Problems using MBP as WiFi router for iPad2 (self-assigned IP address)

H/W& S/W:
MBP 15" (model early 2011), running Snow Leopard,
iPad 2 WiFi only, 64Gb, iOS 4.3.4 (8K2).
Scenario:
I am in a location where there is no WiFi. MBP is connected via Ethernet to a DSL network, and has access to the Internet. I turn on Internet sharing, having set the following:
"Share your connection from" set to "Ethernet" and
"Share computers using Airport" ticked.
Previously, I have then connected the iPad 2 via WiFi with the WiFi network created on the MBP, and succesfully worked from the iPad on the Internet (email, browsing, app downloads, ...).
Problem:
Now, however, the iPad connects to the MBP's WiFi network, but when I attempt to access the Internet, I get such messages on the iPad as "Safari is not connected to the Internet" or "Cannot Get Mail ...".
On investigation, I see that Airport on the MBP is in a YELLOW status: Status On, with the note "Airport has the self-assigned IP address 169.X.y.z, and will not be able to connect to the Internet".
On the iPad, the WiFi network shows the IP address 169.X.a.b (with a subnet mask (255.255.0.0).
I have tried:
1. turning Airport off and on
2. renewing the DHCP lease on the MBP
2. configuring IPv4 address in the MBP manually
3. configuring the IP address manually on the iPad (not expecting anything with this, but ....)
4. fixed Permissions" on the MBP disk (suggested on another support community web site)
But none of these make any difference.
Message was edited by: WKH
forgot to mention: Firewall is disabled on the MBP.

Hello,
I've had the exact same problem on my macbook and it really **** me off ! I tried all of the solutions written in this forum and none worked for me ! I was really starting get mad especially that my macbook is quite new...
And the thing is i have no Apple Store where i live which is a pretty F***g problem so I had to wait for vacations to go to france where I took my macbook for check at the apple store...
I just came back right now and my wifi works till now a least far much better than before...The guy was really nice he checked everything and he tried all the solutions on this forum too..Finally he tried to boot from one of '' apple's '' usb that has suberb booting systems...And it worked so finally he re-installed 10.6.5 as it was '' corrupted '' with wifi bugs ! For that he needed to delete everything on my macbook ! GREAT !
After 15 minutes the installation was done and it started like when you buy a new macbook !
And VOILA the Wifi came back to normal !
Hope this helps...
If you have this problem go and see Apple Store or re-install yourself 10.6.5 !
Thanks !

Similar Messages

Unable to connect to wifi in some hotels (self-assigned IP address)

I normally have no problem connecting to wifi, but in some hotels I am unable to connect and get a self-assigned IP address 169...
Having looked around the forums, in my current hotel I have tried several fixes without success (many of these probably apply to a permanent rather than intermittant problem):
- I renewed the DHCP lease
- I tried a manual IP address
- I created a new network location
- I deleted com.apple.airport.preferences
- I turned off the firewall
- I repaired disk permissions
Has anyone else found a fix to problems with some hotel wifi systems?
I can connect with my iPhone, but not my MacBook, so I am now in an internet cafe (and I don't think that you can "tether" an iPhone connected by wifi to a MacBook?).

I have finally found a solution!
I copied the IP address that the hotel had assigned to my iPhone (in the 192.168.0.xx series) into the TCP settings for the hotel network on my Mac, and then managed to get a connection (but only by using "DHCP with manual address", rather than "Manually").
But this seems to have killed the wifi connection on my iPhone: whatever I do I now get a self-assigned IP address 169... on the iPhone (there is no "DHCP with manual address" setting), so as I am in Paris I hope the Mac connection continues to work!
The general solution seems to be to use a static IP address, but in the "DHCP with manual address", which I had not tried before.

Im Using iPhone 4. i connected to my home WiFi router for browing internet.. Sometimes its automaltically disconnected and must i off

Im Using iPhone 4. i connected to my home WiFi router for browing internet.. Sometimes its automaltically disconnected and must i off and on it again for using.. why its happening?

Look on the support pages for your WiFi router for a firmware update for the router.
It's hard to say much more without knowing the make, model, and version of your WiFi router and how you have it configured.
See also http://www.apple.com/support/iphone/wifi/

OS is Mountain Lion, upgraded no problems, used an external Hard drive for my time machine, now my iPhoto will not show any of my photo's or ay new ones I import! Help please!!

OS is Mountain Lion, upgraded no problems, used an external Hard drive for my time machine, now my iPhoto will not show any of my photo's or ay new ones I import! Help please!!

Do you get this window when you hold down the Command+Option keys and launch iPhoto?
If not then you're not holding down both keys long enough.
OT

Can I use MBP 17" ac adaptor for my MBA 13"?

Can I use MBP 17" ac adaptor for my MBA 13"? Thanks.

Yes, you can use an adapter of a higher wattage then what is delivered with the machine. Just don't use the MBA adapter on the MBP.
Here's the apple article.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2346
Regards,
Captfred

How to Turn your iPad into a WiFi router for your laptop?

how to Turn my iPad into a WiFi router for your laptop?

Chris CA wrote:
iPads have no tethering abilities either.
I know, but I still don't know what the OP was asking.

Wifi works for everyone but me - I get a "self-assigned IP address" and no Internet connection

I have the most confounding Wifi problem. I just got Verizon Fios, and it works perfectly on my roommate's laptop, his iPad, and on my iPhone. But it doesn't work on my Macbook Pro (running Lion). My Macbook has no problem connecting to other Wifi signals - in fact, there's another connection in my building that I can connect to just fine from my room.
When I try connecting to our own Verizon signal though, the Macbook hunts around for a few seconds, then connects - but says there's no Internet connection. I get an ominous exclamation mark over the Wifi icon. My computer gives me a "self-assigned IP address" and says it can't connect to the Internet.
I've tried everything I can think of: Restarting the computer, turning Wifi off and on, deleting and then re-accessing the signal, turning the firewall on and off, renewing the DHCP lease, restarting the router, switching channels on the router, and more. At this point, I'm out of ideas. Any suggestions?

Please try each of the steps that follow, in order, until resolved:
STEP 1 - Create a New User Account
System Preferences > Accounts
Click "+" to add a new account.
Log off, and then, log back on with the new user account.
Try connecting to a Wi-Fi network with your Mac's AirPort.
If this resolves the problem, there may be something amiss with your current profile and will require further troubleshooting.
If this does not resolve the problem, go ahead and log back into your normal account and go on to the next step.
STEP 2 - Preferred Networks
Delete Preferred Network(s)
System Preferences > Network > Select AirPort > Advanced > AirPort tab
Under Preferred Network, use the minus button to delete the network(s) you regularly use from the list.
Delete AirPort Keychain Entries (Note: This only applies if you connect to AirPort/Time Capsule routers)
Launch the Keychain Access application located in the \Applications\Utilities folder
Click on the "Kind" filter at the top, and look for any "AirPort network password" entries, and then, delete them.
Restart, or log out, then back in.
Add Preferred Network(s)
System Preferences > Network > Select AirPort > Advanced > AirPort tab
Under Preferred Network, click on the "+" button to add any preferred network(s).
Restart, or log out, then back in.
STEP 3 - Move System Configuration Files
Note: You will have to reestablish your network connection settings.
In Finder, go to the Macintosh HD/Library/Preferences folder.
Move (not copy) the SystemConfiguration folder to the OS X desktop.
Restart your Mac. (Note: OS X will automatically rebuild this folder and the associated files contained within.)
If this doesn't resolve the issue, you can move the folder (now on the Desktop) back to its original location.

Why does my Airport Express say "self assigned IP address"? No IP address for the ethernet, and it is not connecting to my cable router any longer...

Why does my Airport Express say "self assigned IP address"? No IP address for the ethernet, and it is not connecting to my cable router any longer...

Some cable providers.....like mine, a well known company......seem to take anywhere from a few moments to sometimes up to 30 minutes to allow their equipment back at the cable company to fully reset and issue a new fresh connection.
So, it would not hurt to leave things powered down for 15-20 minutes or more when you perform the reset that John Galt suggests.

Self-assigned IP address problem - My solution

I am new to this board and created an ID just to write this post. When I searched for this self-assigned IP problem, I found almost 1 million results on Google so obviously I am not alone.
I have this problem off and on on the wireless network at home with a Netgear router. It has never happened at my office with a D-Link router. Never happened at Starbucks or McDonalds (yes, they all offer WiFi here). But it happened at one Pizza Hut and it also at Christchurch airport about a week ago.
Deleting one of the plist files worked once at home many months ago but this week nothing worked. My Mac usually goes back to normal by itself after I "****" it out at other WiFi networks but not this time. As a last resort, I asked my brother (our family's I.T. guy) to change the router as I had not tried that fix. He didn't do it but a day later, he gave me to oddest solution that worked in a blink of an eye.
The solution? Key in a wrong password!!!
1) Go to Keychain Access, delete the keychain for the problematic network.
2) Connect back to the network
3) Enter a WRONG password that is similar to the right one. For example, if your password is Apple123, try APPLE123. You should still connect to the network and get a self-assigned IP.
4) Repeat Step 1. To be safe, you might want to re-boot now. I did but probably didn't have to!
5) Repeat Step 2
6) Enter the right password
I'm not all that techie so all I understood from what he said was:
1) It's probably a non-Apple router bug
2) It's a hex key problem. The password wasn't being encoded/decoded properly so the router wasn't assigning the computer an IP address. Wasn't even reading the password which is why I could connect with a wrong one.
He deduced that from reading a post from a guy in Spain who thought he had carelessly entered the wrong password and was wasting the community's time with his posting. I had read that post a couple of days ago too! But obviously I thought the Spaniard had just entered the wrong password and there was no fix for me to try out. My brother is a genius!
I guess it then makes sense why fixes like:
1) Disabling the firewall
2) Deleting preference lists
3) Deleting keychains
4) Changing the router
5) Renewing DHCP lease
6) Resetting the router
...have worked for many people and not others. None of them actually fix the cause of the problem. Having searched for 3 days, I could not find the REAL reason why this happened. Personally from all I have read, I think it must be a hex key problem with Netgear and Linksys routers. I see those 2 names mentioned a **** of a lot. Maybe it's another one of those gadgets built more for PCs that don't work perfectly with Macs all the time. We used to have an Apple Airport Extreme base station but that got fried by lightning. It was not cheap.... So technically, it really isn't Apple's problem. I think if we used an Apple router, we wouldn't have a self-assigned IP address. Maybe that's why they haven't "fixed" the problem after so many years.
Anyway, let me know if my brother's fix worked for you.
This is my good deed for the weekend! Goodnight....!

Hello, thanks for the tip/post, & a warm welcome to the forums!

Airport - Self Assigned IP Address Problems

I moved into a new place recently and having problems with my Airport connection on my MacBook Pro. I get the error
"Airport the self-assigned IP Address 169.254.23.207 and will not be able to connect to the internet" (obviously the IP varies)
It's only happened ever since I moved into this new place. Comcast is our ISP and we're using a Netgear Router my step brother bought a while back. I logged into the Router and all settings seem to be normal as far as I can tell. It only happens if the computer goes to sleep or is shut off, any situation where Airport is disabled. I usually have to keep turning Airport On and Off until it comes back. I logged into the router, none of the settings seem wrong. The ISP setting is set to Dynamic IP. It's using WPA and doesn't seem to have a problem with the key.
Here's a screenie: http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/9797/screenshot20100924at502.jpg
What could be causing this problem. It's extremely frustrating.

Of course a search for "macbook and connection dropouts" results in numerous pleas for help. That is what you searched for. Did you expect your search to find the millions of users who are not having "macbook and dropout" issues?
FWIW there are many reasons why a wifi connection will "fail or dropout", one of which may be a hardware issue. But more likely is interference, configuration, firmware, router, setup, security, not reading the manual, etc.
What would lead you to believe "Apple technicians apparently are mystified."?
I doubt very much that Apple is involved in a conspiracy of silence "Given all the macs with this problem, why is Apple silent on a fix? Is this actually a hardware problem that would require the replacement of every motherboard in every mac notebook with a faulty broadcom wifi chipset? " But then I don't subscribe to many conspiracy theories.
There are many more Macs without the problem you and others here in this help forum describe than there are with the problem.
Message was edited by: BobTheFisherman

Self-assigned IP address problems

I'm having a problem with my wireless router connection (my Airport card shows the network, but the "fan" is greyed out, and if I choose the network it still doesn't connect - When I check network status I get "AirPort connected to network, but has self-assigned IP address and may not be able to connect...)
I can temporarily fix the problem by going into System Preferences to Network to Airport to Preferred Networks to Assist Me and THEN it will go to my network and turn on the path.
I'm running Tiger 10.4.11 on a G5 iMac with the original AirPort Extreme card, and routing through a Linksys WRT54G attached to a cable modem.
There are a lot of networks in my area, according to my wireless "fan".
If changing channels on my router might fix this, I'd like to give it a try, but I don't know how, AND I don't want to ruin the signal to the other computers in the house, which, by the way, work just fine when the iMac loses the signal.
If there's another way to tell the router to ignore the self-assigned IP address, or to get the AirPort to stop providing this ...
The problem is obviously the self-assigned IP address. The question is what is causing this?
Is it the AirPort Extreme Card?
Is it the Linksys Wireless router?
How do I test to see which it is, without losing the signal from the router to the other computers in the house?
With so many people having the same problem, there must be an answer somewhere.
Can some kind soul please point out the correct path? My tech support (teenager) will be home from college this week, and if I can prove to him that it won't ruin everything I think he'll be up to the challenge.

Hi,
Thank you Linc & dwb, I've had no issues with the router in the 14 months its been installed. But tonight I've turned off the NAS and since then no drop off for wifi/ or assigning itself an IP address.
I will switch on the NAS once again and see what happens, would it be best to assign a static IP to the NAS? One thing I have found when checking the homehub connection details, the mac air connects at the 5Gz Wireless as does the Kindle, which has also suffered from losing the wifi connection, where as my macbook pro only connects at 2.4Gz and like I said has not had any issue. Not sure if this anything to do with the problem or not?
All I do know is that since the NAS was introduced then the problems began, so again not sure if its the NAS impacting on the router or a router setting?
thanks

Ethernet problem - self-assigned IP address

I'm just testing my spanking new Mac Pro with Leo 10.5.6 (still holding back to go to 10.5.7 as there are issues with certain audio apps) and I can't get an internet connection via ethernet and a router. In the network config I get the dreaded 169.xxx.xxx.xxx address and the message "Ethernet 1 has a self-assigned IP address and may not be able to connect". (ethernet 2 has the same problem). Manual DHCP does not work either.
The router is a D-Link DI-624 connected to a cable modem.
I have absolutely no problem connecting to the internet with my Macbook or any other PC through the router.
Strangely, the Mac Pro can connect to the internet and gets an IP if directly plugged into the cable box. However as I often need a wireless connection I need to keep using the router.
Apart from an answer, I would also appreciate if we could avoid wasting time by asking the typical first level help desk questions, such as "have you restarted the router?" etc. I'm not computer illiterate and all the symptoms and logical deductions clearly indicate that the problem is solely in the Mac Pro.
Thanks much.

I'm having the same problem.
I have a brand new router and switch, everything works fine when I plug the cable into my PC Laptop and worked fine with my Mac Pro until today!
Now, I get the nasty "169..." self-assigned IP on both Ethernet ports and cannot connect to the internet.
I have deleted both the ETHERNET 1 and ETHERNET 2 Prefs as R2B suggested but sadly, it did not work for me. As I reassign the Ethernet, it gives me the same error
any ideas??
thanks!

AppleTalk & self-assigned IP address using ethernet

How do I find or assign the IP address for my Ethernet 2 port?
I have two ethernet ports on my Mac Pro. The first one I'm using for the internet and is working fine. On the second one I've set up a local AppleTalk network to connect to my serial postscript laser printer through an iprint adapter.
The status is connected and I was able to print. But System Preferences has the message: "Ethernet 2 has a self-assigned IP address and may not be able to connect."
From reading these discussions a "self-assigned IP address" is a problem. Or is it okay? I'm using "Using DHCP" to configure because that option got me connected. Or should I manually configure? How do I find (or assign) the IP address? Obviously I don't understand much about networking.
Thanks!

Self-assigned addresses are not a problem in situations like you describe.
In fact that's what they're designed for - for interconnecting systems that just need to talk between themselves and not to other hosts on your local network or the Internet.

Problems connecting Airport - self assigned IP addresses

Greetings,
I upgraded to a powerbook a few months back, and everything seemed to be working well enough until today. My internet connection (using airport on my powerbook) wasn't working. Usually I just unplug my modem, reconnect, and all works fine.
Today, to my horror, airport does not reconnect as usual and I see the note
AirPort has the self-assigned IP address xxx.xxx.xx.x and will not be able to connect to the Internet.
I've tried using snow leopard cache cleaner, I've tried restarting, I've turned off my iPhone, and disconnected my old mac connected by ethernet.
My iPhone works, using the same wifi, and there are other wifi users nearby.
Not sure what else to mention, any ideas?

try to do it manual:
decide a ipv4 close to your iphone (if iphone has xxx.xxx.x.7) like x.8
next, net-mask must be 255.255.255.0 (if there is something other it's wrong)
router is seen when you open network in iphone, take this.
could be like: 192.168.1.1, if your ip starts with 192 ...
all this in network/more options

One SOLUTION for "self assigned IP address"

Hello there, dealing with the nasty issue of "self assigned IP address" has been my latest two days nightmare, I tried lots and lots of solutions I read in forums here and there without getting to a point.
I started this post because I want to post here a solution that really worked for me and I haven't seen it posted over the web.
I don't remember where but I saw the comment that WEP encryption by the router is not very mac compatible as opposed to WPA. So a while ago when I entered my router home screen (Thomson TG585 v7) I saw the option to enable WPA-PSK encryption and went for it, I can tell you it inmediatelly got me online and till now my airport wireless conection is working perfectly.
I'm not any mac/web guru and maybe I'm stepping some technical details but I want to share this tip with all of you because I know it can be a really nasty problem that one of the gat dam "self assigned IP address" and this may help somebody else. ;-)
Best regards
Luis Erantzcani

Great tip Luis, thanks!

Problems using MBP as WiFi router for iPad2 (self-assigned IP address)

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for