My iMac often wants to connect to the wrong network

I live in a retirement community that has wi-fi. Their system doesn't allow devices to see each other, so I paid for regular cable Internet access and plugged in my wireless router. It's in the room with my wife's iPad and allows us to connect with our wireless printer as well as each other.
The trouble is, a couple of times per week I discover my iMac trying to connect to the other Wi-Fi (there's a logon screen to connect). I have my own network at the top of my Preferred networks. My wife's Mac doesn't seem to have this problem, it stays with the wireless router network.

Did you click OK after making sure your network is at the top of the list?
Open System Preferences > Network > Advanced > Wi-fi and drag your Wi-Fi network name to the top of the Preferred Networks list then click OK.

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I can't print wirelessly from my iMac although it is connected to the same network as the printer and I can print fine from my iPad to the same network

I have downloaded and installed the driver from the HP website for the HP Envy 5530. While I can send documents from my iMac to the printer using a USB cable, it will not print wirelessly. When I tried to install the wireless connection, I got the dialogue box saying "Devise not reachable" and it suggested I check whether the iMac is connected to the wireless network (it is and the signal strength is excellent, Safari runs well) and that I check the printer is connected to the same network (it is). I am able to print items from my iPad wirelessly using the network so I don't understand why the iMac won't recognise the printer wirelessly when everything else works fine.

From the Safari menu bar, select
          Safari ▹ Preferences... ▹ Advanced
and check the box marked
          Include Bonjour in the Bookmarks menu
if it's not already checked. Then select
          Bookmarks ▹ Bonjour ▹ Name of printer
A web page served by the printer should open. Does it?

How do I prevent automatic connection to the wrong network

My computer, instead of connecting to my airport station and network, often connects to my neighbor's unprotected wireless network. This often happens when it cannot login or find my network right away.
Is there a way that I can instruct my computer to always ignore my neighbor's network?

Hi,
Did you remove your neighbours network from the preferred list? You may also want to amend the options in that Airport tab to stop it from automatically adding new networks as preferred.

My iMac won't stay connected to the internet, even though all other computers in my house stay connected

My iMac won't stay connected to the internet, even though all other computers in my house stay connected, and its connection is set up the same way my fiance's macbook is (his macbook is about three years older than my iMac). Every time my computer goes into sleep mode and I come back (even if it's mere seconds after giving the black screen) I have no internet connection. I discovered a workaround for it some time ago, but now that is working less and less, and now my computer randomly disconnects WHILE I'm actively using the internet. Just a few minutes ago, the connection refused to come back until I restarted my computer, even though once again all other computers in the house were connected. The workaround I discovered before and which doesn't work as reliably now, is to click opne Airport at the top right of the screen, click "Open Network Preferences," then click "Assist me," then click "Diagnostics," and wait for everything to turn green again, signalling a connection.

Let's check the quality of your connection since signal strength alone does not insure a good connection. The "bars" that you see at the top of the iMac screen are there pretty much for show.
Hold down the option key on the iMac while you click on the Apple icon at the upper left corner of your screen and select System Profiler
Look down the list of items at the left of the window until you find the setting for Network, then click on AirPort.
In the window to the right, look for any listings of your wireless network name. You may possibly see two listings for the wireless network name.
We need for you to list the information that you see for Signal / Noise. These will be negative numbers. Post back with your findings and we will continue.
In the meantime, please move any cordless phones that you have or any other electronic devices that are near the iMac as far away as possible from the iMac.
If the iMac is located in a corner or an enclosed area, give it as much room as possible since the wireless antenna is on the back of the iMac and it needs to be able to "see" the room.
Anything that you can do to minimize the number of obstructions like walls or furniture etc between the iMac and the wireless router will help the cause as well.

Reader X wants to connect to the internet

Although I have choosen to update only manually, the Reader X always wants to connect to the internet. How may I stop him to do this?

OK, any illuminating messages in the logs?
/Applications/Utilities/Console.app
console.log
system.log
Mac OS X (10.4.4)

TS1398 my friend had her laptop at my house and wanted to connect to my wireless network. I could not remember my pass word/ Id so she couldn't go online. How do I find out what it is so that others may connect to the internet when at my home. Thanks.

My friend had her laptop at my house and wanted to connect to my wireless network... I couldn't remember my password and didn't know how to retrieve the info from my ipad.. How can I find ut what the PW is to my wireless network? Thanks

Your password is something you created and is configured in your router. Your router may have the facility to reveal a password but you will have to find that out for your router.
Alternatively, you can reset your router back to factory default which will remove your security settings so you can reconfigure them. This is usually a small button you press on the back of the router. Maybe recessed in a small hole so you need to use a toothpick to depress it.

Does the imac need airport to connect to the internet??? Or can it just connect via any router?? thanks

Does the imac need airport to connect to the interent of can I just connect it via any router?????

you should be able to use any router.

Airport doesen't want to connect to the wireless connection

Hello,
I have a MacBook Pro and the airport doesen't want to get connected to the wireless network. I put the password and after 5 seconds it displays an error message"an error has occured while connecting to the airport network".
I don't know what to do and i need it to connect to the printer! Can someone help me?
Thank you

Hello sicarius21. Welcome to the Apple Discussions!
Please provide more details on both the network configuration you're attempting to connect to, whether or not it is using wireless encryption (WEP or WPA), the make/model of the modem, router, & printer, and what you have already tried to solve it.

My iMac doesnt want to read/run the Mac OS X Install DVD, what can I do?

My iMac doesnt want to read/run the Mac OS X Install DVD, what can I do? What I want to do is format my mac, so I need to run de DVD Installer when the Mac start up holding C buttom. Is there any other way to do it?

You must be using the original grey OS X discs that shipped with the machine or a retail OS X installation disc.
If you are attempting to use a grey OS X disc that did not ship with your iMac, it will not work since they are machine-specific.
Other than those reasons, it is possible the disc is dirty or scratched, or your optical drive has simply failed. In the latter event you need to replace it or use an external optical disc drive, or boot your iMac in FireWire Target Disk Mode and use another Mac to read the disc.

Cannot connect to the secure network but can to the guest network

I have three computers in my home, all Apple. One is an iMac with 10.5 installed, another is a powerbook g4 17" with 10.5 installed and the third is an old titanium powerbook g4 15" with 10.4 installed. All of them have the newest versions of software.
I just bought a new time capsule and that has the newest firmware upgrade installed. I set the time capsule up with a secure WPA Personal network and a guest network with no password. I can connect to the secure network on the iMac and the 17" powerbook but the titanium powerbook cannot even see the secure network or connect to it if I enter it and put in the correct password. However the titanium powerbook can see and connect to the guest network.
Please help, I need to be able to print from the titanium powerbook to an ethernet printer connected to the time capsule.
I've tried adding a wireless client with no password in airport utility thinking I could connect the titanium powerbook that way and that does not work either.

Actually I have figured it out. I guess the titanium powerbooks cannot do WPA encryption, only WEP but I cannot choose WEP in the airport utility nor do I want to. I did find a work around though.
In airport utility I went to the base station menu and clicked on "equivalent network password" and it shows the WPA password and then something called "WPA Pre-Shared Key". The key is a 64 character password but I tried it on the titanium powerbook and it worked!

My Apple Tv is connecting to the Wifi network but is not connect to the internet. So when I look for it on my Airplay it doesn't come up. I have 3 other ones already working on the network and they are all fine.

My apple TV is finding and connecting to the Wifi network but then says it is not connected to the internet and then I cannot find it on the iPad through airplay. I don't want it connected to the internet (as in www.) because for the use I have I only need to use the Apple tvs locally in a sports hall as scoreboards. I have 3 others working on the same router and they are working fine (as of yesterday)
On my screen I see (obviously not written like this)
network connect- yes
signal strength- fine
Ip address- fine
DCN- fine
Activation- Failed
This is the only negative I can find and the statement that the Apple TV has connected to the wifi but is not connected to the internet.
Where has it gone wrong for me. Please help

It is not properly connected to the network.
Make sure location is set correctly
DNS should be on auto (settings - general - network)
Try ethernet
Signal strength on device won't account for issues, you would need a network report from istumbler, netstumbler or similar. This will show accurate signal strength along with noise and nearby networks

How do I get my Macbook Pro to automatically select the location when connecting to the wireless network?

Each time when I want to connect to a different network I have to manually select the location and it's becoming very annoying. How do I get it to automatically select the location?

Check the following settings on your MacBook
Open System Preferences (gear icon on the dock)
Open Network
Click on AirPort on the left
Click Advanced at the lower right
If you have a "favorite" network, make sure it is first in the connection list. If it's not, drag it there
Make sure that there is a check mark next to "Remember networks this computer has joined"
No other boxes should be checked
Click OK, then click Apply

Cannot connect to the wireless networking

My Toshiba Laptop was preinstalled with Windows 7 Home premium 64-bit OS, and it had been working quite well with the wireless BB. However, the wireless internet connection was on and off within recent weeks, while the other mobile devices, such as iphone, ipad, or laptop, in my household had no such problem. The wireless signal was so strong, but the error message always said 'Windows cannot connect to the wireless networking'. It seemed there was something wrong with the wireless adapter.
I got a new TP-Link wireless adapter properly installed. Luckily, this worked; but unluckily, this worked for less than 24 hours. It was really frustrating that I, as a full-time student, depended so much on wireless networking.
Please help!!! Harry

Hi there
You may want to enlighten us with:
- What model are You using (f.ex. L300-123)
- What BIOS version is installed?
- What WLAN driver are You using?
All these questions are answered in PC Diagnostics found under Toshiba app folder in the start menu.
BR
Tom

My S4 is unable to connect to the cellular network after the 4.4.2 update failed to install this afternoon.

I attempted to install the OTA update for 4.4.2, but received an error message that the installation failed. When my phone rebooted it was unable to connect to the cell network and was extremely sluggish. I own an iMac and the S4 is no longer recognized by Kies or Android File Transfer.
I attempted turning off the phone and removing the battery and Sim, to no avail. I also attempted to access the recovery tools, but the phone will no longer boot to recovery. I tried a factory reset, but I do no recall ever setting the security PIN it seems to require.

Hello Vidar403
I'm so sorry your having data connection issues. I would like to check the account and see if this is network related. Please accept my follow request and send us a private message.
JoeL_VZW
Follow us on Twitter @VZWSupport

When I connect my ipad to a wifi network, the iphone connects to the same network

When I connect my iOS 8 iPad 4 to the guest network at work, my iOS 8 iPhone 5s automatically connects to the same network. When I disconnect the iPhone so I can send an email from my iCloud account (which is blocked on the work network) and tell it to forget the network, it disconnects my iPad too. Each time I tell the iPhone to forget the network, when I reconnect my iPad, the iPhone connects again.
How do I tell my iPhone to never connect to the work guest network while allowing my iPad to connect?
I do not like this feature in iOS 8.

Unfortunately, this does not help me, there are no issues with the operation of the WiFi, it is operating normally on both devices.
The issue is that in iOS 8, the WiFi network information is shared across linked devices. Therefore, if I add a network to one device, it is added to the other device and if I forget a network on one device, it is forgotten on the other.
I want to use a network on one device (the iPad) and to not use the network on the other (iPhone). How do I tell the iPhone to not connect to the WiFi without disabling WiFi while allowing the iPad to connect to the network? It is annoying to have to disable the iPhone WiFi manually each day when I get to work and it is prone to forgetting to turn it back on when I leave.

My iMac often wants to connect to the wrong network

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