I’m having exactly the same problem.

I bought a Edimax EW7711USn dongle after reading a thread elsewhere about compatible wifi dongles.

The dongle seems to work, and I can find my wifi network, but it will NOT accept the password! I don’t real want to change the password as I have 9 other things configured with it.

Any advice?

EDIT: password isn’t ridiculously long, and doesn’t contain any weird symbols or spaces. I tried adding some numbers to the end, and it still didn’t work.

My router is set up to manually assign Mac addresses, but presumably this wouldn’t stop the Hummy connecting to the network, it’d just stop it connecting to anything else. I’ve actually managed to enter in the correct DNS/IP settings into the Hummy’s Network settings anyway, so it should be ok.

Also, I’m using the MAC address on the underside of the dongle, I presume that’s correct?

Hmm. I did initially try the MAC address in the System Information, but then read elsewhere that you needed to use the MAC address of the dongle itself!

The security type is WPA-2PSK (and identified as such by the Hummy) so it’s not a HEX anyway.

EDIT: just to double-check, I turned all security off on the Wifi network, and it still connected! So it IS to do with the security password…

2nd EDIT: just spent a happy few hours cycling through all the possibly security protocols available from my router. None of them work, even WEP. Tried different passwords.. no joy.

My unfortunate conclusion is that the Hummy cannot handle connecting to secured networks

Lucky you, Barry! Do you think it is my Humax box that might be defective then? Reading around the internet, it seems I’m not the only one who’s struggling with this.

One of the main reasons for upgrading was to be able to use iPlayer

Interestingly, when I disable my wifi security, the Humax still gives me an error message on connect, but then shows as being connected to a network on the Internet Setting page, with a Speed of 135 Mbps! I also get an error when trying to launch TV Portal

“An error occurred whilst launching application https://www.humaxtvportal.com/”

I’m beginning to think there might be something wrong with my particular Hummy…

Any help that ANYONE can give would be gratefully received!

Thanks.

Hi Martin,

Of course.

The router is a Bipac Billion 7800N, using (by default) WPA2 wifi security protocol. The dongle is the Edimax EW-&&11UsN.

My network consists of 11 devices, including Macs, iPhones, printers and they all connect to the network with no issues, apart from the Hummy.

I have tried changing the router from standard WPA2 to WPA and even WEP and changed the password to a word without number or symbols. In every case I get the same error.

“Connection Failed. Check your settings and try again”

I should point out I have a strong, full bar signal.

If I disable Wifi security altogether, then it connects and I can subsequently access the WiFi network settings (I have manual DNS setting for my network). Obviously though I can’t just leave my network unsecured!

Thanks.

LokiUK – 11 hours ago  » 

Update: Humax support actually got back to me and said they’d had another report of problems with this router and would test it “in the future”

So looks like I need to look into the alternative of power line ethernet or something.

I’m using a Tenda W150M wireless bridge/router to connect my HDR to my secure network. That connect’s to the HDR’s ethernet port – and the HDR doesn’t know the difference between this and a direct ethernet cable connection (which I tried first, to prove the priciple, but SWMBO didn’t like cables trailing round the house!).

The W150M has first to be connected to a computer to configure it, and is then transferred to the HDR. It can be powered either from a supplied mains adapter or from USB. Mine is powered from one of the HDR’s USB ports so that it doesn’t waste power when the HDR is in standby and so that I don’t need an extra mains socket.

The setup instructions are not that easy to follow, partially because it has a number of modes of operation, but if you Google, additional on-line help is at hand.

WT

ezra pound – 4 hours ago  » 

Seannkim : To clear up a few points, MAC address are permanently assigned to a piece of hardware they are not assigned by your router

Whilst MAC addresses are not assigned by a router they can be altered in firmware so are not strictly permanent. Whether this applies to the HDR or not I don’t know.

In fact most routers will let you set the MAC address for the case when internet access is tied to a specific MAC address (usually the first PC to access it) and it is possible for any (wifi enabled) PC to spoof a MAC address to gain access to a filtered but open or weak (WEP) network if it captures a packet in the air. Thus if special characters are not allowed it is important to use a long WPA2 password. See the GRC password haystacks page (link)

I think there is some confusion here. A MAC address is assigned by the hardware manufacturer and cannot be changed. But it can sometimes be SPOOFED. You may need to do this if, for example, you set up an internet account using an internal ADSL modem whose MAC address gets registered with your ISP, and if the ISP will not allow you to connect with anything which doesn’t have this particular MAC address. You then buy a new router – with its own (different) address – and your ISP doesn’t recognise it. Hopefully the router has the ability to spoof another MAC address. So, although its address doesn’t ACTUALLY change, it can PRETEND to be your original modem as far as your ISP is concerned.

[This has very little to do with the original title of this thread, but needing clearing up].

WT