Unable to connect to WiFi or Hotspot

[scouser75]

hi guys, I’m in a bit of a panic and need help please.

For some reason I’m unable to connect to WiFi or my personal hotspot this morning on my MBP M2 running the latest FW.

I’ve ensured WiFi is definitely on. I’ve re-entered the password. But no luck.

The WiFi is working on all other devices, just not on my MBP.

It was working yesterday without issue.

I did remove McAfee yesterday and am wondering if that may have something to do with it.

Any help or guidance is massively appreciated please.

 

[Ruggy]

The best I can do it to tell you to hold down the option key and then click on the wifi symbol in the bar while holding it.
You'll get an advanced menu with loads of extra info that might help but about 4 lines from the top you'll see 'open wireless diagnostics'
Run that and it might at least point you in the right direction.

 

[scouser75]

Thanks Ruggy I’ll try this now. On the mean time, I got this message

 

[scouser75]

And diagnostic test completed and I have these issues. How can these be fixed? My WiFi is definitely working as all my other devices are working iPhones, Apple TV, PC laptop.

 

[Fishrrman]

I'd suggest you enter the following as the search string in either an ordinary search engine or perhaps an AI search (such as perplexity):

"Mac OS how to correct a self-assigned IP address"

Forum guidelines don't permit the posting of AI responses, but when I looked, it did offer a number of specific things you could try.

 

[scouser75]

I'd suggest you enter the following as the search string in either an ordinary search engine or perhaps an AI search (such as perplexity):

"Mac OS how to correct a self-assigned IP address"

Forum guidelines don't permit the posting of AI responses, but when I looked, it did offer a number of specific things you could try.

Thanks Fishrrman. I’ll try this when I’m home. In the meantime, what would cause this issue?

 

[scouser75]

I’m home. Tried renewing the DHCP Lease. That didn’t work. I created new network. That didn’t work either. I’ve restarted the Mac and modem a 1000 times. Nothing is working.

There was a file I could’ve deleted but I don’t have that file.

Totally lost now and desperate as I have so much to do.

 

[Bigwaff]

I’m home. Tried renewing the DHCP Lease. That didn’t work. I created new network. That didn’t work either. I’ve restarted the Mac and modem a 1000 times. Nothing is working.

There was a file I could’ve deleted but I don’t have that file.

Totally lost now and desperate as I have so much to do.

Have you tried "Forget This Network..." button? You don't explicitly state you have tried this.

 

[Fishrrman]

"Totally lost now and desperate as I have so much to do."

I wrote this while waff made his suggestion above.
Try that first.
No good? Then read on...

I'll offer a couple of suggestions.
The first may not help. But it's worth a try.
The second probably WILL help... but it's more of a job.

First suggestion:
- Go to the users & groups setting pane
- Create a new user and BE SURE to give it administrative priviliges
- Give it any name and password you like. You don't have to set any other things up.
- Now log out of your current account, and log into the NEW account.
- Try to establish a connection to the net. Does anything change?
If you find that you can now get on the net with the new account, this points to SOMETHING in your main account that is preventing this. You'll have to find out what it is -- this is not an easy job. You have to become "the detective".

Second suggestion:
- you MUST BACK UP ALL PERSONAL DATA ON YOUR INTERNAL SSD onto an external drive. If you don't do this, you will LOSE all personal data, 3rd party apps, etc.
- once done, open system settings
- in the search box at the top, enter "erase all content" and hit return
- you should now see the "erase all content and settings" option to the right.
- click it and enter your password to proceed. REMEMBER, ALL YOUR PERSONAL DATA IS GOING TO BE ERASED.
- follow the instructions. it really only takes a short time.
- once this is done, your MBP is now returned to "moment zero" -- the moment you first took it out of the box and turned it on.
- you should be offered the opportunity to choose your language and begin setup. Do so.
- before going further, connect your backup (see final thoughts at end).
- setup assistant will ask if you wish to migrate from another drive. YES, you do, so point the way so that sa can see your backup.
- give sa time to digest things.
- now you can choose what should be migrated.
- once that's done, turn sa loose and let it do its thing.
This should restore the MBP to where it was "before".

FINAL THOUGHTS:
The problem with restoring to "where you were before" is that you might also "restore the problem" that's keeping you off-line.

You could try this:
Choose to migrate apps
Choose to migrate accounts
Choose to migrate data
BUT
DO NOT migrate your "settings" -- this could be where the problem is.
Yes, I realize that means setting things up manually again.

It's really up to you.
You might consider migrating everything.
Then... if the problem is still there... WIPE IT AGAIN with erase all content and settings, and THE NEXT TIME don't restore settings (as mentioned above).

See what I said about it being "a job" ?

Hmmmm...
Do you have a brick n mortar Apple Store anywhere near?
Why not make an appt. for the genius bar and take it to them?

 

[scouser75]

Have you tried "Forget This Network..." button? You don't explicitly state you have tried this.

"Totally lost now and desperate as I have so much to do."

I wrote this while waff made his suggestion above.
Try that first.
No good? Then read on...

I'll offer a couple of suggestions.
The first may not help. But it's worth a try.
The second probably WILL help... but it's more of a job.

First suggestion:
- Go to the users & groups setting pane
- Create a new user and BE SURE to give it administrative priviliges
- Give it any name and password you like. You don't have to set any other things up.
- Now log out of your current account, and log into the NEW account.
- Try to establish a connection to the net. Does anything change?
If you find that you can now get on the net with the new account, this points to SOMETHING in your main account that is preventing this. You'll have to find out what it is -- this is not an easy job. You have to become "the detective".

Second suggestion:
- you MUST BACK UP ALL PERSONAL DATA ON YOUR INTERNAL SSD onto an external drive. If you don't do this, you will LOSE all personal data, 3rd party apps, etc.
- once done, open system settings
- in the search box at the top, enter "erase all content" and hit return
- you should now see the "erase all content and settings" option to the right.
- click it and enter your password to proceed. REMEMBER, ALL YOUR PERSONAL DATA IS GOING TO BE ERASED.
- follow the instructions. it really only takes a short time.
- once this is done, your MBP is now returned to "moment zero" -- the moment you first took it out of the box and turned it on.
- you should be offered the opportunity to choose your language and begin setup. Do so.
- before going further, connect your backup (see final thoughts at end).
- setup assistant will ask if you wish to migrate from another drive. YES, you do, so point the way so that sa can see your backup.
- give sa time to digest things.
- now you can choose what should be migrated.
- once that's done, turn sa loose and let it do its thing.
This should restore the MBP to where it was "before".

FINAL THOUGHTS:
The problem with restoring to "where you were before" is that you might also "restore the problem" that's keeping you off-line.

You could try this:
Choose to migrate apps
Choose to migrate accounts
Choose to migrate data
BUT
DO NOT migrate your "settings" -- this could be where the problem is.
Yes, I realize that means setting things up manually again.

It's really up to you.
You might consider migrating everything.
Then... if the problem is still there... WIPE IT AGAIN with erase all content and settings, and THE NEXT TIME don't restore settings (as mentioned above).

See what I said about it being "a job" ?

Hmmmm...
Do you have a brick n mortar Apple Store anywhere near?
Why not make an appt. for the genius bar and take it to them?

Thanks Lads.

bigwaff I tried forget network earlier and it didn’t fix the issue.

Fishrrman thanks for the detailed instructions. I’ll go through these instructions after I’ve had a bite to eat.

 

[scouser75]

Right, I’m back. And noticed something rather odd. When I restart or shut down and start again, the last web page I was on loads and new emails drop in. But I can’t then continue loading new web pages or receive new emails after that. So WiFi is working for a brief second or so then drops.

@Fishrrman I was planning and dreading the same thing you suggested. A full reset. This is the last thing I want to do, but it’s increasingly seeming like the only thing I can do. Gutted as I don’t have the time nor energy to do this 😭

 

[Fishrrman]

I went searching through my archives, and found this text file that I had saved.
I don't know if it will help.
Credit to the fellow who came up with it...
==========================
satcomer said: ↑
Do this now!
1. Turn off your wireless in your troubled Mac.
2. Open System Preferences->Network tab and highlight your Airport card.
3. In the right hand pane click on the 'Advanced' button.
4. In the main 'Wi-Fi' mini-tab delete all 'Previous Networks' connections.
5. The save out and then go to the application /Applications/Utilities/Keychain Access.app and in that application find the entries for your wireless router.
6. Then go back into your System Preferences->Network pane and highlight your Wi-Fi card again and use the pane to turn on your wireless again and use that to rejoin your wireless network.
7. Put in your username/password again and rejoin and save the password again.

 

[Publicstaticvoid]

Just a thought, but often a self assigned IP address means that the router wasn’t contacted correctly to get said IP address. Don’t have access to my Mac right now, but somewhere in the settings of wifi connections, you have the option to specify local network settings like a dhcp server manually, which might have been done by McAffe. Have you looked there?

 

[scouser75]

Thank you both for this. Really appreciate the help ❤️

I’ll have a look at both these suggestions in the morning as me head hurts from all the trying to get this fixed. Was also out till late last night so an early night is needed. Old age setting in I think 🤣

Although, I know I’m not going to sleep well with all the stressing to get this fixed.

 

[scouser75]

Last night, I hooked up the laptop to my external drive and began the process of transferring all my documents, film and music files, desktop items and anything else I had on the laptop.

Woke up this morning to find either errors on some of the transfers, so things didn't move across, or weirdly some items such as my pictures file had differing file sizes by a few GB - so the transferred file was short of around 3gb. Why would this happen?

So I started the whole process again. This finished around 6pm.

I then tried @Publicstaticvoid suggestion but just couldn't figure out how to do this.

By this point I was a broken man and didn't want to start the full fresh install in this state of mind in case I messed up anything. Really cannot afford to do that! So I thought I'd begin the process after a shower and some food.

Came back to the laptop, still a broken man, and sat down ready to begin the process. By now I was physical and mentally drained at the though so got a bit lazy and tried renewing the DCHP Lease one last time. Then hit MacRumors....
...
...
...
...
...
...
😃 It worked. Oh the relief. And my wife saw the relief too and came and gave me a hug. She knew just how stressed I was last night and all day today.

A massive thank you again guys for your help on this. As always, I appreciate all the help and advice and tips you have given me over this issue.

Now I'm off to move all my documents to OneDrive and then do a full Time Machine backup.