topic Re: Connecting a new iphone to my router wireless network in My Router

Connecting a new iphone to my router wireless network

penneck — Sun, 10 Apr 2022 13:07:19 GMT

My son has bought a new iphone, and wants to connect it to my wireless network. The phone will connect to other networks, he has done it. He has put my router details into his phone, but my router cannot even see the phone as a device wanting to be attached. My router is a Netgear DGN2200v4 Router. Its a bit long in the tooth, but it does the job. However, it has always been a right ******* when I want to attach a new device to it, and the instruction manual isn't much help. Anybody got any suggestions as to what I need to do to get it to connect, please?

Thankyou

Re: Connecting a new iphone to my router wireless network

Baldrick1 — Sun, 10 Apr 2022 13:23:08 GMT

@penneck

Have you got this the wrong way around? The way it should work is that you go into the Iphone Settings/WiFi page where you should 'see' your Router witreless SSID, not the router 'see' the phone.

If it's not showing then check the router wireless settings in case the option to transmit the SSID is switched off.

Re: Connecting a new iphone to my router wireless network

penneck — Sun, 10 Apr 2022 14:46:52 GMT

Hello Baldrick1,

The phone can see the network. Its the router that doesn't mention the phone so I cannot 'attach' the phone. It isn't mentioned in the 'connected' list, nor in the 'allowed but not connected' list, nor in the 'blocked' list. The router is set to transmit the SSID - I've checked.

Re: Connecting a new iphone to my router wireless network

Ralph2010 — Sun, 10 Apr 2022 15:46:31 GMT

If the iPhone can see the network you should just go to phone settings then Wi-Fi and select your network from the ones showing. You then enter the network password and the phone should then connect. There should be no need to do any thing to settings on the router

Re: Connecting a new iphone to my router wireless network

RobPN — Sun, 10 Apr 2022 15:59:03 GMT

@penneck

Further to what others have said, does your Netgear DGN2200v4 have 'Access control'? That's an extra layer of security to block or allow wireless devices to connect by checking their MAC address.

If so, and it's enabled, you'll need to 'Whitelist' the new phones MAC address in the Netgear settings.

Re: Connecting a new iphone to my router wireless network

penneck — Sun, 10 Apr 2022 17:49:52 GMT

@RobPN

Yes my DGN2200v4 does have 'Access Control', and it is enabled, but I cannot find how to add my son's iphone to the Attached list. I cannot see his phone on any list the router seems to provide, and I cannot find a way of adding 'a new device' by typing in his iphone MAC Address into any list in the router. As for 'whitelist', the instruction manual for this router doesn't mention 'whitelist'.

Re: Connecting a new iphone to my router wireless network

Baldrick1 — Sun, 10 Apr 2022 20:03:24 GMT

Moderators Note

This topic has been moved from My Router

Re: Connecting a new iphone to my router wireless network

RPMozley — Sun, 10 Apr 2022 20:14:43 GMT

According to the router’s user manual:
Advanced->Advanced Setup->Wireless Settings > Setup Access List
And click Add, then input manually a name and the iPhone’s MAC address.

@Baldrick1 Not sure why you moved this to Router sub forum as that’s usually for PlusNet hardware or PlusNet supplied ones only. Post was moved while I was writing is all.

Re: Connecting a new iphone to my router wireless network

RobPN — Sun, 10 Apr 2022 20:36:28 GMT

@RPMozley wrote:

@Baldrick1 Not sure why you moved this to Router sub forum as that’s usually for PlusNet hardware or PlusNet supplied ones only. Post was moved while I was writing is all.

+1 (maybe)

@Baldrick1

The 'from' and 'to' in the 'moderators notes' are transposed too.

Re: Connecting a new iphone to my router wireless network

penneck — Sun, 10 Apr 2022 21:49:53 GMT

@RPMozley - on the second line of your post, you wrote "Advanced->Advanced Setup->Wireless Settings->Setup Access List":-

This seems to be a case of the user manual says one thing but the router software does something else.

On the router I can find "Advanced->Advanced Setup->Wireless Settings" but I cannot find "Setup Access List".

When I go as far as I can, I see the window "Advanced Wireless Settings", whereas the user manual, in the " Set Up a Wireless Access List by MAC Address" section (page 84), not only expects there to have been a "Setup Access List" button (which I cannot find), but it then shows a window "Wireless Card Access List".

What I get looks remarkably like what the user manual describes in the section "Control The Wireless Radio" in the sub-section "To Turn the Wireless Radio On or Off" (page 82).

Its almost as if part of the router software is missing, though I would suggest the two sections of the manual contradict each other

Re: Connecting a new iphone to my router wireless network

RPMozley — Mon, 11 Apr 2022 02:47:35 GMT

Ok, if the Netgear Genie interface of your router is similar enough to my PR2000 wireless extender/travel router (I think it probably is very similar). The Access List button should appear below the WPS settings (in a small section a purple(?) button).

Re: Connecting a new iphone to my router wireless network

penneck — Mon, 11 Apr 2022 07:56:39 GMT

I've just been on the Netgear Community website, and found a post from someone who had a similar problem to mine, with the same router. It seems his router wouldn't accept more than 15 devices. The community stated that the limit should be more than that, and that his router was faulty. They never came up with a solution - it seems he decided to replace his router.

My son's phone would be device number 16, so maybe my router is faulty (in this aspect - it seems to work okay otherwise). I will have to look to see if any of my lesser used devices are no longer needed, particularly any visitors that dont come here much these days.

Anyway, my thanks to everyone for your help.

Re: Connecting a new iphone to my router wireless network

RobPN — Mon, 11 Apr 2022 08:34:01 GMT

@penneck wrote:

I've just been on the Netgear Community website, and found a post from someone who had a similar problem to mine, with the same router. It seems his router wouldn't accept more than 15 devices.

@penneck

I don't know if this would work for you, and I stand to be corrected, but something it might be worth considering to reduce the number of stored MAC addresses below 15.

Some devices have the option of allowing you to change their MAC address, so if you know of any of your devices that have that option you could change its/their MAC address/es to be the same as another. Ordinarily I suspect this would cause problems if both devices were to connect at the same time, but if you can choose devices that will never be in use together it might work.

Before changing a MAC address it's probably a good idea to keep a record of the original in case you need to change it back.

Re: Connecting a new iphone to my router wireless network

RealAleMadrid — Mon, 11 Apr 2022 11:22:51 GMT

@penneck Just letting you know you may have problems if the router has to use MAC address authorisation, Iphones or more correctly Apple IOS now uses locally administered MAC addresses, which can change. (it's supposed to be a security thing to reduce tracking of devices). It may be possible to disable this in the phone settings but I expect IOS will spew out warnings!

Re: Connecting a new iphone to my router wireless network

dvorak — Mon, 11 Apr 2022 12:09:52 GMT

It's called 'Private Wi-Fi Address' and can be disabled.

Re: Connecting a new iphone to my router wireless network

penneck — Mon, 11 Apr 2022 17:28:46 GMT

In case my router is limiting how many MAC addresses I can use, I'm looking at all the MAC addresses listed on my router lists ('Attached', ''Allowed But Not Connected', and 'Blocked') to identify what equipment those MACs belong to. There are a few strange ones:-

1. A Chromcast device that isn't plugged in or powered up, but is still listed on the 'Attached' list - if it isn't being used why is it on the attached list?;

2. A device on the 'Allowed but not Connected' list that I cannot identify, but according to MACvendor.com, it is manufactured by Intel - any ideas what this device might be? Could it be a dongle? I have one connected to an old pc that is set up but hasn't been used for ages - would the dongle still be powered up in spite of the pc being switched off?

Re: Connecting a new iphone to my router wireless network

penneck — Mon, 02 May 2022 21:14:02 GMT

@RealAleMadrid and @dvorak Its taken me three weeks to get access to another iPhone that just happens to connect with my wifi, and it turns out that between the two of you, you appear to have solved my problem. RealAleMadrid had the basic answer and Dvorak hasd the correct name. I checked the method of finding the MAC Address on an iphone, and it seems there are two potential MAC Addresses, the first being in the iphone Settings > General > About and the MAC Address is listed in WiFi Address, the second is to go looking for, as Dvorak called it, "Private Address". When I compared both of these with what showed on my modem connections list, the modem showed the Private Address. Therefore what I need to do now is get hold of the ipohone I couldn't get to connect, then find its Private Address and load that on my modem. Hopefully, that will fix this problem.

My thanks to all, and especially to RealAleMadrid and Dvorak - and hopefully I will soon be able to click on "This solved my problem" button when I next have the problem iphone here