airport connected ... but not.

[Kristofer]

Hi guys. my college has an open wireless network. my airport card detected it no problem and connected me. On friday, the connection appeared to be full and the status was connected, however browsers were unresponsive. I blamed the network and shut off my Mac to find it working OK on Monday. But then yesterday afternoon it once again would not function though it appeared to be online. Nothing makes it work. Although airport is running with a full signal, it detects the network, and the status says its connected, not a single site will load without immediately telling me I'm not connected.
when i go to system preferences and click network, it has a yellow light beside Airport and says something about an IP address. I can't remember the wording since I didn't understand it.
What's going on? :s

 

[Sherman Homan]

b

when i go to system preferences and click network, it has a yellow light beside Airport and says something about an IP address. I can't remember the wording since I didn't understand it.

If you click on the TCP/IP tab you will get a clue about what is happening. Any address that begins with 169. is a self-assigned address, a dead end. That happens when you connect to a wireless point but not get an IP address from it.
Or you could get a legit address (beginning in 10. or 192. or 174.) but the wireless might not be connecting on its end to the net.
If others are using the wireless point then the problem is your Mac.
Go to your System Preferences and make a new Location. Plain old Airport, DHCP, no other info is needed (probably!).
If other people are having problems, unplug the wireless, hop on one foot, plug it back in.

 

[zblaxberg]

for my university we needed to download a cisco vpn client to use the wireless networks

 

[Kristofer]

b
If you click on the TCP/IP tab you will get a clue about what is happening. Any address that begins with 169. is a self-assigned address, a dead end. That happens when you connect to a wireless point but not get an IP address from it.
Or you could get a legit address (beginning in 10. or 192. or 174.) but the wireless might not be connecting on its end to the net.
If others are using the wireless point then the problem is your Mac.
Go to your System Preferences and make a new Location. Plain old Airport, DHCP, no other info is needed (probably!).
If other people are having problems, unplug the wireless, hop on one foot, plug it back in.

It seems to stop working at random times and I have to wait til the next day to get connected again. I tried making a new location but that didn't help. Any other ideas, or more precise instructions on how to make a new location?

 

[Sherman Homan]

Hmmmm..... I hate random problems!
Stronger medicine: Open the System Preferences, Network and remove every location and every remembered wireless point. Restart, make a new Airport location.

 

[Tommie Montana]

I had problems with my network and this post solved it: https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/4157772/

I hope it works for you as well.