My Mac's Country Code is Wrong [WiFi Issues]

[jaded-mandarin]

My work MacBook has an absolute nightmare with my home WiFi – I get about a minute's internet and then it's out for a few minutes. Rinse and repeat. This is constant, I've had the machine since April and whenever I bring it home this happens.

I ran Wireless Diagnostics and it says there are conflicting country codes between my machine and routers. The problem is, it's my Mac which has the wrong country code (DE), and the routers have the correct (GB) one.

Will this affect my WiFi performance? All other devices connect without problems. Can I change my country code on my Mac?

Any help appreciated. It's driving me mad. I can't get anything done on it.

 

[JohnDS]

See this: http://www.howtogeek.com/211993/how-to-fix-conflicting-country-codes-and-improve-your-macs-wi-fi/

 

[DeltaMac]

Hmm…
Do you have any idea why your Mac would be set for Germany?
Do you travel to other countries, and have changed text settings to another language, or anything similar to that?

Go to your Date & Time pref pane, then the Time Zone tab.
Check the box "Set time zone automatically using your current location"
Is the Date & Time also set to "Set Date and Time automatically"?
Make sure that Region is set to your region (United Kingdom is correct?)
Finally, Restart your Mac.

That should be all you need to do.

 

[jaded-mandarin]

Hmm…
Do you have any idea why your Mac would be set for Germany?
Do you travel to other countries, and have changed text settings to another language, or anything similar to that?

Go to your Date & Time pref pane, then the Time Zone tab.
Check the box "Set time zone automatically using your current location"
Is the Date & Time also set to "Set Date and Time automatically"?
Make sure that Region is set to your region (United Kingdom is correct?)
Finally, Restart your Mac.

That should be all you need to do.

All checked correctly.

Never used it out of the country, and as far as I'm aware it's not a refurb.
[doublepost=1472721736][/doublepost]

See this: http://www.howtogeek.com/211993/how-to-fix-conflicting-country-codes-and-improve-your-macs-wi-fi/

That's more for problem routers, whereas it's my actual Mac that's got the wrong country code.

 

[BrianBaughn]

I think there may be a way to edit a configuration file via terminal to change the Mac's wifi country code. Perhaps someone here can come up with the correct way for your particular situation.

The easy workaround would be to buy a USB wifi dongle that's configured properly.

 

[JohnDS]

I don't think you read the article I posted all the way through. Among other things, it said:

Some routers broadcast country codes using the 802.11d standard. This informs nearby Wi-Fi-enabled devices — like your MacBook — which country they’re in and which Wi-Fi settings they should use. For example, in our example below, we have a nearby rogue router with a TW country code, which conflicts with other routers and their US country codes.

This can confuse your Mac. When it wakes up, it scans for nearby Wi-Fi networks and the country code information tells the Mac which Wi-Fi settings it should use for this area. It appears that the Mac uses the country code from the first network it finds broadcasting this information. If you’re in one country and there’s a router with another country’s code nearby, your Mac may think your’e in that country, use those Wi-Fi settings, and have problems connecting to wireless networks using the proper settings for the country you’re actually in.
​

In other words, the reason your Mac is showing a wrong country code is that it is picking that information up from a nearby router. The article goes on to suggest how to find the rogue router and how to deal with the problem.

 

[cdcastillo]

I've used macs from different countries (bought in México, Spain and USA; all manufactured in China) with different routers in several countries (Netherlands, Germany, Spain, France, México and Italy). I've never had any problem connecting to the router. From what I understand, it is not your mac that is at fault here, but a router you are connecting to. You should change the router.

 

[jaded-mandarin]

I've used macs from different countries (bought in México, Spain and USA; all manufactured in China) with different routers in several countries (Netherlands, Germany, Spain, France, México and Italy). I've never had any problem connecting to the router. From what I understand, it is not your mac that is at fault here, but a router you are connecting to. You should change the router.

I connect through USB to ethernet at work.

I've pulled the cable out and tried to use the WiFi – and I get pretty much the same result. It definitely seems a problem with the WiFi on this Mac.
[doublepost=1472814600][/doublepost]

I don't think you read the article I posted all the way through. Among other things, it said:

Some routers broadcast country codes using the 802.11d standard. This informs nearby Wi-Fi-enabled devices — like your MacBook — which country they’re in and which Wi-Fi settings they should use. For example, in our example below, we have a nearby rogue router with a TW country code, which conflicts with other routers and their US country codes.

This can confuse your Mac. When it wakes up, it scans for nearby Wi-Fi networks and the country code information tells the Mac which Wi-Fi settings it should use for this area. It appears that the Mac uses the country code from the first network it finds broadcasting this information. If you’re in one country and there’s a router with another country’s code nearby, your Mac may think your’e in that country, use those Wi-Fi settings, and have problems connecting to wireless networks using the proper settings for the country you’re actually in.
​

In other words, the reason your Mac is showing a wrong country code is that it is picking that information up from a nearby router. The article goes on to suggest how to find the rogue router and how to deal with the problem.

All the routers my Mac pics up have their code as GB. (See top post).

 

[DeltaMac]

Then, the router assumes that your country code is set incorrectly.
Change that. I don't know exactly what setting it might be, but you should be able to track what actually shows as a setting for DE (Germany)
I would start by creating a new Location (in your Networks pref pane), and setting that new location as your primary Location. You would set up your wifi connection as new when you do that, and that may take care of your problem.

 

[DeltaMac]

Here's a good article that I found.
http://www.howtogeek.com/211993/how-to-fix-conflicting-country-codes-and-improve-your-macs-wi-fi/
(and it's one that you have already looked at)

Long story short - your Mac does not change your country code on its own.
It's a function of the router.
Apparently, it's the first router that uses channel 1-11

Maybe you can try a scan. It's in the Window menu when you run the wireless diagnostics.
It will list all the routers that your Mac can "see", and country codes will be listed.
Is one of those routers showing country code "DE"?

 

[KALLT]

All the routers my Mac pics up have their code as GB. (See top post).

That’s not what the image shows. It just lists the networks that are now incompatible. There may be a device somewhere that broadcasts a German country code. You need to find this device, or make sure that your Mac is booted where only these routers with British country codes are.

 

[JohnDS]

I agree with KALLT. The screenshot of the diagnostic you posted only shows the routers that are incompatible with your Mac's DE country code. It will not show any that ARE compatible with the DE country code and it will be one of those that is causing the problem. What you need to do is to follow the instructions in the article I linked to which reads as follows:

To determine whether there are conflicting country codes in an area on your Mac, hold the Option key, click the Wi-Fi icon on the top bar, and select “Open Wireless Diagnostics.” Go through the wizard, which will scan your area and alert you to things you can do to improve your Wi-Fi.

At the end of the process, you’ll see “Conflicting Country Codes” in the summary. This indicates there are wireless routers with two different country codes nearby. Either there’s a misconfigured router, or you’re almost exactly on the border between two different countries!​

 

[natzbiz]

I agree with KALLT. The screenshot of the diagnostic you posted only shows the routers that are incompatible with your Mac's DE country code. It will not show any that ARE compatible with the DE country code and it will be one of those that is causing the problem. What you need to do is to follow the instructions in the article I linked to which reads as follows:

To determine whether there are conflicting country codes in an area on your Mac, hold the Option key, click the Wi-Fi icon on the top bar, and select “Open Wireless Diagnostics.” Go through the wizard, which will scan your area and alert you to things you can do to improve your Wi-Fi.

At the end of the process, you’ll see “Conflicting Country Codes” in the summary. This indicates there are wireless routers with two different country codes nearby. Either there’s a misconfigured router, or you’re almost exactly on the border between two different countries!​

[doublepost=1521804697][/doublepost]I have the exact same thing on my desktop iMac running on 10.12.6 Sierra. My computer has never been in DE Germany. In fact it's Canadian, and I am in GB with it for the past 3 years. I have never changed my country code, I don't even know where that is. Also the little icon on the top right bar of my home page has a tiny Canadian flag, I bought the desktop from an apple store when I was living in Canada. So where the DE comes in I have no idea?

Not sure if this is why my wifi keeps dropping off, just as the first guy who started this thread stated, in/out rinse repeat! It's an absolute nightmare to work on. It also cranks so much in the background when I start it up, and at times it will crank for an hour, so I shut it down, unplug it then re-start it in an hour or the next day. Help!

 

[DeltaMac]

The country code is not generated directly by the system, and it's not a function that your Mac decides to change just randomly.
It is provided by a connection to your wireless router (or some other wireless router)
The problem is usually a mis-configured wifi router.
This article may help you determine where the problem might be, and may help you fix your country code issue:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6665548

 

[soulfulpsy]

NEW & NEED SIMILAR HELP: For the past several days, I've been unable to connect to the Internet via my network; all was fine for years, literally. The modem rebooted appears to be working. The Apple Airport Express rebooted appears okay as well. I ran the Wireless Diagnostics and is says I'm in XO, Nova Scotia, and everything that is picks up in conflict is US coded (two items have no region, one being my iPhone, which am using as a hotspot). The diagnostics does NOT show which equipment if any is generating the XO signal (definitely NOT a kiss & hug). My network shows both a 2.4 & 5 version; neither on the best channels; don't know how to change channels. I feel as though I'm in computer solitary confinement even though I'm innocent!

 

[DeltaMac]

NEW & NEED SIMILAR HELP: For the past several days, I've been unable to connect to the Internet via my network; all was fine for years, literally. The modem rebooted appears to be working. The Apple Airport Express rebooted appears okay as well. I ran the Wireless Diagnostics and is says I'm in XO, Nova Scotia, and everything that is picks up in conflict is US coded (two items have no region, one being my iPhone, which am using as a hotspot). The diagnostics does NOT show which equipment if any is generating the XO signal (definitely NOT a kiss & hug). My network shows both a 2.4 & 5 version; neither on the best channels; don't know how to change channels. I feel as though I'm in computer solitary confinement even though I'm innocent!

hmmm...
Country Code for Nova Scotia (not a country, btw ) would be CA, not X0 (which is code used when the country cannot be determined)
The country code is determined by the router that is used. Have you connected to any OTHER router, such as a router that your Mac can see, and has no password protection (maybe something new that shows up in the list of possible routers from your location, even though you may not know who it is, or where it is.) One way to do this is to turn OFF your router, restart your Mac, then try to connect (with YOUR router still turned off). Obviously, you won't connect to your own network, but, you want to find out if your own Mac can possibly connect to a different router.
The wifi channel, again, is determined by the router that you connect to. You would change the radio channel on your router. Your Mac cannot change the channel, you have to do that on the router, usually through the web access app that you use to change other settings on your router.
One other thing that you can do during your testing, is to turn OFF your iPhone hotspot. You don't need that to possibly confuse the issue, when you are trying to determine why your router is choosing the wrong country code.
It will be a configuration issue on the router itself.
What do you use for a router? This won't be your iPhone, but the one that is directly connected to your modem (and might be a combined modem-router that could be provided by your ISP)

 

[soulfulpsy]

hmmm...
Country Code for Nova Scotia (not a country, btw ) would be CA, not X0 (which is code used when the country cannot be determined)
The country code is determined by the router that is used. Have you connected to any OTHER router, such as a router that your Mac can see, and has no password protection (maybe something new that shows up in the list of possible routers from your location, even though you may not know who it is, or where it is.) One way to do this is to turn OFF your router, restart your Mac, then try to connect (with YOUR router still turned off). Obviously, you won't connect to your own network, but, you want to find out if your own Mac can possibly connect to a different router.
The wifi channel, again, is determined by the router that you connect to. You would change the radio channel on your router. Your Mac cannot change the channel, you have to do that on the router, usually through the web access app that you use to change other settings on your router.
One other thing that you can do during your testing, is to turn OFF your iPhone hotspot. You don't need that to possibly confuse the issue, when you are trying to determine why your router is choosing the wrong country code.
It will be a configuration issue on the router itself.
What do you use for a router? This won't be your iPhone, but the one that is directly connected to your modem (and might be a combined modem-router that could be provided by your ISP)

[doublepost=1533105509][/doublepost]Thank you, DeltaMac. Re XO, proves not to believe everything one Googles. I've had a long conversation w/ a rep from Comcast/infinity, and I am to call back again. However, I think I have figured out what is going on: I had Comcast cable at home (AT&T at work). Comcast records say I ended with them on 12/31/2016. But I've had cable Internet since then, no changes. I don't know if they billed and we paid in 2017, but certainly not recently. So, I'm guessing that they discovered this and put some sort of hex on the signal so it will not get to the computer. I'll be calling again tomorrow. If this is not correct, hopefully something will work out.

 

[DCRF]

I don't think you read the article I posted all the way through. Among other things, it said:

Some routers broadcast country codes using the 802.11d standard. This informs nearby Wi-Fi-enabled devices — like your MacBook — which country they’re in and which Wi-Fi settings they should use. For example, in our example below, we have a nearby rogue router with a TW country code, which conflicts with other routers and their US country codes.

This can confuse your Mac. When it wakes up, it scans for nearby Wi-Fi networks and the country code information tells the Mac which Wi-Fi settings it should use for this area. It appears that the Mac uses the country code from the first network it finds broadcasting this information. If you’re in one country and there’s a router with another country’s code nearby, your Mac may think your’e in that country, use those Wi-Fi settings, and have problems connecting to wireless networks using the proper settings for the country you’re actually in.
​

In other words, the reason your Mac is showing a wrong country code is that it is picking that information up from a nearby router. The article goes on to suggest how to find the rogue router and how to deal with the problem.

I don't think so. I am having this problem too. I scanned and all routers in the area are US. There are no non US routers around. I scanned more than once. It is definitely something in the macbook air. My non-Mac laptop does fine with the internet; it is pretty fast. The mac does not seem to work with wifi anywhere. I did diagnostic and country code came up. It said that US is the conflicting country code. I then did a scan for nearby routers, all country codes are US. Not a stray alien router. I can assure you.

 

[dnovo]

Then, the router assumes that your country code is set incorrectly.
Change that. I don't know exactly what setting it might be, but you should be able to track what actually shows as a setting for DE (Germany)
I would start by creating a new Location (in your Networks pref pane), and setting that new location as your primary Location. You would set up your wifi connection as new when you do that, and that may take care of your problem.

It works! Most elegant solution I have found regarding this problem. Only downside is that if you travel a lot you must remember to change the profile to Automatic or create a new one for the specific place you are in because otherwise its always going to want to connect to the primary router you defined for the location.

 

[reknoz]

Totally off-topic and very very late, but...."Jaded Mandarin"!?!? If I'm not mistake that's a lyric from one of the greatest Rock Operas ever, Jesus Christ Superstar, yes? "The Last Supper" number?

 

[aquaus]

Could it be that installing MS Teams changed a setting at a level between hardware and OS X ?
Ever since my Wifi drops of after 10-50 minutes; never had this specific problem in 8 years.
MacBook Pro mid 2012.

It's curious anyway. When I start up from OSX 8.5 I country code is EU and I get the EU channels 13 & 54.
When I start up from OSX 10.5 or later country code is X0 and I can't get the EU channels 13 & 54.
So I guess it's a software setting, or a change in the driver ??

 

[reknoz]

Could it be that installing MS Teams changed a setting at a level between hardware and OS X ?
Ever since my Wifi drops of after 10-50 minutes; never had this specific problem in 8 years.
MacBook Pro mid 2012.

It's curious anyway. When I start up from OSX 8.5 I country code is EU and I get the EU channels 13 & 54.
When I start up from OSX 10.5 or later country code is X0 and I can't get the EU channels 13 & 54.
So I guess it's a software setting, or a change in the driver ??

Your MBP is from 2012. Do you have the original hard disk inside, or has it been replaced and/or upgraded since then? The reason I ask is, hard disks wear out. My experience with Macs is that after 3 years they start showing problems. 5 years they're often unbearable, but 8 years....gotta be switched out before you can start diagnosing other issues.

Both hard disks and new SSDs are quite reasonable in price these days and a repair is really not all that hard. Just prepare a macOS Install USB first and get a USB disk enclosure for the old disk and in about an hour, you'll be sitting pretty.

 

[aquaus]

Your MBP is from 2012. Do you have the original hard disk inside, or has it been replaced and/or upgraded since then? The reason I ask is, hard disks wear out. My experience with Macs is that after 3 years they start showing problems. 5 years they're often unbearable, but 8 years....gotta be switched out before you can start diagnosing other issues.

Both hard disks and new SSDs are quite reasonable in price these days and a repair is really not all that hard. Just prepare a macOS Install USB first and get a USB disk enclosure for the old disk and in about an hour, you'll be sitting pretty.

Thx. I have changed over to 2 SSD's 4 years ago.

 

[urbanhaze]

Folks, this is actually quite an old problem related to a lazy manufacturing issue by some router brands.
(mainly Netgear and ASUS - but possibly others!)

They distribute routers in countries with the incorrect country code - in the UK they distribute routers that broadcast the DE country code rather than the GB one.

When your Mac connects to one of these "rogue" routers it adopts the WiFi country code of the router (DE) whilst other normal neighbouring routers have a country code of GB - which leads to the conflicting country code error message in your wireless diagnostics.

The manufacturers know they broadcast the incorrect country code.
They argue that the wireless laws for DE are the same as GB, so it's easier for them not to have to make the change with different firmware.
And, they don't allow a setting for it to be changed.

Nor is there currently a setting in MacOS to allow incorrect country code to be changed or ignored
(but there probably shouldn't even be one!)

 

[8a183a556bfda6e4939e6638d]

Hello, I had the same issue with macOS wifi country code being incorrect.

Here is a solution that worked for me:

1. Check that the country code on the AP is configured correctly.
2. Open Network Preferences, Create new location, Apply settings, Turn off wifi, Turn on wifi, Delete the new location, Apply settings, Turn off wifi, Turn on wifi, Close Network Preferences.
3. Open System Information.app, go to Wi-Fi and press cmd+r to reload.
4. Et voilà! 🎉