How to help AirPort recall passwords

Jul 07, '09 07:30:03AM

Contributed by: davewashere

The following situation describes a common problem people seem to be having with AirPort reconnections. While most people do not seem to have these symptoms, many, including me, have experienced the following problem with AirPort:

You connect to a password-protected wireless network. In the process, you check the box requesting that AirPort remember the network and password. When you start up your computer, or when you restart your AirPort card, AirPort connects to your preferred network with no difficulty. Hooray, AirPort remembers the password!

However, if you get disconnected and try to reconnect without restarting AirPort or rebooting, AirPort prompts you for a password. For some reason, AirPort forgets that it already has the password. If you try to switch networks on-the-fly, the same thing happens -- AirPort seems to forget that it already has the password.

What's really going on here is that on-the-fly network switches utilize password and permission information from the user's keychain, and the keychain does not have the correct information. This is somewhat more likely to be a problem on systems with more than one user account.

Here's how to solve the problem:

  1. Open the KeyChain Access application; it's in Applications » Utilities.
  2. Under Keychains, select Login; under Category, select All Items.
  3. Look for a key with the same name as your SSID, and double-click it to bring up the Edit menu. (If one does not exist, create it by clicking on the [+] and entering the following information in the dialog box: for Name, use your SSID; for Account Name, use your SSID; for Password, use your wireless network password. When you return to the Keychain Access menu, double-click on it to bring up the edit menu.)
  4. Click on Attributes and edit any of the following information that is incorrect:
  5. Click on Access Control and edit any of the following information that is incorrect: Click Save Changes and back out.
The next time you switch to the network, you'll probably get prompted for a password. But after that, you shouldn't get any more unnecessary password prompts.

[robg adds: I haven't seen this problem, and I haven't tested this solution.]

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