Cannot access home WiFi.

Having Trouble Connecting Your MacBook Air to Home Wi-Fi?

Since everything was working before you connected to a friend's Wi-Fi, and you're now relying on your iPhone hotspot, there are a few things worth checking.

Connecting to someone else's Wi-Fi shouldn't normally affect your ability to reconnect at home. It may simply be a coincidence, but let's work through the possible causes.

These instructions are for your MacBook Air 13-inch running macOS 27 Golden Gate.

1. Before changing anything on your Mac, let's make sure the problem isn't with your router or internet connection. Turn off Personal Hotspot on your iPhone, connect your iPhone to your home Wi-Fi and try opening Safari.

If your iPhone connects and you can browse the internet, your router and internet service are probably working. We can then concentrate on your MacBook.

If your iPhone can't connect either, the problem may be with your router or internet provider.

Apple's guidance: Connect to the internet with your Mac.

2. You've already checked the plugs, which is a good start. However, restarting the equipment can resolve temporary connection problems.

Unplug both your modem and router for 60 seconds. Reconnect the modem first and wait until its connection lights have settled. Then reconnect the router and allow a few minutes for the Wi-Fi network to become available. If both are combined in one device, simply unplug that device for 60 seconds.

For additional guidance: TP-Link – How to Restart Your Router.

3. Your Mac may still have your friend's network saved. Although this shouldn't normally interfere with your home connection, it's worth clearing it out.

Click the Apple menu (), select System Settings and choose Wi-Fi. Scroll down to Known Networks, find your friend's network, click the three dots (•••) and select Forget This Network.

This removes the saved connection information from your Mac without affecting either router.

4. In System Settings, select Wi-Fi and find your home network under Known Networks. Click the three dots beside it and select Forget This Network.

Turn Wi-Fi off, wait 10 seconds and turn it back on. Find your home network under Other Networks, select it and enter your home Wi-Fi password again.

If it connects, open Safari and see whether you can access the internet.

5. What you see on the screen can help identify the problem. If your home network doesn't appear, there may be a router signal or broadcasting issue. If it appears but won't connect, the problem may involve the password, authentication or saved settings. If your Mac connects but you can't access the internet, we may have an IP address, DNS, router or internet service problem.

If the network doesn't appear, try moving closer to the router.

6. If your Mac says it's connected but you still can't get online, open System Settings, select Network and then Wi-Fi.

Try restarting your MacBook first. This may help it obtain a fresh IP address from your router.

If that doesn't help, select Wi-Fi, click Details beside your connected network and choose TCP/IP. Check that Configure IPv4 is set to Using DHCP, unless you've previously been given a fixed IP address. If available, click Renew DHCP Lease and then OK.

Apple's guidance: If your Mac isn't connecting to the internet over Wi-Fi.

7. If you use a VPN, antivirus application or other security software, temporarily disconnect or disable it and try connecting again. These applications can sometimes interfere with network connections.

Apple's guidance: Check for network issues related to VPN and other software.

8. Your Mac has a built-in tool to help identify wireless connection problems.

Close your open applications, hold down the Option (⌥) key and click the Wi-Fi icon in the menu bar. Select Open Wireless Diagnostics and follow the instructions.

The tool analyses your wireless connection and may identify the cause of the problem.

Apple's instructions: Use Wireless Diagnostics on your Mac.

9. If your iPhone connects successfully to your home Wi-Fi but your MacBook doesn't, the problem is probably specific to the MacBook's connection settings or compatibility with your router.

If neither device can connect, contact your internet service provider and ask them to check your router and internet connection.

You can also consult Apple's recommendations: Recommended settings for Wi-Fi routers and access points.

I wouldn't recommend resetting all network settings or changing your router's security settings just yet. Let's first establish exactly where the connection is failing.

Hi,

You can fix your home Wi-Fi connection by restarting your equipment using the TP-Link Restart Guide and checking basic device settings.

Quick Fixes

• Restart router and modem: Unplug both devices, wait 1 minute, and turn them back on.
• Check other devices: See if your phone or another computer can connect to the Wi-Fi.
• Toggle Wi-Fi settings: Turn your device's Wi-Fi off and on again, or disable Airplane Mode.
• Forget the network: Remove the home network from your device list and re-enter the password

Thanks very much, Owl-53. 🦉 Your instructions are great!

Everything seems to be working now. I did not delete my friend's network, because she added it for me (so I don't know its name). I might need to do some work at her place again sometime, so I figured I'd just leave it in place for now.

I do need to replace my router (a Time Capsule). So maybe that was the problem.

Thanks again! 👍

sfrench wrote:

I do need to replace my router (a Time Capsule). So maybe that was the problem.

Time Capsule will no longer work starting with macOS 27 Golden Gate. It uses a deprecated format for networking (Apple Filing Protocol, AFP), and while that format works with macOS 26 Tahoe, the format will no longer be supported by Apple starting with macOS 27. Apple has exited the networking hardware market. It has been over 7 years since the Time Capsule was last sold by Apple, and that means the product is now considered 'obsolete'. To put it bluntly, your Time Capsule is now essentially a paperweight and not a backup device.

The simplest method to continue using Apple’s Time Machine to back up your Mac(s) is to buy an external drive and connect it to the Mac(s) regularly to back them up (or leave the drive connected to a desktop Mac). External storage is relatively inexpensive, a 1 TB SSD or a 2-4 TB HDD can be purchased for <$200 (prices have gone up significantly in recent months, unfortunately). 

To back up your Macs over WiFi, the most straightforward way is to use a network attached storage (NAS) device – essentially a box for hard disks that connects to your network. Ideally, choose one that offers turnkey support for Time Machine out of the box, both Synology (setup instructions) and QNAP (setup instructions) do so. Technically, you can stand up a Time Machine server in other ways (including using a Mac as a TM server), but an NAS is arguably the most straightforward way to set up network Time Machine backups. 

Personally, I use a Synology DS223j with a pair of 10 TB HDDs installed to back up 5 Macs in the house with Time Machine (separate shared folder for each Mac sized at ~2.5x the internal storage), with the remaining space used as general file storage for everyone in the house. 

Thanks, kaz-k. 👍

Thanks very much, neuroanatomist!