# Mac Wifi broken?



## bsabiston (Sep 16, 2010)

Hello,

  Ever since I got my Kindle 3 in September I've been connecting wirelessly through my iMac.  It uses 'internet sharing' to generate a Wifi hotspot.  I never had a problem with it until I returned from vacation and now it does not work anymore.  It won't connect to the network, even though it shows up in the menu.

I can't remember if I installed any updates that might have broken this.  I think maybe OS X 10.6.5 update did it, but I am not sure.

Anyone else have this issue or know how to fix it?

Thanks Bob


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## Sandpiper (Oct 28, 2008)

I am so not techie.  Wish I was.  "Internet sharing"?  I have MacBook Pro and AirPort Extreme router.  Everything works fine.  (I'm not superstitious, but I always -- knock-on-wood.   Don't want to take any chances.)


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## angelmum3 (Sep 12, 2010)

My dh is the computer geek - (software engineer) and his first solution always includes - shut it off and restart to see if that will help...


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## bsabiston (Sep 16, 2010)

yeah, I have tried restarting.  

'Internet sharing' a thing that lets the computer create a wireless connection point when you have no wireless router.  I don't have a wireless router so this was my only way to have the Kindle connect (except through wired USB which is painful when you have become used to the wireless working).

Bob


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## CoffeeCat (Sep 13, 2010)

Funny, my family has an iMac and I never realized this feature existed (MBP user here).

Aside from the restart method, have you checked the Apple Support forums? There's a lot of great info on there about getting the internet sharing up and running again. Good luck!


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## Mike D. aka jmiked (Oct 28, 2008)

bsabiston said:


> Ever since I got my Kindle 3 in September I've been connecting wirelessly through my iMac. It uses 'internet sharing' to generate a Wifi hotspot.


This is called an Ad Hoc Network and is not supported by the Kindle WiFi. I can't answer your next question, which is likely: "Then why did it work before?"

The Kindle WiFi officially only supports connect through a WiFi router.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200505540

"Kindle does not connect to enterprise or ad-hoc Wi-Fi networks (networks that allow peer-to-peer connections without a wireless access point). "

Mike


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## tsemple (Apr 27, 2009)

jmiked said:


> This is called an Ad Hoc Network and is not supported by the Kindle WiFi. I can't answer your next question, which is likely: "Then why did it work before?"
> 
> The Kindle WiFi officially only supports connect through a WiFi router.
> 
> ...


In theory, OS X 'Internet Sharing' _should_ work with Kindle, just as it works with my iPod Touch, Windows laptops, etc. This is not the same as a peer-to-peer wireless connection, which you can also set up, and which sets up a private network between two computers without sharing an internet connection. The Kindle error message is different for each case. (I'm as mystified as you as to how it ever worked for bsabiston, I've never gotten it to work with my MacbookPro - but then I have a wifi router so I don't care so much.)

(secure) Enterprise wireless is set up with SSL certificates which need to be physically installed on the wireless device. Kindle does not support that. Nor, will it connect to a wireless network if it cannot 'see' the Internet (e.g. if a wifi router's internet connection is down). Of course a peer-to-peer connection also does not support 'seeing' the Internet (Amazon seems to assume that if you can't access the Internet, you have no use for a wifi connection of any sort - but they are wrong.)


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## bsabiston (Sep 16, 2010)

Yeah, that is my next question.  It worked fine for three months.  

I checked my Kindle, and it seems that they do not install updates automatically.  At least, my Kindle is on version 3.01 and I notice that they are now on 3.02 or 3.03.   So it seems like my Kindle did not change.

What is also weird is that I have several iMacs, and I just tried another iMac which I have not yet updated to 10.6.5.  And it doesn't work either!  So I am really wondering now why it worked before, and how to get it working again.

Bob


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## obijohn (Dec 26, 2010)

I started a thread about this a couple of weeks ago. I found a thread on Amazon.co.uk about it as well. As far as I can tell, there is no solution to this problem, and there is no reason why it shouldn't work since OS X Internet Sharing is a true hotspot and does not an ad-hoc or enterprise network. I have a _lot_ of devices that connect to this network, everything from a Nintendo DS to a PSP to a 6-yr-old Blackberry and every other device I have ever tried. Basically, if it has wifi it can connect -- except, that is, for the Kindle 3.

I am starting to believe this is just the result of a pissing match between Apple and Amazon because of Apple's iBooks. And the only people who are hurt by it, as usual in this kind of situation, are their customers.


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## bsabiston (Sep 16, 2010)

Did you have my situation, where it was working and then stopped?  Or has it never worked for you?  I am still trying to figure out what changed about my setup that broke it.

Bob


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## obijohn (Dec 26, 2010)

bsabiston said:


> Did you have my situation, where it was working and then stopped? Or has it never worked for you? I am still trying to figure out what changed about my setup that broke it.
> 
> Bob


Nope, never worked for me once. I did see one other report where a guy claims it worked for him when changed the way he input the password, but I've NEVER gotten it to work, even when I turned off security so no password was needed at all.


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## tsemple (Apr 27, 2009)

It seemed I had to set up WEP security (either 40 or 128 bit) to get it to work with my iPod Touch. But neither worked with K3.

I'm wondering if there are some under-the-hood networking settings that could be changed on OS X to get it to work (that aren't available via GUI).

But I think the onus is on Amazon to fix it.


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## obijohn (Dec 26, 2010)

Ok, this does appear to be an issue with Apple's Internet Sharing DHCP server. Setting the Kindle to use a manual IP (I used 10.0.2.252) for that network gets it to connect. I go into more detail about it here.


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## bsabiston (Sep 16, 2010)

Wow, thanks!  It is a minor pain to have to type all those numbers in using the Kindle 'sym' numbers menu, but at least it works!  All I did was look at the network settings on my iphone and increment the last number of the IP address.  (I changed it from 10.0.2.9 to 10.0.2.99).

Bob


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## tsemple (Apr 27, 2009)

bsabiston said:


> Wow, thanks! It is a minor pain to have to type all those numbers in using the Kindle 'sym' numbers menu, but at least it works! All I did was look at the network settings on my iphone and increment the last number of the IP address. (I changed it from 10.0.2.9 to 10.0.2.99).
> 
> Bob


Indeed, that worked for me as well! Thanks!

BTW you can enter numbers with Alt+'letter' where 'q'=1, 'w'=2, ..., 'o'=9, 'p'=0. Much easier than using Sym.


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