Making a MacBook remember my Airport wireless settings?

December 11, 2007 1:27 PM

Every time I open up my MacBook (running Leopard), I have to go into the network preferences and re-input my password in order to connect to my wireless network. How can I get it to connect automatically again?

A few days ago, the electrical outlet that my wireless router was plugged into went dead, so I had to unplug the router and use a new socket. Ever since then, whenever I open my MacBook, it throws up a dialog box that says there were problems connecting to my wireless network. I have to run Network Diagnostics, choose the network from a list, and type my password manually. Every time. Telling it to store my password in the keychain doesn't work.

What can I do to get it to stick, so that when I open my computer the network settings don't need to be fussed with anymore?

(This is a 1st-gen 2 GHz MacBook, running Mac OS X 10.5.1.)

posted by tepidmonkey to computers & internet (5 comments total)

I had this same problem. I don't know what kind of router you have but I have an Airport Express and I reset the router (using a paperclip) and this cleared up the problem.
posted by mattbucher at 1:45 PM on December 11, 2007

I just have a cheap Netgear router. I reset it with a paper clip, and unfortunately the computer behaves in the same way.
posted by tepidmonkey at 2:20 PM on December 11, 2007

Open the Keychain Utility (/Applications/Utilities/Keychain Access) and delete any reference to the wireless router you find. Quit. Now turn off the wireless interface and turn it back on to see if it helped. If not, turn off the wireless and repeat the first step. Then open the Network Preferences and create a new Location (choose Edit Locations from the Location menu, hit the plus sign, and give it any name you want). Now try it again.
posted by pmbuko at 2:38 PM on December 11, 2007

The problem persists. I did notice this, though: selecting any other network but mine from the Airport menu presents me with a box to enter the password in. But when I select my network from the list of networks in the Airport menu, it gives me a dialog box that says, "An error occurred while trying to join [network name]."
posted by tepidmonkey at 2:56 PM on December 11, 2007

The directions should be similar to this but for leopard I don't have the answer quite yet.
posted by dereisbaer at 4:31 PM on December 11, 2007