My internet connection on just ONE of my Macs has gone down for no reason.

Hippychick

Member
It’s fine on my Mac Mini, but on my iMac the browser window just hangs. (Thank God for spare Macs!).

I’ve done all the network stuff & diagnostics says it’s all tickety boo, & even added new codes to DNS on advice of a MacWorld troubleshooting page.

It’s been wobbly all day, & got Google back briefly (search field) then the spinning wheel of doom came up.

I’ve reset the router & turned off & on again, but it’s not that if this Mac is ok. Am now thinking it’s Safari or even hardware. Can anyone throw some light? I’m very much a user & not a tech as rarely have problems.

Any advice would be gratefully received.
 
Not mac orientated so can't really go that direction but my checks would be:

Is it actually connected to the router, ie things like connecting to your wifi access point, using the right password etc
Can you ping the router (no idea if macs can do this). On windows it's ping 192.168.1.1 in command prompt or powershell. You can also ping a web address to see if it's going outside of your network too.
Is it on a fixed IP (I have all my hardware on fixed internal ip's) and if it does it conflict with another device
Reset of all the devices.
Have you added anything new to your network, if you have your router may have ran out of allowed IP addresses to assign (another reason I go fixed IP's). Maybe try turning all other wifi devices off and just using the imac, then turning on one by one to see if any interfere.
Anything which might be interfering with the wifi, I know it's a pain but does the iMac connect in another room?
You could try installing firefox or chrome (you'll need to grab the offline installers and transfer it) and see if they connect to rule out safari too.
If you have windows installed via bootcamp or parallels does that connect to the internet

Does you imac have a lan port, if it does maybe try seeing if you can connect to the internet if it's plugged in, it might be the wifi's buggered. If not maybe try picking up a cheap usb wifi dongle (that can run on os-x obviously)
 
As Levi says.

Have you updated Safari?
Are other programmes that use the internet working like Skype or something similar?

I had issues with my MacBook connecting and then it just stopped.
I've found my issue to be a hardware problem, either the wifi card or the connecting ribbon so I'm hard wired to the hub for now. BOO! :(

Try the above in Levi's post to eliminate the simple things like trying another browser, moving the iMac closer and stuff first.

BTW. A world of caution.
I bought a Mac wifi adapter from Maplin (before they closed) and the driver I downloaded sent my MacBook into a re-start loop and it took me ages for me to get in and delete the driver.
Also, many wifi adapters driver software comes on a mini DVD/CD and they don't fit in the superdrive slots so you have to download the driver via the internet.
Bit of a Catch 22 when your internet isn't working. :(
 
How to Back up Safari Bookmarks & Passwords
  1. Click on the “Finder” icon in the Dock to open up a Finder window. Click on “Go” in the menu bar and then hold down the “Option” key to display the “Library” option. Click on “Library” to open up your user Library folder.
  2. Open the “Safari” folder and then right-click on “Bookmarks.plist.” Select “Copy” to copy the file.
  3. Navigate to your backup folder, right-click and select “Paste Item” to paste a copy of the bookmarks file into the folder.
  4. Return to the Library and open the “Keychains” folder. Copy the “login.keychain” file.
  5. Navigate to your backup folder and paste the file into it.

Here's the reset instructions for Safari - it will reset back to the factory settings.
  1. Click on “Safari” located in the menu bar in the top left hand corner of the screen
  2. Click on “Reset Safari...”
  3. Place a checkmark beside all available options
  4. Press the “Reset” button
  5. Click on the Hard Drive icon located on the desktop
  6. Browse to “Users > (Users Home) > Library > Safari folder”
  7. Drag every file except “Bookmarks.plist” into the Trash
  8. Browse to “User > (Users Home) > Library > Preferences”
  9. Locate “com.apple.Safari.plist”, “com.apple.internetconfigpriv.plist” and “com.apple.internetconfig.plist” and drag them to the trash. NOTE: If “com.apple.internetconfigpriv.plist” does not exist, ignore it and just trash the other two files
  10. Restart Safari
 
Thanks for ALL that advice & will explore later. Randomly, I'm in Google again but can't connect to Twitter which is odd cos fine on here.

Much appreciated.
 
Thanks for ALL that advice & will explore later. Randomly, I'm in Google again but can't connect to Twitter which is odd cos fine on here.

Much appreciated.
That sounds like maybe the dns cache is bugged or the browser needs resetting to default.

Not sure if you can clear out dns cache on macs, I know I can on windows using cmd prompt or powershell with the command ipconfig /flushdns.

As to a reset follow Hanks guide up there :)

edit: seems you can flush your dns but my god that seems convoluted compared with windows lol
https://help.dreamhost.com/hc/en-us/articles/214981288-Flushing-your-DNS-cache-in-Mac-OS-X-and-Linux
 
Be careful flushing things!

9b16767ba79213f2cc9644f3119155c2--nerd-stuff-funny-things.jpg
 
I was about to turn my monitors around alongside each other so I could go through all of this advice step by step when I tried one more time and it connected to everything again. No idea what happened as I understand server problems as server my website is 'on' sometimes goes down in middle of the night, so wouldn't have access on ANY Mac, but in this case, some were fine on one Mac, but not on the other. Only thing that's different now is new DNS codes in addition to 192.168.1.1 – only that DIDN'T help at the time, but is all good now. Random glitch? Who knows, but thanks again for advice & will refer to if I have same problem again.
 
I had an issue with seeing different versions of my site a while back. It was due to the DNS settings on my router. I changed the default DNS on my Mac to Google's (8.8.8.8) to bypass the router and it worked fine.
 
It was because my ISP (Virgin) were showing me their cached version of my site. I had to bypass their DNS to connect to the live version of my site. It was a bit of a pain to be honest.
Virgin . . . took them 3 MONTHS to hook me up when I moved to London & had to do banking & order furniture etc. using wifi in local wine bar. But been using same hosting outfit for 20 years – slightest glitch/issue & they're on it immediately.
 
Personally I've not had any issues with them yet. I was with Plusnet for years. Avoid that company at all costs. After they were bought by BT their support went downhill fast.
 
Personally I've not had any issues with them yet. I was with Plusnet for years. Avoid that company at all costs. After they were bought by BT their support went downhill fast.
I chose KT Hosting when I did first website living in Bristol. Based in Glasgow & a small outfit, perhaps that's their secret. Never known a service like it & have told them as much. For 20 YEARS!
 
I have a Digital Ocean server for my hosting, it's cheap but I had to set up everything myself. I used Servage in the past and Site5 but they've really gone downhill. I find a cheap VPS is more than enough for what I need.
 
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