AirPort - Preferred Network Order

I have a MacBook Pro running Leopard (10.5.2). Here's the situation:
I'm a university student, and I connect to one of several wireless networks, depending on where I am. Usually, Leopard connects to the proper network because there's only one available. However, when I am on campus there are two separate wireless networks. When I am in class, I connect to one (we'll call this network "class"), and when I am at work, I connect to the other (we'll call this one "work"). The "class" network SSID is broadcast, but the "work" network SSID is not. Neither network requires a password to join.
I have set my network preferences as follows: "Ask to join new networks" is checked in the Network Preferences pane when I click on "AirPort". When I click the "Advanced" button, I have the "work" network at the top of the list of preferred networks. "Remember any network this computer has joined" is checked, but "Disconnect from wireless networks when logging out" and "Require Administrator password to control AirPort" are not.
The "work" network is faster, so I want to connect to it whenever possible. However, it has a limited range compared to the "class" network, so most of the time I connect to the "class" network.
I have placed the "work" network at the top of the "Preferred Networks" list, but the problem is that after a couple of days it drops all the way to the bottom of the list. It appears to me like Leopard is re-ordering the preferred networks based on usage, which is totally not what I want. Is there a way to force Leopard to leave my preferred networks list alone?
Message was edited by: sworisbreathing
Message was edited by: sworisbreathing

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Airport preferred networks no longer auto-connect

So I am wondering if there are other OSX users that are running into a similar problem I am finding.
I travel a lot and there are a few hotel hotspots that get added to my list of preferred networks.
But as the list grows, even by one, I no longer auto connect to my home network and now my work network.
I know how to clear up the problem but it is annoying that it happens in the first place.
I like to get a show of hands of others that run in to the problem.
cheers,
Noah

So I am not the only one.
I've noticed that if I connect my Macbook Pro to my home Network using Airport and then decide to move the computer close to the 4 port router and hook up via Ethernet (the need for speed), the next time I use wireless I have a **** of a time trying to get it to connect wirelessly. On one occasion I spent an hour trying to get it to connect and when if finally did I couldn't see that I did anything different. It was like the MBP was going "Yeah OK buddy, I'll connect when I am good and ready". Damit, the MBP nearly became a frisbie.
Chris

Preferred network order failing

Hi
I'm having an issue with connecting in the order of a preferred network. I've set my network preferences to the order I want my mini to connect, yet everytime I reboot the machine, my #1 network is skipped and the mini connects to the 2nd and sometimes 3rd preference.
Reason there are 3 networks is the #2 & 3 are the main internet access (2.4 & 5Ghz) but the #1 preference is a second router which is configured to connect the mini to an ipad in a mobile / remote environment for work purposes. When I try to do some work at home, the mini always connects straight to the internet router bypassing its local (for want of a better word) chosen router.
Hoping someone might have a solution.

wjosten wrote:
Question, do you ever use the campus network?
...If more than one previously used network is in range, iPhone joins the one last used.
And that's the crux of the issue. It sounds like myself and the OP have a small range network that we want to be the preferred network, however when we leave the range of that network we still want to be able to use the larger range network.
Clearly the OS itself hasn't been programmed with the 'Network Preference' functionality built in, so I was wondering if anyone was aware of an app that could essentially hijack the WiFi functionality and provide this service?

Closing lid/rebooting loses Airport preferred network

I'm having trouble getting Airport to hold its default network (i.e. which one to join) between powerups/sleeps etc.
There are a few visible wireless routers in my area, but my one has a hidden SSID. Joining my network manually is no problem - I just select 'Other' from the drop-down Airport menu on my menu bar, enter the name and password of my wireless network and I'm on - no problem.
Soon as I power down or close the lid for a second - then re-open - it won't rejoin that network. I just want it to select it and be on by default all the time. Each time I have to manually reconnect. What am I doing wrong?
Adrian

I am pasting a solution from "Centurion" that was in another thread that solved the same challenge for me; I hope it helps for you too.
I came upon this earlier:
So I reinstalled OS X.4.5 and it fixed the problem BUT I then applied the patch to X.4.6 and the problem came right back.. So, what is the deal, I'll tell you. For some reason, after installing X.4.6 OSX corrupts your saved WPA/WEP password in a cache. So when you initially connect it doesn't work, but after you turn it off, then on again, it fetches the uncorrupt password from the keychain and it works. Want proof? Ok, do this:
- Go to System Preferences
- Click Network
- Highlight AirPort and click Configure
- Choose "By default, join: Preferred networks"
- Select your access point and click edit
- Click on "show password"
At this point you should see a crazy corrupt password.. Proof that it is jacked up. Now:
- Exit that window back to the access point list
- Remove your access point with the "-" button
- Launch your keychain and delete your access point keychain entry.
- Reboot
- Go back to the "By default, join:" page and click the "+" this time to add your access point. Enter the correct password, save, reboot, BAM, FIXED!

Leopard airport issues - Preferred Networks

I am having an Airport / Preferred Networks issue with new Macbook (Dec 07) currently running 10.5.1.
I have a Netgear wireless router that uses WPA for my local network. It has worked fine for around 8 months with Powerbooks & ibooks running Tiger, various PC's and an iphone.
My macbook however will not remember the preferred networks I set up. Everytime I wake it from sleep it says 'none of your preferred networks are available' and then asks if I want to join my local network. The password is remembered correctly and it attempts to join. Roughly 70% of the time it will then give a Connection Timeout error two or three times before connecting.
I have tried the following:
-Deleting the network location in System preferences.
-Deleted Airport Keychain entries and restarted laptop.
-Reset network location using System preferences, restarting laptop again.
-Created a new user account and still found the same issue.
Does anyone have any other suggestions or is it a matter of waiting for 10.5.2?
Thanks, Graham

The issues appear to be due to improper settings of routers and/or networking issues, which appear to be more prevalent on third party routers though can also affect Apple routers if their firmware isn't up to date. It is not an operating system specific issue, even though it can often appear to show up when upgrading. The reason for this is numerous routers haven't followed specs that are industry wide.
I suggest looking over these tips*:
http://www.macmaps.com/WIFI1048.html
As well as making sure when you upgrade to follow these tips:
http://www.macmaps.com/upgradefaq.html
to avoid the most frequently encountered problems.
- * Links to my pages may give me compensation
Message was edited by: a brody

Preferred Networks: default ... ?

Perhaps a naive question. (?)
.. With AirPort On, and with "default" showing in my main menu bar drop-down menu - along with other networks found, does default in fact mean that I'm accessing my own Router and ISP Address. ?
Related to this question, ...
In "Network" > (Advanced) > "AirPort" Preferred Networks, ...
— With "Remember network this computer has joined" selected, and with my having checked a few others [in fact] (momentarily.), I currently have those others "minused" out, with only "default" showing (and working).

Hmn. Not much responses to the question of mine, above.
Perhaps not made clear.
Here it is again. .. With these elements, illustrated here just below in place, .. "What does the term default in fact specify, exactly. ?"
.. Of note important, I have neither, any type of additional "AirPort" junction box, i.e. "Extreme Base Station", or "Time Capsule"—but only the main card that's installed - in machine. This, nor, any additional devices that I'm working to clue into, apart from my mouse and keyboard, otherwise.
Any help. ?

Setting up preferred network

I have a home network via ATT uverse and I can't seem to set up my laptop to use it as the preferred network. I have to manually find my network every time I log on or come back after it has been sitting idle.

System Preferences/Network- Unlock padlock.
Highlight Airport.
Network Name-select your name.
Click on the Advanced button.
Airport/Preferred Networks-delete all that is not your network.
Place a check mark next to "Remember networks this computer has joined."
Click the OK button and lock the padlock.
Restart your computer.

Airport Time Capsule: None of your preferred networks are available

Just got the brand new MBA and an AirPort Time Capsule and set-up went fine, except that whenever my MBA goes to sleep and I open it back up, I've lost my wireless connection and get the message "None of your preferred networks are available." My network is among those available in the list, and it remembers my password, but I must select it every single time. Why won't it remember my preferences and automatically find my network. I shelled out $300 for this Time Capsule because it was supposed to be "lightening fast". My $45 Vizio router had me connected all the time - much faster, wouldn't you agree?

Make sure the box next to Remember networks this computer has joined is checked.
No other boxes should be checked.
Click OK, then click Apply.
It is easy to miss "Apply", and if you do, the settings will not "stick" on the Mac.
Restart the Mac.
Hopefully, your new Time Capsule network name does not use the same name of a previous network. That will really confuse things. If that is the case, use a new wireless network name and a new password for the Time Capsule.

Airport doesn't automatically connect to my preferred network

I had my hard drive replaced and ever since my airport doesn't automatically connect to my wifi network. I have specified my network as my preferred network in my system preferences.
I need to re-connect to the network manually (ie: I need to select my network form the drop down list) each time I wake my computer up from sleep mode.
How do I have my airport automatically connect??

Go to System Preferences then select the Network icon.
Select the airport adaptor then click advanced
the first tab "Airport" has all your recent SSID's listed.
Select the desired network and drag it to the top of the list and check the " Remember Networks this computers has joined."
Apart from that the next best thing would be to removed all the networks from the list and add that network you wish to join to verify its configuration

Preferred Wifi Network Order

Is there any way to order known wifi networks, so that the iPhone will connect to a specific network when it is available, regardless of what other networks are visible?
I have a wireless router set up in my office. My office network is faster and more reliable than the campus network. However, the SSID of the campus network is broadcast in a much larger radius. This results in the following situation: In my office, I connect to my office network. As I leave the campus, my iPhone loses the signal for my office network and automatically connects to the campus network. When I return the next day, my iPhone automatically connects to the campus network, the last known network to which it was connected. However, as I approach my office, the iPhone will not automatically connect to my office network, since it is already connected to the campus network. Consequently, in order to get the better connection, I have to manually connect to my office network whenever I return.
I would like to configure my iPhone to automatically connect to my office network when available, despite the fact that it may already be connected to the campus network. Is this possible, or must I manually set the network every time I return to my office?

wjosten wrote:
Question, do you ever use the campus network?
...If more than one previously used network is in range, iPhone joins the one last used.
And that's the crux of the issue. It sounds like myself and the OP have a small range network that we want to be the preferred network, however when we leave the range of that network we still want to be able to use the larger range network.
Clearly the OS itself hasn't been programmed with the 'Network Preference' functionality built in, so I was wondering if anyone was aware of an app that could essentially hijack the WiFi functionality and provide this service?

"Preferred Network" option missing from Airport tab

My computer was just joining networks, so I switched my MPB to "By Default, Join: A specific network". Now I find that I've got to tell my computer to join the wireless network at work. Since I'd like my computer to join both my home networks without interaction from me I read the help file to figure out how to do it. The help file said to choose "Preferred Networks" from the "By Default, Join:" popup menu, but the popup menu on my computer only had one choice, "A specific network".
Anyone know what might have happened to the other options in that popup menu?
Thanks,
Chris

Replying to my own post, bad form...
I don't know why "Preferred Networks" was missing from my "By Default, Join:" menu, but I discovered that I could get the option back by creating a new location and migrating my old settings to the new location.
Chris

802.11: "Preferred networks" vs. "A specific network"

I've got a new MacBook Pro and it appears that -- at least in my opinion -- has eliminiated one of the key advantages OS X networking has over Win XP.
With my G4 PowerBook, I can create a one-to-one relationship between locations and network access points. For me this is critical, as my work location has multiple access points -- some on our corporate network and some open to the internet. For the corporate nets, I have a static IP address and need various proxy configurations to be stored, whereas for the public nets, its DHCP and no proxy info needs to be stored.
On the MacBook Pro, it appears to me that I can't force network settings to access one and only one access point per location setting. Worse, I can't even change the prioirties of access per location.
This causes unpredictable behavior when my truly preferred access point is momentarily out of range. It appears that the MBP is grabbing another access point automatically. When this happens, my network settings are incorrect, and my connection is broken.
Am I missing something obvious? 'Cause this is the exact problem I've had with XP for years -- and something that has always been a ton better on Mac.
17 in MacBook Pro Mac OS X (10.4.6)
various Mac OS X (10.4.6)

Thanks for the suggestion, but the behavior described in the article is the actually the issue. Here's the problem: in my work environment, there are three VLANs with three APs, all three are always visible from my desk. According to what I'm doing, I need to shift between them a couple time per day.
Physical Location: Work
Access Points Available:
- "Internet" (closed SSID, DHCP, no proxies)
- "Corporate" (closed SSID, DHCP, proxies)
- "Development" (closed SSID, static IP, no proxies)
Location "Outside Network"
- Preferred Airport: "Intenet"
- DHCP
- no proxies
Location "Inside Network"
- Preferred Airport: "Corporate"
- DHCP
- appropriate proxy settings
Location "Development Network"
- Preferred Airport: "Development"
- static IP
- no proxies
So the "Preferred network" option would work (though less than optimum) if I could change the order based on location. It would be optimum (and better than the 10.6.4 PowerPC version) if I could change the order and add/delete netwoks according to location. Unfortunately, there seems to be only one preferred network list that is global for all locations. And that causes the unpredictability that I tried to describe.

How do I stop the None of your preferred networks are available dialogue?

I'm using my macBook in 2 places - one where I connect to the internet with an ethernet cable and one where I use a wireless network. It works fine, except that when I start up with the ethernet cable, I get a message from airport saying "None of your preferred networks are available".
I'd like to get rid of that message. Preferably entirely, but at least when I'm already connected via Ethernet (I've already tried putting Ethernet above Airport in the preferred order list which didn't help)

Eight wrote:
I am having this problem "None of your preferred networks are available" when only one network is available, ie. my own.
Still the computer will not join to it automatically whether the box is ticked or not.
I STILL HAVE TO MANUALLY CHOOSE! I just want it to connect automatically after I wake up!
Can anybody help.
I too have been frustrated by this for a month now. Tonight I finally got frustrated enough to find a workaround. Go to network preferences, click on the airport item, then on the advanced button. Under the wireless settings, add a second instance of your network to the 'preferred networks' list. I now have two entries with the exact same network name and password as the first and second 'preferred networks' and my laptop now wakes up connected to my network!
By the way...one possible outcome when you finally hit the 'Apply' button is that your entire machine will freeze and your only recourse is to restart. This is possibly the most annoying OS X upgrade in the last 5 years.

Airport Express Network blocks Mail server access

Running 10.3.9. Mail version 1.3.11.
Hello
With my current network setup Mail is unable to download/send messages with my POP e-mail server. If I plug my laptop directly into the network cable (coming from our Linksys router), Mail can access the server.
My network setup is a Linksys 4-port router, wired to an Airport Express, that relays signals to 2 other Airport Express'. All other internet access/sharing works fine.
What Airport settings can I look at to fix the problem?
Thanks
Matt

Try the following on your Mac mini, in order, until (hopefully) resolved:
1a. Delete Preferred Network(s)
System Preferences > Network > AirPort > Advanced > AirPort tab
Under "Preferred Networks," delete the network(s) you regularly use from the list.
1b. Delete AirPort Keychain Entries
Launch the "Keychain Access" application located in Applications/Utilties.
Click on the "Kind" filter at the top, and look for any "AirPort network password" entries...and delete them.
1c. Add Preferred Network(s)
System Preferences > Network > AirPort > Advanced > AirPort tab
Add the preferred network(s) using the "+" button.
Restart or log out then back in.
2. Move System Configuration Files
(Note: You will have to reestablish your network connections settings.)
Go to /Library/Preferences
Move the SystemConfiguration folder to the desktop.
Restart your Mac. (Note: OS X will rebuild the files that are now sitting on your desktop. If this doesn't resolve the issue, you can move the folder back to it's original location.)

My Macbook doesn't find my AirPort wireless network anymore

I have a strange problem with my Macbook and/or AirPort Express. This combination has worked fine until now, but yesterday the Macbook suddenly couldn't find the network anymore. This happened while I was surfing. I haven't installed any programs recently or changed any settings.
When I click on the AirPort-icon it lists all my neighbours networks, but not mine. I have no problems connecting to other networks, I have successfully tried this both at work and some of my neighbours networks.
My old Dell Windows PC however have no problems finding and connecting to my network! I'm using it right now. So it's just the combination Macbook and AirPort Express that's problematic.
Things I have tried unsuccessfully:
- Restarting the Macbook, my cable modem and the AirPort Express (numerous times and in different orders)
- "Join Other Network" and entered the name of the network and password manually. This only results in an "Connection timeout"-error message.
- Deleted the network name from "Preferred Networks". This made the Macbook actually list my network for a few seconds every time I restart or turn AirPort off and on again. It disappears again very quickly and I can't connect to it.
- Changing security, I have tried open, WEP and WPA.
- Factory reset of the AirPort Express and creating a new wireless network with a new name. I had to do this on the Windows PC because the Macbook didn't find it. I was even able to connect to this network with the Macbook for a little while. It wasn't listed in the network list, but I could connect via Join Other Network. Unfortunately it only lasted until the Macbook went to sleep. Since then I haven't been able to connect to the network and I can only see it for a few seconds every time I restart. The Dell Windows PC has no problems with this network.
I have no idea what the problem is or whether the problem is the Macbook or the AirPort Express since they both work fine separately.
Any ideas for things I haven't tried?
Message was edited by: Solvi

I'm having the same problems recently. Bought my white MacBook in Jan. '09, worked great for several months; now it won't stay on the Internet for more than five minutes at a time unless I'm right next to the router. The Airport icon, when selected, shows my network but for some reason it has been deselected. My husband's Dell has no problem at all, even if he's out on the back porch, so it's not a signal issue.
I've updated the software to the latest Airport but that seems to have made it worse. I've tried nearly all the things Solvi did to no avail. Has there been an answer yet from Apple on this?
(Had to re-select network to sent this short post!!)

AirPort - Preferred Network Order

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