the beginning of the entry, the problem is always the same.
Another thing... I installed Windows XP with Bootcamp and my connection work on Windows XP. I am completely lost. Of course I don't want to use Windows XP, so my problem is the same but with a new information.

olePigeon · Apr 20, 2007, 01:13 PM

Originally Posted by Emma

I tried to put a & at the beginning of the entry, the problem is always the same.

Not an ampersand (&

, but a dollar sign ($).

Originally Posted by Emma

Another thing... I installed Windows XP with Bootcamp and my connection work on Windows XP. I am completely lost. Of course I don't want to use Windows XP, so my problem is the same but with a new information.

40-bt Hex has 10 characters, not 13, and not 20 or 21. 128-bit hex has 26 characters. Your WEP password (assuming it's 40-bit Hex) should look something like this:

$4E715F8260

Yours will be different, of course, but that should be a dollar sign $ followed by 10 hexidecimal characters (0-9, A-F). Try it both with and without the $.

Emma · Apr 21, 2007, 07:21 AM

Ohhhhhhhhhhhh Thank you, Am so stupid.
I'll try this evening.

Emma · Apr 26, 2007, 10:42 AM

It doesn't work! I am so desespered

persillie · Apr 30, 2007, 08:26 AM

Hi

I have a similar problem. I am having a MacBookPro since Dezember 06. I can connect to my WLan (Netgear DG834G Router, WEP encryption) when no one else is connected. But whenever my partner already was connected i got the same error as you did. I managed to work around this problem by using DHCP with manual adress for the TCP/IP connection for the airport. You can at least try this.

Now my partner switched also to a MacBookPro and we both can connect to the WLAN if no one else is connected. Using DHCP with manual adress did not work so far. I also tried another encryption (WPA-PSK) but that didn't help either. Any ideas?

persillie · May 2, 2007, 04:19 PM

I solved my issue - with an update of the routers firmware! May you can ask your landlord to update the firmware of your router?

drkrueger · May 28, 2007, 11:59 AM

Ha, I've got the same problem too! Was working fine in the hotel, took to another wifi, connected no problem, but back at the hotel, ng. No problem connecting to any of 4 other networks. So far only with this hotel. Have no bars on the airport icon. I can connect w/o a problem using PC laptop. Looking at the MacWireless.com Dashboard widget, signal seems consistent and strong.

I called AppleCare to no avail and then went to genius bar at local Apple shop. Blank stares returned, told me I was out of luck. I conclude this not hardware or setup issues but software. Given the many incidents on the web, does Apple have no response? This is bizarre at the best and intolerable at worst.

I've just switched from PC so a pure novice right now ... I was hoping to remain so, but there appears to be no panacea.

To whom can I appeal to for help? <B>HELP!!!</B>

Doug