"Safari says you not connected to the internet"et"

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Well I found a place for some help. I have had a MAC for a few years and my experience is very basic, I have a desktop OS X version 10.5.8
I have AT&T for internet service and an airport for my brides laptop downstairs. Most times when I turn the computer on it says i am not connected to the internet so i restart the computer even though i just turned it on. if in the sleep mode it is a given it will give that message. My wandering around thinking i can "fix" something has caused me to spend hours on the phone with the ISP to get my internet back. I use AOL for my mail and my browser. Helping me will be like putting training wheels on a bike and grabbing your child and going outside so you were warned. lol.
Appreciate any and all help.
 
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I have noticed that it takes about 20 or so seconds for my iMac to connect to the internet after waking up from sleep mode. If i close safari and wait a few more seconds then open it again I get a good connection.
 
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I have AT&T internet service as well, and no such issues with my connection after the computer has been in sleep mode. So what did the AT&T support people tell you?
 
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They told me there is nothing wrong with the connection as long as the green lights are on the modem they supplied. Safari says that it cannot locate such and such because I am not on the internet so what gives? My wife's laptop downstairs same thing. It wasn't always like that though. Friend claims AOL has a curse on my computer.
 
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Do you have another web browser installed? If not, it might be hard to get one if you can't use Safari to download. If you do have another browser, does it exhibit the same problem?

There are various plist files that might be culprits, but, I'm not recommending replacing any since I don't know exactly what they are used for. Maybe someone else can help with that.

Another thing to try is using a different user account. Make one for testing if you only have the one you use now.
 
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Recently added Firefox and if Safari shows the message"not connected to internet" Firefox shows the same thing. Turning the computer on just now it went directly to AOL, my homepage, then when I clicked on my mail it said it couldn't find the mail 'because .....annoying but tolerable. I looked up what a plist file was and I was completely lost within seconds. lol.
 

J-L


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Is your computer connected to your router by wire or wireless?

If it is wireless try using a physical connection and see if that allows you to get onto the internet. After trying this, if everything works fine then we know it is a problem with your wireless (could be settings or router) and not the actual internet connection.

As the problem occurs on more than one machine, we might be able to rule out the computer being the problem here.

On another note, you could always try removing the connection and settings from your machines and try to set up the connection again, though you probably need to get some one who has used a Mac before to help you with that. (I am looking at switching to Mac at the moment I just can not decided which one I want)
 
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My computer is connected to the router by wire, wife's by wireless. Working with AT&T they have said everything is fine well it's not. If the wireless connection was the culprit i was told to investigate the signal strength going downstairs. I can see my neighbors wireless signal names on the computer. Would it be possible someone is pirating our signal and that be the cause? But then why would that have an effect on my computer. Having been reading up on this for a while i believe it may be a setting. Me and changing settings have been down some dark paths before.
 
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chas_m

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Have you eliminated the possibility that you just need to wait a bit and let the problem sort itself out? I've seen this on some routers when "IP limits" are imposed (ie a limit was set on how many computers could join the network).

Sometimes, waiting a bit fixes things. Not always, or even often, but sometimes. :)
 

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Whilst I will say that yes it is a possibility that someone could have gained entry to your router via wireless and played with the settings to make it harder for you to connect to the internet, the chances of someone actually doing that are very low and there is no real reason why someone would an intermittent problem.

Anyway from what you have now told me we can eliminate the wireless part of the router or the wireless settings as the culprit of the problem and from what I have said before its more than one computer so it eliminates the chances of it being improper settings on a computer causing it and then your provider does not believe it is a problem on their end.

So by process of elimination my dear Watson we can quite probably say that there is either a problem with the router itself or some settings on it as those are the only two weak points left in the chain.

However I would say, if you are able to borrow an old router off of someone and test it (make sure that it works if it is an old one) make sure it is all properly configured according to your ISP to see if the problem continues. If it does then we may have to go back to the drawing board and see what else we can try.

On the chance that you are able to do this and it does work, then we can either try to sort out your router or you could just buy a new one.

@chas_m It is a possibility and it may be that if others are accessing their network it could be pushing over that limit, so I guess it begs the question to TC have you secured your wireless network?
 
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Macbook Pro, 2.4GHz Core2 Duo 10.6.8, MacMini
First off you might want to check out a few initial things.. Do you have programs that start automatically when you start the computer. Check your startup by going to System Preferences -> Accounts -> Login Items.

Here is where you will find what programs start up when you start your computer. A lot of programs will add themselves to this list and can also slow down things.

You also might want to check what programs are running and constantly updating, what you are leaving running ect.

How much space do you have left on your computer? How much ram do you have? I'm not sure of what will slow down a mac, if a lot of icons on the desktop will slow things...

Hope that helps...
 
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chas,
good point. Janet's computer works fine first thing in the morning, from there it will slow down and claim "no internet connection"

JL.
At&T has checked the router however they do it from the tree they are sitting in and claim it is ok.

aqua,
going to check your suggestions and see what happens.
Many thanks to all for your help...
 

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Yeah I know they probably say its fine and that is why I suggested if you can test it with another router.

Well let us know how changing your settings work out. As at the end of the day its worth giving any idea a try as sometimes it can be something small that was overlooked.

In addition to what Aqua said about start-up/running programs maybe have a closer look at those that are running on both your machines.
 
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also you should repair permissions after every update.. (You may see a lot that never go away and often they can be ignored)

Launch Disk Utility. (Applications/Utilities) Select MacintoshHD in the panel on the left, select the FirstAid tab. Click: Repair Disk Permissions. When it's finished from the Menu Bar, Quit Disk Utility and restart your Mac. If you see a long list of "messages" in the permissions window, it's ok. That can be ignored. As long as you see, "Permissions Repair Complete" when it's finished... you're done. Quit Disk Utility and *restart your Mac.*

You could download Onyx (free) and use that to do some necessary maintenance (you can also fix preferences in there also).
 
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Ive found since upgrading to lion i know have to disable the wireless and re-enable to get a connection first thing in morning. whereas previous i just had to wait a few seconds for it to reconnect. Once connected all is fine, so can live with it, since its only a few clicks, hopefully its just a bug that will get sorted.
 

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