The new MacBook Air is a remarkably solid wafer of hardware, especially after the recent EFI Firmware Update that solved the occasional issue of graphics corruption when the Air wakes up from sleep.
It looks, though, like there may be a new crisis brewing and a new glitch to address, this time with the Air’s ability to play nice with he official USB Ethernet Adapter.
A lengthy thread on Apple’s support forums show that many people are having issues getting the USB Ethernet Adapter to play nice with their new Airs, with some users reporting that it will only work when plugged into their computer’s right USB port, while others claim it won’t work no matter which side of the machine they plug it into.
The problem isn’t the USB Ethernet Adapter, since it works when plugged into other Apple notebooks just fine. There is, however, a reliable fix: simply create a new location in Network Preferences and then try connecting it again. With the solution that simple, I imagine Apple will release an official fix as fast as you can blink.
John Brownlee is a writer for Fast Company, and a contributing writer here at CoM. He has also written for Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, VentureBeat, and Gizmodo. He lives in Boston with his wife and two parakeets. You can follow him here on Twitter.
11 responses to “USB Ethernet Adapter Not Working With Many MacBook Airs (But There’s A Fix)”
This is the great blog, I’m reading them for a while, thanks for the new posts!
Have just tried but doesn’t work for my Macbook Air 11″ 2011. Was working fine till today..sigh
i tried all the various fixes and nothing worked until I opened up terminal and issued the following commands:
sudo ifconfig en2 down
sudo ifconfig en2 up
viola cable detected and obtained IP
Beautiful! I just got back from the Apple shop where they insisted it was the cable – they did not have an Ethernet connection to test it. Bought the new cable, same problem, no Ethernet connection. Your commands worked though!! Much thanks!
Brilliant, thank you for posting this. It worked perfectly to fix the problem on my new Macbook Air 13. I know there was something funny going on as the adapter still works fine on my Macbook Air 11.
how do you mean until you opened terminal and issued this?