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Issues with Mac OS X and BT Home Hub 5?

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macrumors 601
Original poster
May 19, 2011
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Not quite sure where I should post this so I chose the Mac OSX section.

We recently switched to a BT Home Hub 5 in our household and I've been having problems connecting to it with my MacBook Pro (2012 Retina). Every time I tried to connect to the router with the correct password I'd get the 'invalid password' error over and over. Then suddenly it would connect but drop again and the issue would return on waking my MacBook up. I did some research and learned it could be the conflicting 2.4GHz and 5GHz wifi frequencies which the Home Hub is meant to switch between automatically. We assigned different SSIDs to the two frequencies and I can connect perfectly to the 2.4GHz one. However I still get 'invalid password' when trying to connect to the 5GHz connection. I'll also add that no other device in our house has had this problem.

So is this an issue with Mac OSX or is my laptop faulty? Alternatively, is the router doing something wrong? We can live with having two separate connections and 2.4GHz is just fine but it was my understanding I should be able to connect to 5GHz frequencies on my laptop.
 
Same problem

I have exactly the same problem and it's resolved in the same way so it must be something with Mac OSX.
 
nacilisto said:
I have exactly the same problem and it's resolved in the same way so it must be something with Mac OSX.
Click to expand...

I also asked on The Verge and people there said it's something to do with the current version of Mac OSX and not the router. Hopefully we'll get a fix soon. In the meantime, 2.4GHz is fine.
 
Same issue as JarScott

Thanks for your post JarScott. I had exactly the same problems with connecting to my BT wifi. Solved by changing the 5Ghz name and connecting to the 2.4GHz. I also updated to OS X 10.9.1 which I hoped would solve the problem - but it didn't!!! :):confused:
 
Wifi drop-out OSX & BT Home Hub 5

I have exactly the same problem, using late 2012 iMac 27" and Mid 2012 MacBook Air, just switched from Virgin Media to BT Infinity with the BT HH5 and both Macs drop wifi connection and when I try to reconnect, I get the "Invalid Password" message.

Only way to reconnect is to reset / restart the HH5, which means also rebooting the YouView box - bit of a pain to be honest.

Have tried a call to BT support and they just advised me to restart the HH5 and another support call to Apple today, which involved deleting the Wifi settings on the Mac, clearing all previously-used wifi settings and rebooting everything.

Same fault happened about 8 hours later. As with above post, all iPhones and iPads in the house are unaffected.

What's the best solution for me? Do I need to disable the BT Smart Setup and assign set channels for 2.4 & 5GHz connections?
 
Sync with 2.4 GHz - Disabled

I created the dual SSID's for the 2.4 and 5 GHz connections.
While doing so I also noticed under the 5 GHz tab on the BT HH5 that it is possible to switch off Sync with 2.4 GHz.
I have done this and so far the problem has not happened again
 
Hi there,

I am also having this issue but I do not understand the steps of advice in relation to setting the SSID to 2.4ghz. Would somebody be able to explain how exactly to do this?

Many Thanks.
 
Thanks for the heads up with this guys.

I'm also unable to connect to 5 but 2.4 will do fine for now.
 
Hiya

how do you 'create the dual SSID's for the 2.4 and 5 GHz connections' because i'm so lost and am having the same issue!

Thank you so much
 
Just read this on another forum and am now thinking I may need to return my BT Hub 5 for a 4 ! Extract below is from BT Community Forum on Broadband issues with BT Home Hub 5

"I just come off the phone with BT who called me at the time they said they were (kudos to them)

It turns out that the BT Home Hub 5 does not work with a broadband connection.

said that i should have BT Home Hub 4.

So - BT Home Hub 5 - Fibre only
BT Home Hub 4 - Broadband only."
 
Switching to a HH4 will make no difference, I have the same problem with 5GHZ on a HH4.

Works fine with 2.4GHZ, the 5GHZ connects but it keeps dropping the connection. I can get it stable by changing the setting from 802.11n 40mhz (recommended) to 802.11a/n and it remains connected. However that setting has a max WIFI speed of 130 as opposed to the default 300.

iphone connects and stays connected to 5ghz regardless of any settings I change, so it seems related to OSX.
 
I created the dual SSID's for the 2.4 and 5 GHz connections, it seems to have resolved the issue..... for now anyway
 
Yes, BT Home Hub 5, it's their latest one out and is meant to be the bees knees, however there is a slight problem that both Apple and BT do not seem to have an answer too which was it kept losing connection. When I turned my iMac off and turned it back on again I would have to reconnect to network everytime, and got the message invalid password.

However, a forum user suggested unsyncing the dual SSID ( 2Ghz and 5Ghz) and renaming one of them, I did this and it seems to be holding its own for now.
 
Worked for me!

Unsyncing the 2.4Ghz and the 5Ghz worked perfectly here too. Funny that it was never a problem for my iMac but my wife's MacBook Pro was dropping every day.

Thanks for the solution.
 
Last edited:
BT HH5 and 5GHz connection issues on Macs !

GeoffShoulders said:
Unsyncing the 2.4Ghz and the 5Ghz worked perfectly here too. Funny that it was never a problem for my iMac but my wife's MacBook Pro was dropping every day.

Thanks for the solution.
Click to expand...

I've just installed a BT HH5, unsynced the 2.4 and 5GHz signals, given the SSID on the 5Ghz a different name.. but on both my Macs (iMac and Macbook) its so hit and miss if in connect or not..In most cases i get the response "Invalid password". While typing this on my iMac I attempted to connected to the 5G and it did.. but when I tried last night in rebooting the connection was lost and I could only connect on 2.4. There is only one other 5G signal i can find in the area and its on a completely different channel. My BT HH5 is 3 metres away, in line of sight.

Any body any ideas please, thank you in advance.

David
 
JarScott said:
I also asked on The Verge and people there said it's something to do with the current version of Mac OSX and not the router. Hopefully we'll get a fix soon. In the meantime, 2.4GHz is fine.
Click to expand...

Hi JarScott,

Not sure if this has been suggested yet -- have you tried changing the wireless encryption to WPA2-PSK only?
 
keysofanxiety said:
Hi JarScott,

Not sure if this has been suggested yet -- have you tried changing the wireless encryption to WPA2-PSK only?
Click to expand...

I no longer have this issue. Besides, we recently got an upgrade which means the HomeHub selects the frequency for the device rather than the device choosing itself. This means the MacBook doesn't see two frequencies anymore.

Thanks for taking the time to reply though! I'd forgotten about this thread entirely.
 
Hi I'm just hopping in the thread.
Did any of you did any wireless monitoring in your area?
Please note that your baseband and channel are really important for speed and connectivity.

5GHZ can't give you internet from far distance like a 2.4GHZ can.

If the channel is already in use by more networks, switch to a 'more quietly' channel.
Next to that, your baseband on b/g/n will give you all the support you need, as an device will determine what baseband it likes to use.

I'm having lots of WiFi issue's
Even a hidden ssid did not work, but with some tuning and signal boosting I got perfect WiFi now.

(My issues were mainly distortion of other networks and devices, not formiliar with BT hubs, but a reason like 'this one is only for fiber connection and not broadband' will have nothing to do with you local WiFi network connection, just only your actual WAN connection)

If you really got too much distortion go google for 'cage of faraday' # that will solve ALL your WiFi issues #
 
Pointer to issue with 5Ghz on BT Home Hub 5?

Annoyingly I have encountered this issue , constant prompting for the WPA2 password, with my new BTHomeHub 5 on my Mac Mini Mid 2011 running Yosemite 10.10.2. My 2.4Ghz and 5.0Ghz wireless connections are not synced, and have different SSID names and WPA2 passwords.

The only way I can get the Mac Mini to connect to the 5GHz wifi is by dropping the "Wireless Interface Type" on the BT HomeHub 5 to it's lowest option: 802.11 a (up to 54Mb/s). Of course this is not what I am going to do! Much prefer the 802.11 a/n/ac (up to 1300Mb/s)! So 2.4Ghz it is!

Hopefully Apple will recognise this issue as the BT HomeHub 5 drives most of BT's Infinity Home networks UK wide!
 
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