Wednesday, December 19, 2007

iPod Touch WiFi Works on WEP Key Index #1 ONLY

My wife and I were visited by Santa early this year and brought us each an 8GB iPod Touch. I guess his elves got wind that I lost my PDA last month and that my wife, well, just wanted a new iPod.

Anyway, we got them out of their slick, black boxes and started working straight away to get them connected to our home wireless network. However, after many attempts to set and re-set the iPod's WiFi settings to connect to our network I had no success to show for it. Frustrated, I scoured the 'net for answers, finding various user forums and blogs with people describing a similar experience and some suggested fixes (reset router/iPod, disable WEP security on the wireless network, etc). These fixes generally provided mixed results among those who tried them, while none of these fixes got the iPod rocking on my WiFi.

On a whim, I tried changing the 'Default Transmit Key' setting on my Linksys router to '1' and the iPod WiFi connection finally sprung to life.

I was just a tiny bit disappointed that I had to modify my existing network security settings to accomodate the iPod connection, but I suppose changing the WEP key index is not a major issue. Hopefully Apple will provide the ability to specify the WEP Key Index in the iPod's WiFi settings in a future firmware update.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks! I couldn't figure it out. I'm kind of annoyed in the same you are, but I guess it's not a big deal.

Anonymous said...

THANK YOU!!!!!!! I have been going mad trying to figure out why the ipod wouldn't connect to the internet but this worked:)

Anonymous said...

I've just spent 3 or more hours trying to configure my router and Ipod Touch to talk to each other and let me on the internet. I've gone through several blogs, youtube and the manual. Finally, I set it to transmit on key 1 and its working! Unfortunately I may now have to move over to WAP instead of WEP based on what I've read above the insecurity of WEP.

Anonymous said...

Worked several hours trying to get my Ipod Touch to connect with router. was mislead with windows wireless connection wizard. I have verizon FIOS with Actiontec router. The wireless connection was reconized, but locked. The WEP Key was on the side of router. When that was entered as the password, it connected.

da Architect said...

Sorry about being late to the party here. I had the same issue, and I have to say that using a key other then #1 seems to actually help your security.

Anyway, rather then use WEP and the default key I switched it to WAP, I have to say it was all painless and now all works well. The only devices to complain a little were the XP laptop *grumble*.

Kudos for spelling out the problem and saving my hair from being removed forcibly and the iPod from hitting the wall :)

Jason Collins said...

Wow. I spent like 5 hours searching for solutions. This was it, god damn #1 index.

Anonymous said...

My setting's already on Key 1 but it still won't connect. I've typed the $ before entering the Key 1 but to no avail. Know what to do?

Anonymous said...

Any Luck here? I'm in the same boat - set it to #1 still no dice. Might try 128 bit again, and using ASCII password instead of hexadecimal? Really stumped and apple seems to be no help.

Anonymous said...

Well written article.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for sharing. This definitely would have taken a long time to stumble upon. Still relevant with a new iPod Touch 16GB.

Thomas Chrystian Santellana said...

ascii worked. i was banging my head against it too. we tried WEP 128 bit key all lower case with no dashes. all lower case with dashes. all uppercase no dashes, all upper case with dashes. we were about to try putting a $ sign in from of the 26 character wep key and try it all lower with and without dashes then all upper with/without dashes BUT we said what the heck and tried the ASCII version of the 128 bit key instead of hex and it worked.

Anonymous said...

does anyone not have a verizon router? from what i read the only router that has a "default transmit key" is lynksys. wtf?

Anonymous said...

i got a 3com router same problem any help?