Catalina insists on remembering wifi network

[zeppo2]

Ever since I upgraded from High Sierra to Catalina, Network Preferences will not allow "Automatically join this network" to remain unchecked. Then when I join my wifi network, it insists on remembering it, even though I have "Remember networks this computer has joined " unchecked. Also, I have all three "Require administrator authorization " boxes checked.

I even erased my drive and followed with a clean install of Catalina, and it still does this. It did it before I remembered to go into System Preferences>Security & Privacy>General>Advanced. and checkmark "Require an administrator password to access system-wide preferences", and it persists on doing so _after_ I check marked that setting.

Ultimately it will grey out the option to uncheckmark it.

When I unlock it, it remains greyed out, preventing changes. When I join a network, it will un-grey it, and allow me to uncheck it, but if I immediately uncheck it it will recheck it, only allowing it to remain unchecked after a couple of repeated attempts. But, then when I close Network Preferences, when I return I will find this option check marked again. If I close network preferences and then shut the computer down, I find it has also remembered the network. This despite the fact that I never check the remember this network option when first joining the network. This is crazy.

Is there anyone out there that finds this option is actually allowed to work as it should?

I have a Netgear router. Is the router perhaps somehow allowed to have control over my OS X preferences? I've not found any router settings that I can see that would allow this.

 

[DJLC]

If you click "Advanced" in the Wi-Fi network interface, do you see the "Auto-Join" checkboxes marked appropriately? AFAIK that checkbox is a per-network check, and the advanced pane will allow you to see the setting for each known network. You can also disable it remembering networks from there if you never want it to join or remember any network.

For example, at home I have "MairsLink" and "MairsLink Things." I want my Macs on "MairsLink" at all times so they go through my VPN. So my WiFi > Advanced pane looks like this:

This way, I can easily switch to "MairsLink Things" if I need to bypass my VPN, but macOS won't connect to it on its own. This worked great for me on Catalina and now on Big Sur on both my MacBook Pro and Mac mini.

 

[zeppo2]

I turned off wifi and then restarted my computer to trigger the behavior of it adding the particular wifi connection and auto joining it when I turned wifi back on (despite my having unchecked all relevant boxes before closing Network Preferences). So having been auto logged on to this wifi network, I then went to Network preferences, and unlocked to go to Advanced where indeed, I was allowed to uncheck the auto-join box beside this "remembered Network". Again, it shouldn't have remembered it because I had all the settings for it not to do so. But, taking your advice and unchecking it there, returning to first panel and locking it, it seems to have worked and stopped automatically check marking the "Automatically join this network" option. Also, a test of turning off wifi and restarting computer shows it is now content with leaving the auto-join option uncheck. This makes me happy in this respect. Although it is apparent that it will not take "no" for an answer in regard to remembering at least one network. I haven't tried to see how it will handle others yet, but I suspect it just insists on remembering one. I'll reply back with how it handles others. Still very strange to me that is will not be denied in adding at least one network to its list of remembered networks.

 

[zeppo2]

I joined another network connection to test and it responded in the same way, remembering the network and auto joining after turning off wifi, restarting, and turning back on wifi. It auto-joined that previous network I was on. Upon checking Network Preferences, the "Automatically join this network" box was check marked (even though I had it unchecked when I last exited this panel), and going into "Advanced" shows the network listed among those remembered. So now two were remembered, despite the "remember networks this computer has joined box" still being unchecked. The odd thing is that this time, the auto-join box next to this newly remembered second network was unchecked. Yet it had auto-joined anyway. But when I closed out preferences and restarted again to test it, that time it did not auto-join. Really strange behavior all around, I think. Why have a checkbox option for "remember networks this computer has joined box" if its going to be ignored. Why have a checkbox on the opening panel for "Automatically join this network" if it's going to be ignored. Just a source of frustration and very strange.

 

[BrianBaughn]

Check your Keychain. Delete the entry for the wifi network. If you have Keychain syncing on and you connect via another device that is also synced it will come back.

 

[zeppo2]

Check your Keychain. Delete the entry for the wifi network. If you have Keychain syncing on and you connect via another device that is also synced it will come back.

I'll check my devices. Whenever I am prompted when a new OS has been installed, I _always_ opt to run through the set up manually, and in that set up I _always_ opt out of using Keychain. So that will be concerning to me as well if that's the case. Thanks

 

[zeppo2]

Keychain was switched off on my devices. Not in use. Interesting to note, however, that the iPhone, whenever logging on a network, defaults to switching the "auto-join" switch for that network to ON. I would prefer this switch not to be turned on, so that if for instance I use a coffee shop's wifi for instance, it is not defaulted to then logging into their network every time I stop in to the place without me knowing it. So I see now that I will have to remember to click on the circled "i" icon to switch off the auto join. Wish it would default to off.