Wifi won't connect after using a wired connection

Question

Level 1

5 points

Wifi won't connect after using a wired connection

If I'm connected to my router by wire (wifi turned off) and then disconnect the wire and turn on the wifi, my mac will claim to connect to the wifi but I will never get any throughput until I reboot it completely. (Note: it WILL successfully connect to other wifi, just not the network I was just wired into.) Why? How can I make it work w/o having to reboot every time?

When I go to my office, I like to use the wired connection (it's faster, I think) rather than wifi. So, I turn off my wifi and then connect the wire. Everything works fine. The reverse of that procedure (disconnect the wire, then turn on the wifi) fails to provide any access to the network. The status bar shows that I'm connected to the wifi, but nothing can access the internet... not my iCloud connections, not my VPN, not even just a simple attempt to load a webpage w/o the VPN.... Same router, same network... the router is literally sitting on a table in the corner of my office and everything else connected to it (wired or wireless) works fine. The Mac just doesn't seem to be able to switch from wired back to wireless w/o rebooting. Sometimes, if I go to a different location and connect to wifi there, when I come back to my office the wifi works, but I'm not sure that behavior is consistent enough to be reliably repeatable. What's going on here? Is there a way around this (w/o rebooting)?

Device: Mac Running Ventura

MacBook Pro (2017 – 2020)

Posted on Jun 14, 2023 8:57 PM

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Answer 1

tbirdvet

Level 6

16,753 points

Jun 15, 2023 4:53 AM in response to _tejloro_

In your system preferences, network make the ethernet the top connection followed by the wifi connection. You can set the service order. That way when you remove the ethernet cable it should then try to connect to the wifi connection automatically.

Change the order of the network services your Mac uses - Apple Support

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Answer 2

Jun 15, 2023 9:26 AM in response to Camelot

+1

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Answer 3

Camelot

Level 9

57,945 points

Jun 15, 2023 9:22 AM in response to _tejloro_

Try not turning off the WiFi.

It's perfectly valid to have a wired and wireless connection active at the same time (the OS will use the connections in the order listed in System Preferences, and it sounds like you've already got that set). As soon as the wired ethernet connection drops, everything should switch over to the wireless connection.

I run in this mode all the time - wired at my desk, but able to unplug and walk around on the wireless network without a problem.

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Answer 4

Dec 7, 2023 9:44 PM in response to _tejloro_

Any updates? I have got a similar issue: I can connect to the wifi first time after the reboot, but then any sequential attempt results in no success. This issue appeared about one-two months ago with the update of MacOS

It's quite inconvenient

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Answer 5

Jul 14, 2024 9:58 PM in response to _tejloro_

So nothing can be done and no reaction at all from apple!?

This is a very common use case and it works perfectly well on any other OS. In 2025 not being able to go from wired to wireless on a $3,000+ machine at anytime is simply embarrassing.

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Answer 6

Jul 15, 2024 1:37 AM in response to NickRossCalgary

Nothing can be done about what? Plenty of people use both wifi and Ethernet day in and day out without issue. This is more likely to be a local problem. Giving some details might help. What mac, what os, post an Etrecheck report so we can look for problable causes.

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