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fixed : internet on wireless but not on LAN according to AirPort Utility

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Question :

Lately I have had a bad and unstable internet connection. I have a Mac and it has been working fine for years. My internet provider is Vodafone-Ziggo.

I tried to find out what was wrong using the AirPortUtility.app on my Mac, and I found something strange : when selecting my wireless WiFi-network, my internet connection is presumed working, but when selecting my wired LAN-network, I get an error message saying there is no internet connection.

If it would have been the other way around, I could think of an explanation… but having wireless internet connection from my router and not LAN-internet just doesn’t make sense…

I’ve tried numerous resets of the Ziggo-modem, of my TimeCapsule and of my Mac. Nothing helps.

Do you have any suggestions on fixing this ?

 

Answer :

Even though you’ve tried most of the available options already, there is one other thing I would suggest to try :

  • make sure the UTP/Ethernet/LAN-cable is correctly connected into both your Mac and the ‘local network device’ (be it a TimeCapsule, a router, a modem, a network-switch or a wall-socket)
  • then, on your Mac : click on the Apple-icon (top-left on your Mac’s desktop screen)
  • in the pulldown menu, click on “System Preferences”
  • in the window that opens (“System Preferences”), click on “Network”
  • in the window that opens (“Network”), click on “Ethernet” in the list on the left
  • in the info that appears on the right, check if it says “Status : Connected”
  • if it doesn’t, your UTP/Ethernet/LAN-cable isn’t connected properly, so check all network-cables again until it says “Status : Connected”
  • then, click the Advanced-button
  • in the window that opens, click on the DNS-tab
  • in the info that opens, at “DNS Servers:” make sure that you have at least included one of the following DNS Servers : 8.8.8.8 (Google), 8.8.4.4 (Google), 208.67.222.222 (OpenDNS) and/or 208.67.220.220 (OpenDNS)
  • if none of those DNS Servers are listed yet, add them by clicking on the +/Plus-button bottom-left
  • then click on the Proxies-tab (of the elongated TCP/IP-button)
  • in the info that opens, make sure to remove the check-mark at both “Web Proxy (HTTP)” and “Secure Web Proxy (HTTPS)”
  • in case both were already switched OFF, I would suggest to switch both of them to ON
  • then leave the rest as is, and click on the OK-button
  • in the previous window that appears, click the “Apply”
  • now check the AirPortUtility.app again, and you should see that the internet connection is back up for both the wireless and wired/LAN connection
  • also check by opening Safari (or another internet browser) and refresh the page by clicking on the circular arrow in the address bar

That’s it !

enjoy 😉

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fixed : use one printer in two networks at the same time

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Question :

I have a network printer on my (private) network that I would like to make available to the people on my AirPort Guest Network, but I don’t want guests to access my private network.

Is there a way to do this ?

 

Answer :

There are options to do this, but it can’t be done the way you would find most elegant probably… the problem is the restriction in AirPort Guest Networks that users can’t connect to each other, so adding the printer to the AirPort Guest Network won’t make it available to any AirPort Guest Network user.

On the other hand, an other restriction on most network printers is that they only have one Ethernet-card that is shared between the UTP-cable port and the WiFi connection, so the cable-connection and the WiFi-connection will always have the same IP-address, making it impossible to connect the cable to your private network and joining the Guest Network using the WiFi-connection at the same time…

Your best option is to connect the Ethernet/UTP-cable and/or the printer’s WiFi to your private network and creating a separate network to be used as a Guest Network to which the printer can be connected using it’s USB-cable. Since you will need an extra wireless router or an extra (secondhand) AirPort Base Station or Time Capsule to create this separate Guest Network, you can plug the printer’s USB-cable into that wireless router / AirPort Base Station / Time Capsule.

You could also use a printer server, if it isn’t possible to connect the printer’s USB-cable into the wireless router / AirPort Base Station / Time Capsule. You can find relatively cheap print servers on Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.de

Regarding the setup of your networks, you will probably be best off doing it like this :

  • set your internet modem in router mode (if you would set it in bridge mode, you wouldn’t be able to connect two separate networks behind it)
  • connect both routers (or AirPort Base Station or Time Capsule) to the internet modem
  • setup one router (or AirPort Base Station or Time Capsule) to create the private network and private WiFi network
  • setup the other router (or AirPort Base Station or Time Capsule) to create the Guest Network and Guest WiFi Network
  • make sure that the IP-ranges issued by both routers are completely different (to prevent easy connection from the Guest Network to your private network (and the other way around)
  • if any of your routers give a “Double NAT” error, just ignore it

That’s it !

the only downsite is that having such a complex network setup with multiple routers will have negative influence on your (internet) connection speed ; this difference in speed will probably not be very big if you have few devices connected, but if you have a lot of devices connected that also use a lot of bandwidth (like video streaming) you will probably have slower internet speed than you used to…

enjoy !