Wireless and Password

[TheFallGuy]

I'm on vacation and visiting my family-in-law has a wireless set-up with WEP encryption. I'm able to get access to the internet and stuff, but what is bugging me the most is that each time I close my laptop, or it goes to powersave, or I turn it off I have to re-enter the network name and password to do anything.

Is there anyway to save the settings so I don't have to do this each time I want to surf the net? This is getting annoying.

 

[OutThere]

Check the 'save in keychain' box when you put in the password.

 

[TheFallGuy]

Check the 'save in keychain' box when you put in the password.

Unfortunately that option isn't available. All I have is a "Show Password" checkbox.

Honestly, the windows machines don't have to re-enter everything each time they want to surf the internet.

 

[telecomm]

This should work without you having to do anything, but sometimes the network info seems to need a bit of prodding.

The next time you're connected, go to System Preferences>Network, select Airport, then the Airport tab, and change "By Default, join: Automatic" to "Preferred Networks". Make sure the network you're trying to connect to is in the list, and move it to the top of the list (you can also check to see that the password is saved correctly). Apply changes, and things should work. Also, if you now switch back to "Automatic", things should continue to work properly without you having to re-enter everything.

 

[Makosuke]

telecomm's suggestion should do it, but I'm a bit disappointed with how inconsistent the network password memory seems to be on 10.4. My MBP, entered it once, never once been asked for it since through dozens of sleep cycles and several reboots. I set up an Intel iMac, same thing. I set up an Intel Mini... and it took me an hour to get it to remember the password.

Even then, it would refuse to reconnect automatically after boot to a hidden network--I needed to turn the airport card off then back on again to get it to "remember" the saved network. It's as if the Airport subsystem was loading before wherever it kept track of passwords, so it needed to be forced to re-check to find it. Windows on the same computer, ironically, worked fine.

 

[TheFallGuy]

This should work without you having to do anything, but sometimes the network info seems to need a bit of prodding.

The next time you're connected, go to System Preferences>Network, select Airport, then the Airport tab, and change "By Default, join: Automatic" to "Preferred Networks". Make sure the network you're trying to connect to is in the list, and move it to the top of the list (you can also check to see that the password is saved correctly). Apply changes, and things should work. Also, if you now switch back to "Automatic", things should continue to work properly without you having to re-enter everything.

This sounds great, but I don't see the network in the list, just my home network. How do I add it to the list?

 

[telecomm]

That's strange, if you're connected it should be in the Preferred Networks list (I think it's supposed to add any protected network that you've connected to). However, there is a "+" button at the bottom left corner of the list, so you should be able to click that, enter the details of the network, and connect without problems. Best of luck.