2011 MacBook (10.6.8) connects to AirPort but intermittently won't connect to webpages

Question

I have never experienced this problem before. I know that the problem is not the internet, because the internet works fine on all my other devices, both Windows and Mac. I brought my MacBook in to the Apple Store this morning and they renewed the DHCP and deleted the internet plist files from my system preferences library folder. They ran a hardware diagnostic and my hardware is fine. At the Apple Store, the problem was duplicated also when connected via ethernet cable to the network - so it's not an airport problem.

It's very strange because sometimes the internet works and sometimes it doesn't, so it's very hard to know if a fix works or not. Renewing the DCHP seemed to work at the Apple Store, so I brought it home, and now can't get back on the internet here. I re-renewed the DHCP, re-added my network, manually entered the DNS, rebooted, and still not working. AirPort shows it is connected to the internet, but when I attempt to load a website, it "thinks" for a long time without loading anything and then eventually gives me a "can't establish connection" error message.

My network settings are as follows:

In the main Network window: Status: Connected Network Name: ibahn AirPort is connected to ibahn and has the IP address 10.58.207.44. 802.1X: WPA: Awarenet

On the "Advanced" window:

AirPort tab: Network Name: ibahn Security: None "Remember networks this computer has joined" is selected, all other options not selected. AirPort ID: 10:9a:dd:bb:25:7b

TCP/IP tab: Configure IPv4: "Using DHCP" IPv4 Address: 10.58.207.44 Subnet Mask: 255.255.252.0 Router: 10.58.204.1 Configure IPv6: "Automatically"

DNS tab: DNS Servers: only one in the list - 10.58.207.44 nothing in "Search Domains" field

WINS tab: NetBIOS Name: MACBOOK-5BF526 and next to it it says "MACBOOK5BF526 is currently being used." Workgroup and WINS Servers fields are empty

802.1X tab: User Profiles: WPA: Awarenet Awarenet Profile (both of those are boxes that are checked) "WPA: Awarenet" : User Name - egoodwin; Password - ? (seems to be a password but I have no idea what it is); Authentication - PEAP, TTLS, and EAP-FAST are all enabled, TLS, LEAP and MD5 are disabled; Wireless Network: Awarenet; Security Type: WPA2 Enterprise "Awarenet Profile" User Name - egoodwin; Password - ? (seems to be a password but I have no idea what it is); Authentication - PEAP is enabled, TTLS, TLS, EAP-FAST, LEAP and MD5 are disabled; Wireless Network: Awarenet; Security Type: WPA Enterprise

Proxies tab: under "Select a protocol to configure" no options are selected/enabled

Ethernet tab: Ethernet ID: 10:9a:dd:bb:25:7b Configure: "Automatically" MTU: "Standard (1500)

Anyone have ANY idea what could be wrong? The Awarenet thing seems off, but I'm not sure what that's all about and what the default would be - so if anyone has suggestions or knows what's going wrong, please do tell me!

Answer 1

The main thing that looks odd from the setup that you've mentioned above is the DNS server. It appears that the IP address your computer has allocated is being assigned as the DNS server? If you're not running DNS services on your computer, this won't work very well.

Try to remove the single DNS server (i.e., your computer's IP address) from the list of DNS servers, and see if the machine populates that list with other entries (that were potentially provided via DHCP). If there are no DNS servers listed in that dialog box after you remove the single entry, I'd suspect configuration problems on your network.

Alternately, it may help to manually configure that network interface to use Google's open DNS servers (8.8.8.8, 8.8.4.4) to see if they will respond correctly to DNS lookups.

You can use the Network Utility program at /Applications/Utilities to perform further network troubleshooting. For example, it should be possible to "ping" the DNS server, router (gateway) and some outside host from where you are. This lets you know that your machine can communicate with those devices. First, I'd recommend trying to use Network Utility to ping the DNS servers that are being provided via DHCP. Under the "Ping" tab, you can enter the IP address of each of those hosts, and click "Ping" to see if you get a response. If all of the DNS servers are responding to pings, see if you can ping the gateway (10.58.204.1). If you receive responses for pings to all of the 'internal' hosts, see if you can ping some outside host (gmail.com?) to see if your computer's network traffic is being routed to the Internet.

If all of the ping tests are passing, I'd recommend trying to perform DNS lookups on the servers that are showing up in the DNS table in Network System Preferences. You can use the Network Utility program to perform lookups, but it may be more helpful to diagnose the DNS servers individually using 'nslookup' through the Terminal program. Open Terminal from /Applications/Utilities. When the program opens, you'll see a command prompt. Type in the following queries, and observe whether or not you receive valid responses from all of the DNS servers provided:

nslookup gmail.com 172.16.2.5
nslookup gmail.com 172.18.82.11
nslookup gmail.com 4.2.2.2

Those servers should respond with some answer (and IP address for gmail.com) within milliseconds. If you're seeing the commands hang for excessively long periods, that particular DNS server may not be responding correctly.

It's odd that you're having intermittent issues when using Google's DNS servers...If you're on some larger private network (as it appears you are based on the private addresses being provided), it's possible that traffic is being filtered.

Lastly, the Awarenet profile that you're using is simply utilized for authentication to a wireless access point named "Awarenet" that uses 802.1x (WPA Enterprise) security to authenticate users (you're signing in as egoodwin). If you no longer use/join a Wi-Fi network named "Awarenet" (for work, or school?), the profile can likely be deleted.