[Calenulma]

Well, the title says it all: my iMac won't find wireless network unless I join manually.

I have a wireless SMC WBR14G2-EU router and it's working fine (my wife's PC has no problems) with MAC addresses blocked, passwords and SSID disabled and everything is setup OK on my Preferred Networks.
Still, every time I start Leopard (and the same happened with Tiger) Airport just won't connect again.
If I join manually, it works fine. Just the automatic method isn't working.

A few months ago, for Tiger, the solution was to got no Network Preferences, delete the connection and create it again. Now it doesn't work like that anymore.

This doesn't seem to be related to the "wake up" issue since my computer isn't set up to it.


Any solutions?


iMac '20 Intel (iMac4,1)
2.0GHz
1.5GB Ram
running on Leopard.2
(that's Mac OS X version 10.5.2)

[ncudmore]

Et tu, Calenulma?

There is a long running saga on this issue, and dropping the connection to the Wireless network...

Apple - Support - Discussions - Excessive Airport Scanning after 10.5.2 ...

which seems to all, to be down to the 10.5.2 update.... As yet there are several things in the thread which may or may or work - mostly not work. But if your connection stays up once connected, best leave well alone, as there are plenty of users who can't stay connected.

[Cold Warrior]

Turn off encryption, rename your network, and turn ON the SSID broadcast. See if that helps.

[tridentinecanon]

Calenulma,

Here you will find a (long) thread of a similar issue that I, as well as others, have experienced.

My Leopard MBP and PBG4 would not connect to Airport automatically. The only solution for me (and others) was to do a clean install.

Out of curiosity, do you have any 3rd party software installed that is at all involved in Airport, networking, or Keychain?

Also, I HIGHLY ADVISE and PLEAD with you to call Apple on this issue, especially if you have AppleCare. They need to be made aware of this so that they fix the problem.

[Calenulma]

Thanks for your help ans sorry if this seems just like another drop on the ocean of Leopard networking issues... but in this case I don't even think it's related with Leopard. It used to happen in the latest versions of Tiger as well.
That's the reason that made me open this thread but if you guys say this should probably be a Leoaprd issue, I won't argue and I'll just trust you and seek help on those links.

Thanks!

[ghporter]

Actually, Leopard has relatively few networking issues. It's just that people expect perfection from Apple and get upset when they don't get it. I've had Leopard running on a 20" aluminum iMac and a Core Duo MBP for quite some time and haven't ever had a moment of trouble with it, networking or anything else. But so few people post to say "hey, this is the greatest thing since sliced bread" that it's easy to lose perspective when you look online.

The real issue is that OS X for several versions has had an intermittently appearing, impossible to trace to a single cause, problem with joining networks. Either you have a problem when waking from sleep, or you suddenly can't automatically join an existing network you'd joined automatically yesterday. And while I can tell you why the sleep thing happens*, I don't know why it suddenly appears or disappears.

*When the AirPort card wakes up, it doesn't have anything telling it that it's been asleep. It sees a loss of signal and logically waits for the network drop out to resolve itself. What's really happening is that the card picks up where the frequency pattern was when the computer went to sleep, and the network has moved on since then so it'll NEVER actually see the network "come back." Instead, it needs to know that it has to search again-that's why turning the card off and then back on fixes the connection.

[tridentinecanon]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

Actually, Leopard has relatively few networking issues. It's just that people expect perfection from Apple and get upset when they don't get it. I've had Leopard running on a 20" aluminum iMac and a Core Duo MBP for quite some time and haven't ever had a moment of trouble with it, networking or anything else. But so few people post to say "hey, this is the greatest thing since sliced bread" that it's easy to lose perspective when you look online.

Agreed. However, when this problem does occur, it is REALLY FRUSTRATING, especially since one would presume its easily fixed by Apple.

[Calenulma]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

Actually, Leopard has relatively few networking issues. It's just that people expect perfection from Apple and get upset when they don't get it.

Of course I don't expect perfection but this issue didn't happen in earlier Tiger versions.
It's kind of a step back and that, of course, makes users nervous.

[ghporter]

It happened in Panther. It happened in Tiger, and it happens in Leopard. It just depends... That's the worst part-if Apple knew what it was that causes it, they'd have fixed it by now.