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NDBounce · Sep 18, 2008, 11:28 AM

I am having an odd issue that I have never had before. My Macbook Pro (2008 model) will not automatically connect to my Airport Extreme Base Station (I don't have any other base stations at the moment to test this against) when I wake from sleep/restart/startup. It is not a HUGE issue, just an annoyance. I always have to go under the Airport icon in the finder and tell it to conned to my AEBS.

I have gone to System Preferences to see if I can solve this, and it is listed in my preferred networks (in fact, it is the only one listed in there) and the "Ask to Join New Networks" box (which states that know Networks will be automatically joined) is checked.

I am running 10.5.4

Anyone have any ideas as to what is going on?

Thank you,

O
B unce!

arjo · Sep 18, 2008, 04:18 PM

I did some Googling and it looks like setting the location to "automatic" in the Network tab of System Preferences is a possible fix. Maybe try that? Otherwise I'm not sure... I'm a recent Mac convert and I'm still trying to learn my way around things.

ghporter · Sep 20, 2008, 08:13 AM

Welcome to one of the most irritating issues Mac users commonly run into. This is indeed the "infamous 'wake from sleep, can't connect'" issue. And as arjo says, changing your location setting often fixes it right away. If you have a custom location, delete it and run under "Automatic" for a while; that should fix it. If you're using Automatic already, create a custom location and use that. Otherwise, search here in the Networking forum for "can't connect" and you'll find a LOT of threads and plenty of tips (most of which fix one or another of the many possible causes) that can help you get around this pain in the patootie.

Veltliner · Sep 21, 2008, 08:36 PM

After waking up my computer I also get a "you're not connected to the internet" message, but only as long as it takes for my Mac to log into my wireless network, which can be anywhere from 2 to 6 seconds.

So, when you wake up your Mac and click at a saved address on the bookmark bar, it may take an additional 2 seconds to respond.

Wait 6 to 10 seconds, and see if anything's happening.

dimmer · Sep 22, 2008, 02:08 AM

While asleep, your Mac turns off the AirPort radio: so when you unsleep (desleep? - help me out here!) the radio has to come up, connect to the base station, get an IP address via DHCP, and name servers. Any existing connection is broken and has to be re-established.

Not an Apple problem: a Wi-Fi "issue" that there is no easy way to fix, outside of leaving the radio on and draining battery doing nothing.

Veltliner · Sep 22, 2008, 03:30 AM

I know it's normal behavior. I wasn't mentioning as a problem.

I was mentioning to the OP just in case he expected instant connection and then, impatiently, hit the connect button.

NDBounce · Sep 22, 2008, 07:18 PM

I understand the "normal" behavior could take six to 10 seconds, etc. I am saying it does not reconnect to the base station at all (not it takes too long to connect) unless I manually select it from the drop down list. But I did change the location, and this seemed to fix the problem, at least for now.

dimmer · Sep 23, 2008, 03:20 AM

So, what -should- happen is that when you first try to do something on your AirPort network the connection gets re-established (in the 2 to 10 second period): if you can only get the connection to work by manual selection something else is indeed wrong. Might be worth removing the network from your preferred list and adding it again. Can't hurt, might help.