iMac wifi connection problem

riiight!

Hey,

I just bought a 21.5 inch iMac and am having problems connecting to the internet using AirPort.

When I select my network, enter in the correct password, it connects with the signal at full strenght but only in a grey non highlighted way.

I did diagnostics, unplugged the router and turned the iMac on and off. My older IBM is still able to go online at the moment too.

Any help? As I searched online but couldn't find anything.........

aidan_walsh

What router and encryption types are you using?
Are there many other devices connected at the same time, or just the IBM?

If you temporarily disable the encryption on the router, does the iMac connect then?

riiight!

Thanks for the reply.

The encryption type is WPA as far as I know. And the IBM is the only other device connected.

I haven't tried to disable the encryption and try to connect then as I am not sure how...

muggyog

In 10.6, go into system preferences and select network. Double click your wireless network. Screenshot1 shows what mine looks like ( no security set ). Double click your chosen network and you should see Screenshot2 ( i have clicked on the security pulldown menu to show options ). Chose the security/no security you want.

maccored

afaik you'll need to log on to the router directly to disable security.

riiight!

I have tried what you suggested Muggyog but it didn't help. Also I tried disabling the security key through the routers settings but that just caused further problems with all wireless devices in the apartment.

Any other suggestions? It is getting quite frustrating now. Thanks for your help so far though.

aidan_walsh

Disabling encryption will cause problems for the other devices (all? I thought it was just an IBM PC?) but we want to see if the iMac will connect to rule out a problem with the encryption type and make sure the wireless card is working correctly.

Are you sure you're using the right key?

riiight!

Yeah the key is perfect. Says it is connected when I type it in, but I can never actually go online. When I deliberately type the key incorrectly it fails, like it should.

My flatmate couldnt connect online aswell as my IBM when he disabled the protection. He knows more about computers but couldnt find the solution.

aidan_walsh

Did the iMac connect when it was disabled?

riiight!

nope it didn't

muggyog

Is this an internet access problem?

When I select my network, enter in the correct password, it connects with the signal at full strenght but only in a grey non highlighted way.

Yeah the key is perfect. Says it is connected when I type it in, but I can never actually go online. When I deliberately type the key incorrectly it fails, like it should.

This suggests to me that you are connected, try running a software update and see what happens ( will it check for update ).

riiight!

Well I tried just there to do a software update but it failed because of a "network problem".

muggyog

Lets see a screenshot of your network settings ( I've enclosed mine ).

barryj

As muggyog says, a screen shot of the network settings would be helpful.

In the network settings, you're looking for the following:

1) A status of 'Connected'

2) An IP address assigned.

If it's connected but there's no IP address or a self-assigned IP address (169.254.x.x), it means the router did not assign an IP address. If this is the case, check the DHCP settings on the router (make sure there are no restrictions on handing them out and there are sufficient available).

The other thing to check is that the Mac is configured to use DHCP. In the network settings, click advanced, click the TCP/IP tab, and ensure the 'Using DHCP' option is selected.

- barry

riiight!

Okay. I took a screenshot but for some reason my External HD won't let me copy anything onto it...

Anyway, the details are...

Location set to automatic

Status is connected and has an IP address

Airport icon on th left is green whereas Ethernet and firewire are red.

And also the tab is set as "using DHCP"

Are the advanced settings needed too?

barryj

OK, so you've a connected network and gotten an IP address from the router (not a self assigned 169.254.x.x one).

Open the TCP/IP tab in Net prefs again, and you should see some values for the following:

IPv4:
Subnet Mask:
Router:

Open a terminal window (it's an App in the Utilities folder of your Applications folder, that will give you a command line window)

In this terminal window type the following and press return:

ping 1.2.3.4

where 1.2.3.4 is the IP of the router found above.

You should see something like:


sosumi:~ barry$ ping 10.12.6.1
PING 10.12.6.1 (10.12.6.1): 56 data bytes
Request timeout for icmp_seq 0
64 bytes from 10.12.6.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=255 time=3.649 ms
64 bytes from 10.12.6.1: icmp_seq=2 ttl=255 time=4.786 ms
64 bytes from 10.12.6.1: icmp_seq=3 ttl=255 time=8.872 ms

Press the ctrl & c keys to stop the test.

If you get success then, we know you're Mac can 'see' the router, which is a good starting point.

If you get timeouts or other errors, you might share those, along with the values for the above.

I'm also curious - you said the wifi connects but is grey? You mean the wifi indicator in the menu bar? When you drop down the menu, is there a tick mark beside your network?

- barry

riiight!

Cheers Barry.

I did the ping test and everything went fine. NO timeouts, All packets transmitted and received okay.

About the "grey" icon for wireless. It is actually black and at full strenght. I just thought that perhaps it should be green or something when connected. Nevermind me.

barryj

OK:

So we have connectivity to the router - good start.

Next we should check DNS:

In the network prefs, check the DNS tab, and let us know what DNS servers are listed.

In terminal window try doing a DNS lookup - type something like:

dig google.com

You should get a bunch of text, including something like:


;; ANSWER SECTION:
google.com. 39 IN A 173.194.37.104

- barry

riiight!

There is only one DNS Server listed - 192.168.1.1 which is the same as the router.

Next in the terminal window I got -

Dig 9.6.0-APPLE-P2
global options: +cmd
connection timed out; no servers could be reached

muggyog

Pulling teeth is easier !

You clearly can connect to your router. Any chance of a screenshot of network settings-->wireless-->advanced-->tcp/ip (apple+shift+4 and select required area). I've enclosed my settings.

BTW you didn't mention what router you were using.



OK forget the screenshot, what router are you using?

riiight!

I'm struggling to find a way to transfer the pic I took to my online IBM so here are the details...

Configure IPv4 - Using DHCP

IPv4 address - 192.168.1.50

Subnet Mask - 255.255.255.0

Router 192.168.1.1

The router is just some basic siemens model that seems to have no special code name. It comes free with an intern company here in Germany where I am.

muggyog

Sorry forgot your on a PC.

You have already proven you can connect to the router so can you web into it and view the settings ( on the router that is ). Heres a link to one of Eircoms
support pages for their router. You can see (just) the settings for their DNS server in the second picture. See what your service providers settings are.

riiight!

Hmm okay I can't access that at the moment because my flatmate only knows the password at the moment. So I gotta wait until he returns... sorry. I will post it as soon as I can. Thanks

barryj

Can you try the following in a browser:

http://173.194.37.104

That's an IP address for google.com, so it should avoid a DNS lookup and let us know if your mac can see beyond the router or not.

Also try the following in a terminal window:

dig @8.8.8.8 google.com

That'll try doing a DNS lookup using an external server (in this case one of google's.

- barry

muggyog

Once again, sorry for being stupid. The PC must be getting the DNS settings, so go to RUN in the start menu and type cmd. When you get the command line window, type ipconfig /all. What are the results?

riiight!

Okay, Barry I could access Google through that IP address.

Also I did the terminal thing. I cant copy and past to this Pc so I will write the main info...
1 server found

query - 1. answer - 3. authority - 0. additional - 0

question section
google,com IN A

answer section
google.com 300 IN A
etc. etc..

Think this is all the main info

riiight!

Hey Muggyog, I'm actually using Ubuntu. Typed that in the root terminal but it just said that command was not found.....

aidan_walsh

Yep, ipconfig is the Windows version. Just running ifconfig in the Terminal should get you much the same information.

riiight!

Cheers Aidan. I'm a bit of a computer dumbass and shouldn't be anywhere near Linux...

"eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:0d:60:38:d2:6d
UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 TX bytes:0 (0.0

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:11 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:11 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:744 (744.0 TX bytes:744 (744.0

wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:14:a4:28:eb:9b
inet addr:192.168.1.51 Bcast:192.168.1.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
inet6 addr: fe80::214:a4ff:fe28:eb9b/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:20756 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:22024 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:13046634 (13.0 MB) TX bytes:4719934 (4.7 MB)"

barryj

OK:

If you can access google by IP - that narrows it down to a DNS issue most likely. Though puzzled by why you're getting no anwser from the manual dig query.

Anyway, if you're on ubuntu - try this command:

cat /etc/resolv.conf

That should list the IP addresses of the DNS servers you're using on ubuntu.
If there's only one and it's the router IP - I'm puzzled as to why it doesn't work on the mac but does on the other box - but if it's something different, we can try that on the mac - try adding the ip manaully into the DNS tab on the network settings on the mac.

- barry

riiight!

sorry about the delay, my internet went off completely there.

IN the command terminal in Ubuntu I get-

nameserver 208.67.222.222
nameserver 208.67.220.220

I typed these into the DNS tab on the mac but that didn't help.

barryj

Is the ubuntu machine yours or your flatmates?

Those are OpenDNS dns servers - but the router DHCP is setting itself as DNS server, so I'm guessing someone has overridden the default on the Ubuntu machine to use OpenDNS - is it also possible there's some firewall config on the router that only allows dns queries from a certain IP - clutching at straws here, but it's possible.

One other thing you could try is to force dig to use TCP (default is UDP): Maybe give one or more of the following a shot. The +tcp flag forces tcp. The three commands try quering the router, opendns, and googledns.

- barry

dig @192.168.1.1 +tcp google.com
dig @208.67.222.222 +tcp google.com
dig @8.8.8.8 +tcp google.com

barryj

BTW, the dig commands should work exactly the same on the ubuntu and mac terminals.

- barry

riiight!

The ubuntu is running on my IBM.

OKay I don't understand all of what you said exactly. My flatmate probably did change some of those settings for the router but I will need to ask him later.

Cheers!

muggyog

In the meantime, put these settings in network settings-->wireless-->advanced-->dns of the Mac and try surfing!.

riiight!

Hmmm ok that worked perfectly fine. I could surf the net easily. But then I followed the steps and changed the DNS server back to its original setting and it failed again.

So should i just leave the DNS as the google DNS and all will be fine or is this just some sort of temporary fix/test?

Cheers!

barryj

You can leave the google dns settings permanently with no issue.

The router seems to have some strange setup, either providing the wrong dns settings, or not allowing access from certain IP addresses. By putting in the google ones, you're just manually overriding what the router is providing.

Enjoy your new iMac.

- barry

riiight!

Hey cheers guys for everything! I finally got it sorted, without the google DNS server. There was another server that my flatmate and I were using for our Ubuntu machines to get the internet to work faster after we had problems. THat worked for this too.

Thanks again!