Cutting off bad Wi-Fi connection

Quoting Michael Hambly <michaelmayo-ireland.ie>:

> Hello
>
> a connection
> called "I'm watching you" which now she can't get out of. Every time
> she starts up Airport it defaults to this connection.


She should be able to go into Network system preference pane, then to
the list of Airport networks and tell it to forget "I'm watching you".
I think she'll have to log out of that network first before forgetting
it though.

If she has Leopard; the Network arrangement is slightly different, the
article you quoted only talks about Panther and Tiger . . . but the
info is in it somewhere; maybe the Advanced button. Sorry I can't be
more exact but I don't have a mac here at work.

Have her check her keychain with Keychain Access as well and delete
anything in there for this network.

neil

Thank You. I've been wanting to do that for a year. It's not that simple, and figuring it out was frustrating, but I did succeed in OS X 10.4.11. Network pane, Airport, configure, Preferred networks in the menu button, select the offending network from list, click the "-" button.

I tried Neil's method and never saw the list of Airports he was talking about. Then I tried the method described at Mac OS Hints:

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=2005041222354677

This also did not work, since the file mentioned was a list of ignored networks, not a list of remembered networks. Finally I was able to purge a remembered network I didn't want by editing the actual list of remembered networks in the Terminal. I found it by using grep to search the hard drive for the name of an Airport I knew was remembered. Issue these commands:

cd /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration

sudo cp -p com.apple.airport.preferences.plist com.apple.airport.preferences.plist.old

sudo pico com.apple.airport.preferences.plist

These switch you to the right directory, back up the file, and launch the pico editor with the file loaded for editing. The password it asks you for is your administrator's password.

Each Airport network is a set of XML keys inside <dict> ... </dict>. Find the one that **ENDS** with the name of the network you don't want and remove all the lines between the <dict> and </dict> containing that network name. (Control-K will erase a line at a time.) Then exit pico with Control-X and save the file by typing Y and accept the file name by hitting Return. (If you make a mistake, exit and type N to *NOT* save changes.)

This is not for the faint of heart. A Mac OS Hints user recommended the following software:

http://gizmolabs.org/~andrew/WifiEraser.zip

Note: I have not used this software and therefore cannot say anything about it.

Good luck!

Peter

Hmm . . . I was at work and doing it off the top of my head but now
that I'm home . . . at least for 10.5.4 it's just

System Preferences
Network
Select Airport in left column (it's at the top for my named Home
802.11n Location) then click Advanced
Click Airport: this shows me a list of all the networks I've
remembered . . . Harp (my home one) and ffxlib which is the one at the
library. There is a checked "Remember any network this computer has
joined" button and unchecked "Disconnect from wireless networks when
logging out" and "Require Administrator password to control Airport"
buttons.

I'll file away the terminal sequence though . . . it may come in handy
someday.