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Tiger Causing WiFi Problems?
Monday, May. 2 2005 | Author: jeremyI was talking with a friend over the weekend about various technology related issues, and he mentioned that he had purchased and installed Tiger on his G5 iMac. When he ordered the iMac, he opted for the built-in WiFi because he was already using an Airport Express with his Powerbook.
Since upgrading, he says that the WiFi connection on his iMac has become extremely unstable, dropping connections and failing to re-connect after his machine goes to sleep or the connection closes.
Has anyone else had this issue or seen it mentioned anywhere else on the Interweb?
Category: Uncategorized
109 Responses for "Tiger Causing WiFi Problems?"
May 2nd, 2005 at 10:19 am
1No problem with flakey connections, though I do now have to manually reselect my Airport network from the menubar when returning from sleep.
A mild annoyance, but an annoyance nonetheless.
I’ve assumed it’s due to a changed pref, but haven’t had the time to dig into Airport just yet.
May 2nd, 2005 at 10:27 am
2His keychain may be goofed. He should try repairing it.
May 3rd, 2005 at 2:08 pm
3Actually, I had the same problem when connecting to my WPA encrypted network under Panther. Since upgrading to Tiger I haven’t had this problem once.
The one way I found around this problem was to create your own network from the problem computer (Airport Icon > Create Network). After your network is created, wait about 5 seconds, and try to reconnect to the network you *really* wanted. Works (almost) everytime.
May 3rd, 2005 at 7:24 pm
4i have the same problem with having to manually select my network after waking from sleep mode.
May 3rd, 2005 at 11:43 pm
5I am having the exact same problem with my iMac G4, and my iMac G5. Don’t know what is causing the problem, as my PowerBook G4 is working perfect. Hopefully Apple will release an update soon, as I am getting tiried of having to re-type my network key every time my computer goes to sleep.
May 4th, 2005 at 12:04 am
6Same problem. So far I have only installed Tiger on my G5 iMac. But cannot get a decent connection at all on one airport express to hi-fi and the other just drops the connection all the time. Shortly after the installation and while I was configuring the Mac to ho-fi a firmware update interrupted the proceedings. Can’t say what I think of Tiger as most of my time has been spent figuring what the hell is wrong with the airport express.
(during installation at one point I had an error message that my isp connection needed reconfiguring when it was already working fine. I nonetheless reconfigured it and it set up automatically as it alwys does.. I am baffled.
Let me know if you find an answer?
May 4th, 2005 at 2:57 pm
7I have had the same issue - no solution yet except resetting my AirPort Base Station.
May 4th, 2005 at 3:08 pm
8Right after initiating a connection to the airport base the airport status on my iMac G5 (first generation) shows the 4 intensity bars, but then in a matter of seconds the signal drops to 1 or 2 bars, even if the airport base is in straight line less than 20 feet away. My powerbook, still in 10.3.9, shows full intensity. In the worse scenario, the connection totally goes dead on the iMac. FRUSTRATING.
May 4th, 2005 at 5:45 pm
9I did a fresh install of Tiger on my 17″ powerbook 1.6Ghz and had problems of dropped internet connections using my campus network. The network is an open network and no WEP/WPA is needed to access it. For some reason, changing my account name from Richard Lee to Richard fixed the problem. I haven’t been dropped for almost 2 hours whereas before i was dropped at least every 5 minutes. Hope this helps =)
May 5th, 2005 at 3:10 am
10I just installed tiger on my powerbook as well as my imac. Upon completing the installs I too experiance wireless network trouble. Interestingly enough I can get both of my machines to access a Netgear router but the imac refuses to access my apple airport router. This symptom occured right after the installation of tiger had been completed. The imac could access the apple router for about the first minute that tiger was running. After that it suddenly stopped working. I had an hour long chat with an Apple rep today and they couldn’t figure out how to fix this problem. Does anybody have any ideas?
May 5th, 2005 at 2:38 pm
11I loaded Tiger Yesterday and, since then experienced very reduced capability in Airport Express, Netgear and WiFi connections - which keep getting dropped.
Other issues are less important but irritating.
An absurd âExternal Keyboardâ test which asks me to hit the key on the right hand side of my keyboard or, it wars, “your keyboard won’t worl’ Hit the key and a message tells me NOT to use the “inbuilt keyboard.” This is on a Power Mac with a normal Apple USB keyboard.
The widgets are fun but were they really so necessary and such an innovation?
No. There have been similar software programmes that have beaten MAC on the release date of these. What I hate about the widgets from Mac is their Americacentric bias. Phone book? No good for UK. Weather? sometimes OK for cities other than London but mostly NOT - better to bookmark my toolbar which takes me to the site that is meant to serve the widget. That gives me a very localised forecast to within a mile.
The AIRPORT and Wireless incompatabilities are The MOST Irksome though - back to using a different service on Windows until that is sorted out.
Tiger is reported as much snappier, quicker. Their ‘Up Time’ widget shows it is marginally slower or the same as before.
This is a design, makeover, upgrade that is more the sort of things Windows would do than ~I would have expected from MAC. 6/10
May 5th, 2005 at 2:41 pm
12Tried resetting to default on Airport and other WiFi connections. Connectivity doesn’t last though.
May 5th, 2005 at 3:45 pm
13To those having trouble with wifi: try changing what channel your router is broadcasting on. This worked for me.
May 9th, 2005 at 11:28 am
14TIGER now uses the signal meter to reflect throughput rather than signal strength. 4 bars equates to about 54mps.
Use something like iStumbler to check actual signal strength and noise. You will probably find that nothing has changed there.
May 13th, 2005 at 9:24 pm
15No problems with unstable connections. But I’ve got one PBG4 and two iBooks that absolutely refuse to reconnect to an Airport or D-Link network upon waking from sleep. Other than that, thrilled with Tiger.
May 15th, 2005 at 6:57 am
16I had exactly the same problem on my G5 iMac - dropouts to the hi-fi using Airport Express, slow hesitant web access. Changing the wireless channel on my router solved it. Audio streaming to Airport Express seems particularly variable depending on the Wireless channel.
May 16th, 2005 at 1:27 am
17Using a g4 powerbook 1.25ghz, airport extreme and express (WDS) Insalled Tiger the day it was released– internet access is aweful now. Even playing music over the airport express isn’t stable. Seems like the laptop is not able to keep an ip address. Not surprisingly, OS X mail is often switching to offline status and not going back.
Waiting for an OS update– Anyone know if there is any official acknowledgement of this issue?
May 16th, 2005 at 11:18 pm
18Update 10.4.1 fixed my issue.
May 16th, 2005 at 11:36 pm
19I had similar problems with D-Link wireless router and my PowerBook (since I upgraded to Tiger). It solved with a very simple thing - I had to change my computer name from “First Name Last Name’s Computer” [Default with Mac] to a single word name like FirstInitialLastName and we lived happily thereafter :-)
Hope this helps others who have similar problem with Tiger.
May 17th, 2005 at 3:38 pm
20Update 10.4.1 fixed my issue for about 3 hrs. Now it’s back to the same crap. Airport Express is utterly useless! Don’t work at all….anyone else?
May 18th, 2005 at 4:07 pm
21I got my G5 last night, and immediately loaded Tiger (it came with Panther and an Upgrade disk. Won’t conect to my Netgear router. Says “Error connecting to wirless network ‘Paul.’” Meanwhile, my Powerbook G4 with Airport Extreme (running Panther) works fine.
May 19th, 2005 at 7:03 am
22Yes - the wireless connection is now really slow, down to 2 bars from 4. This is sitting right next to the airport express. It was fine before upgrading, now it is unusable. I have upgraded to 10.4.1, and rebooted but this has not solved anything.
May 20th, 2005 at 12:07 am
23Same here with my DVI Powerbook G4…
With 10.3.9 I got almost maximum datarates possible with my Airport Express and wifi-card. Now running Tiger, any download is irratic and slow. Regardless if it’s a internetdownload or a local fileshare (AFP). It roughly comes to 65kbyte/s. Finder or any other app that is accessing the network stalls frequently when I use the Airport lan.
On the ethernet connection everthing works snappy though.
10.4.1 did not solve the slow airport link for me. Someone suggested to disable IPv6 in the networkprofile; no change.
Seems we all have to wait for 10.4.2 … no more than a month I hope.
May 20th, 2005 at 10:05 am
24Are there any comments from Apple about this? Anyone talk to them?
May 20th, 2005 at 11:05 am
25The problem seems related to WEP. I’ve installed Tiger as upgrades to a 15-inch PowerBook G4 and 12-inch iBook G4. No probs on the PowerBook, but the iBook would drop the wi-fi connection periodically and not auto connect when waking from sleep.
I tried disabling WEP in the Linksys router to see what would happen and presto! it connected without a fuss. I then repaired the keychain on the iBook and the problem vanished! It now automatically connects with WEP enabled. Thanks Erik, your suggestion worked in my case.
May 20th, 2005 at 6:06 pm
26Yes! Thanks for your blog. After dealing with constant WiFi disconnects, then isolating the problem to “wake from sleep” then finding your blog, I’ve resolved the issue with the obvious workaround by turning off sleep for the computer and the hard drive, though I allow the display to sleep. The G5 iMac is a wonderful machine, but the massive hardware problems, and now the inexplicable software bug in Tiger (10.4 and still there in 10.4.1) is extremely annoying. The guy who said his iMac was working perfectly, except he had to reconnect to his WiFi network manually each time his iMac went to sleep described the bug. It’s a bug, not a new “feature” or “preference.” I’m now getting continual “dropouts” with my G3 iBook, too.
May 21st, 2005 at 1:58 am
27I too am having this problem on my iMac G5 20″ with Tiger. I have put the airport antenna on top of the machine and although 3-4 bars are shown in the menu the most I can get out of the network accoring to the Activity Monitor is 107K per second (but normally 50K per second) and the same hesitant web access that Ian (above) was experiencing. A 500Mb file takes 5 hours to copy instead of the usual 10 minutes. Of course my PowerBook 12″ zips along even when sitting directly in front of the iMac. I’ve reinstalled Tiger fresh and reseated the airport card all to no avail. Maybe I need to go back to Panther. Come on Apple fix it.
May 23rd, 2005 at 5:39 pm
28I just tried an old trick and it worked!!
Replacing extentions.
Some time ago Apple released an faulty extention in the OS-X Jaguar updates. Here the ethernet connection didn’t work properly . The work-around was replacing the extention with an earlier version from one of the Combined Updaters.
So… I tried just the same today with the Airport extention.
Downloaded the Airport 4.1 Updater and opened the installer package with Pacifist. Looked up the AppleAirport2.ext and installed it seperately with Pacifist.
And indeed it worked. Connection is now stable in speed, and faster.
The extention now doesn’t appear in the System Profiler anymore, but… who care’s about that? ;-)
May 24th, 2005 at 6:22 am
29Powerbooky’s fix seems to do the trick! Thank you very much !
May 24th, 2005 at 9:25 am
30Yepp. So far so good…..thanks!!
May 24th, 2005 at 1:04 pm
31My Airport is flaky, again after a couple of hours of solid connection. god dam it apple, can’t be that hard, can it? >:(
May 24th, 2005 at 3:14 pm
32Mine is still hanging in there. got this advice from a friend though:
OK. A couple more things to try.
1) I assume you already updated to 10.4.1, right?
2) Delete the internet preferences in both these locations:
~/Library/Preferences and /Library/Preferences and restart.
com.apple.internetconfig.plist
com.apple.internetconfigpriv.plist
com.apple.internetconnect.plist
com.apple.internetpref.plist
com.apple.preference.internet.plist
This will cause you to loose all your internet setting so export or
write down your configuration before you do it and of course you will
need to reconfigure everything after you reboot.
3) Delete your Airport keychain in /Applications/Utilities/Keychain Access
May 24th, 2005 at 6:50 pm
33Complained to Apple about frequent HTTP 500 errors–they really don’t seem to care and expect the whole world to reconfigure itself. Disappointing that they would roll out such rubbish
May 25th, 2005 at 4:18 am
34mark: i followed your advice but instead of deleting my keychain i repaired it. i’m still having frequent dropouts. i don’t want to delete my keychain because there’s login/passwords in there i don’t even know about and i don’t want to lose that stuff. is there any way to save my logins and delete the keychain?
May 25th, 2005 at 7:06 am
35I’ve had 2 problems since archive and install of Tiger.
1- after my imac/g5 wakes up it can not reconnect to my wireless net. I have to go to my router and make a change from wpa to wep and back to wpa. Then it connects.
2- i have lost the ability to video chat with a friend with xp and a web cam. Now we make the connection and after a few seconds i get the message “no data was received for 10 seconds. Apple help is no help on that issue.
May 25th, 2005 at 7:11 am
36There’s a thread on macfixit.com dealing with the issue. i’m trying their approach now.
May 25th, 2005 at 7:42 am
37D.
Let us know what happens.
thanks
May 25th, 2005 at 9:55 am
38Nothing, nada, nichts, rien du tout. I tried more fixes found on the Apple Discussion Boards, but all to no avail. I’m giving up for now and go back to good old Ethernet. Seems like we’re stuck waiting for an Airport update or 10.4.2. If Apple acknowledges the problem >:(
I did send a bug report on Apple’s Tiger support page, I suggest you guys do that, too. Might expedite things a bit.
May 25th, 2005 at 4:12 pm
39Was having a similar problem - Tiger on a 12 inch Powerbook was losing Airport Extreme connection after sleep. Looked like it was reconnecting - joined the network, but no connection to the internet. Has been doing this since one of the Jaguar updates. Saw a hint somewhere that there used to be a problem with old Airport base stations on Channel 1 (which by the way is the default). Changed everything to channel 6 and problem solved.
May 26th, 2005 at 5:48 pm
40I’ve tried several channels to no avail. Glad to see it worked for you but still stuck with my issue….
May 28th, 2005 at 12:44 pm
41so far, changing the Airport Express default channel worked for me.
May 29th, 2005 at 8:42 am
42I’ve tried every damn channel. Didn’t help.
May 31st, 2005 at 3:45 pm
43CHANGE YOUR COMPUTER NAME TO A STRING SHORT THAN 20 CHARACTERS IF YOU HAVE A DLINK ROUTER. IT CRASHES AND LOCKS UP IF NOT. TRY WITH OTHER ROUTERS TOO!
June 2nd, 2005 at 9:48 am
44We are tracking a number of Airport/Tiger problems including:
- Problems with Panther/Tiger interop on Airport
- Problems with WPA encryption
- Tiger possibly crashing base stations with WPA (testing now)
- Airport utilities unreliable under Tiger
Testing is being done under 10.4.1, which appears to have introduced more WiFi problems.
June 2nd, 2005 at 6:11 pm
45What worked for me was deleting all networks, creating a new location and adding my network into that, including re-entering the WEP password (which, of course creates a new keychain entry). This may not work for people with WPA passwords. It might be a choice between changing to WEP and putting up with it till the fix comes.
June 3rd, 2005 at 12:44 pm
46For those with an older, dual-ethernet Base Station, setting it to channel one and enabling interference robustness helps. After that, Mark’s suggestion of deleting the neccessary comlists and keychains worked for me. This is in 10.4.0, because I couldn’t get online to download the update, which is currently installing.
June 3rd, 2005 at 12:45 pm
47Also, nice use of ‘intarweb’ in the original post.
June 4th, 2005 at 5:37 pm
48I too am having the same issues- It is definately Tiger. I have 3 Macs (Powerbook, Dual 2 G5 and a Mini) on Tiger and they all drop the airport in seconds-
2 PCs (XP) and a Powerbook still on 10.3.9 work perfectly.
Lame.
June 6th, 2005 at 2:35 pm
49Curiously, we have two Powerbooks, both upgraded from Panther to Tiger. One has this problem, the other does not. One is of a newer vintage (1.25GHz vs. 1GHz) than the other, so it could make a difference exactly what hardware you’ve got. Or maybe it’s the current phase of the moon when you install Tiger. Hard to tell :)
June 6th, 2005 at 2:37 pm
50I did some digging, everyone has this problem. The best solution seems to be start all over again. Rip out your airport (if it can be), uninstall any Wireless internet settings. Then do a clean install making sure to select NOT to preserve former network settings. Also, tell your mac that it is not connected to an internet connection. Once tiger is installed then re-install your airport.
June 9th, 2005 at 8:52 am
51Update with one fix. RE my previous post #35. Regarding 2 issues:
Issue 1- I corrected the airport reconnect problem by deleting my airport keychain and recreating a new network connection using WPA. It seems to reconnect every time after wakeup, reboot, and user switch.
Issue 2- I can ichat video audio with a friend that did a archive/install of Tiger on his g4 laptop. He could successfully ichat with my friend with the XP/AIM configuration. I looks as if the problem is on my end.
June 11th, 2005 at 7:11 pm
52This suggestion worked for me:
[#25 | simon
The problem seems related to WEP. . . .I tried disabling WEP in the airport network settings to see what would happen and presto! it connected without a fuss. I then repaired the keychain on the iBook and the problem vanished! It now automatically connects with WEP enabled. Thanks Erik, your suggestion worked in my case.]
I too was losing my airport signal when logging in or waking from sleep. (But I had a good connection once I manually selected the proper network). I can’t explain why this worked but it did.
June 20th, 2005 at 6:36 am
53Same Problem as everyone.
Dumb Question…How do you repair the Airport Keychain?
Thanks!
June 20th, 2005 at 8:26 am
54OK, I went to Applications>Utilities>Keychain Access and deleted the keychain for both of my Airport Networks. I then selected my networks and re-entered my password. I still had to re-select my network after sleeping!
bsp
June 23rd, 2005 at 4:32 am
55I bought a mac mini with airport & tiger installed and am having very frustrating problems with unstable connections. Basically it will connect but then degrades, drops the link, then reconnects again.
We have an ibook, powerbook (both on panther) and windows laptop in the house, none of which have any problems when using the same network.
June 29th, 2005 at 7:04 pm
56I’m having problems too when my computer comes out of sleep mode with tiger. I’m using dial up, but it won’t connect and my eject button doesn’t respond, and itunes usually crashes. I don’t know what it is since tech support doesn’t know.
July 6th, 2005 at 7:33 pm
57I had the same (6-10x) loss of speed on a new powerbook with tiger, connected to an Alcatel Speedlink router via an old Airport. Assigning a shorter name to my computer (in System Preferences> Sharing, in my case 16 characters, also without spaces in case it mattered) solved the problem. I also had to remember to use the Airport Admin Utility> Configure> Access Control to add the new computer to the Airport’s list, as I had also used this previously for my other computers. So, many thanks!
July 11th, 2005 at 3:03 am
58Thank goodness I came across these posts! I thought I would go crazy trying to make my airport express work with my iMac G5, until I found out I wasn’t the only person having trouble with it.
I’m having an unusual problem. My Airport Express worked fine immediately with my iBook G4 (has an airport extreme “g” card) and my “ball” iMac G3 (has an airport “b” card). But It refused to work with my newest computer, my iMac G5. By the way, all three are running Tiger and have all software updates. At first, I got the same error message that Paul Thiel (post 21) mentions: “cannot connect to the selected wireless network welychnet2.” I got it to work once, after I woke up the G5 after it had been asleep. But then it cut off and stopped working, and refused to connect again. I got a message saying that my computer was not in range of the Airport Express base. Yet it is plugged into the wall right behind the computer, less than a foot away. I’m writing this on my iBook an entire floor away, and it seems to be in range of the base station.
I’m going to try all the things that are mentioned here, one by one, and let you know if anything helps. Any other suggestions?
July 14th, 2005 at 3:53 am
59Hi everyone.
This worked for me (http://discussions.info.apple.com/webx?50@692.4dVqapwEZZe.0@.68ae504c.68ae4ead) and 10.4.2 also seems to address the problem.
All the best,
Marts.
July 14th, 2005 at 1:08 pm
60I am going NUTS!!!
I have an ibook that has been updated to 10.4.2 and has been working throughout the TIger experience.
HOWEVER,
My main computer. A 15″ Powerbook 1.25 has 3 to 4 bars on airport and hardly ever connect. It is SO FRUSTRATING. Mine doesn’t drop the signal, IT HAS ONE, that won’t do anything. I went to the Apple store and waited for two hours past my appointment time and the guy said “use a different browser.” It worked fine before Tiger.
Ugh
July 14th, 2005 at 1:13 pm
61Its me again,
I also am having a weird thing where the icon for my hard drive moves around on the desktop when I restart or wake up my computer. Instead of being in the top right corner, its in the middle right.
What does this mean? Is it bad?
July 15th, 2005 at 5:30 am
62Hi everyone,
Looks like I spoke too soon… Even with 10.4.2 and Airport 4.2, I still can’t get all of my wireless network to work all of the time.
You would have thought that the Apple boffins would have tried out all the sorts of combinations that real people use…
I can only conclude that Tiger was launched too soon (wish I’d waited longer!!!).
Good luck, everyone.
Marts.
July 15th, 2005 at 6:48 pm
63Have Powerbook 12 and Airport card, everything was working fine on Tiger 10.4.1 and then today Software Update told me to upgrade. Did it to 10.4.2 and kaboom - lost all airport - EVERYTHING! Can’t even see the airport. dmesg says:
Couldn’t alloc class “AirPortPCI_MM”
and in System Preferences it tells me “Airport is currently Off”
HELP!!!!
July 19th, 2005 at 7:35 pm
64Installed Tiger yesterday. Wireless was working great with Panther. Have been unable to get it working since.
Shame on Apple. This is an embarrassment.
July 21st, 2005 at 5:23 pm
65I have the problem with a Power`book with Panther 10.3.9. After installing the 4.2 upgrade my connection is lost after sleep. I have to re-enter sidd and binary wep key before it connects. Deleting the key chain doesn’t work, creating a home location is also not working. How can I unstall this piece of $%&*
July 22nd, 2005 at 10:10 am
66Mine is weird… We have two PB’s: a 1.25Ghz AlBook and a 1GhZ TiBook. The new one was running 10.4.2, the older one 10.4.1. Whenever both are one and near each other, the older PB loses its airport connection… signal drops to two bars, then drops, then returns, then drops to 2 bars, then drops, over and over. When I close the newer PB, the older one behaves just fine.
I just updated the older one to 10.4.2 and the problem seems to have gone away. For now. We’ll see…
July 30th, 2005 at 9:10 pm
67I need to remove Tiger 10.4.2 from my hard drive and return to Panther 10.3.9.
I have a PowerMac G-5 that came with Panther. Prior to install of Tiger (to 10.4.2) I ran Disk Warrior 3.0.3, Mac Janitor, Virex 7.5.1, and verified & repaired disk permissions. I believe that it is a “clean install” from the “complimentary Tiger upgrade” disk from the Mac Superstore.
Since I downloaded Tiger, I have too many software & hardware compatability problems to fix at this time. Minor problems w/Panther were fixable and I was able to fix Panther problems w/o much impact on my work schedule.
My Epson 1200U is currently down and I plan to go Wi-Fi when our town goes Wi-Fi in the next couple of months. There is apparently a problem w/Wi-Fi & Tiger as well. With Tiger, there are too many problems without viable known fixes at this time. Tiger has got to go!
Anyone out there have a step by step procedure for removal of Tiger 10.4.2 from hard drive and reinstall of Panther 10.3.9. I’m choking on the work backlog here.
August 3rd, 2005 at 10:18 pm
68To all,
I am using 10.3.9 on my pB G4 with airport wireless and I have the flaky connection problems. I don’t think it is just tiger. Is it possible that it is a hardware issue? Just asking because my ibook and emac with airport extreme cards work fine.
I get 4 solid bars, am using an airport base station and all but the PB still acts like its on dial up.
Let me know what you think
August 7th, 2005 at 7:19 pm
69Naaaa, its Tigers fault. Look at the numbers of people having the same problems!
Apple has blew it somewhere. My guess is they’re hacking as hell to fix this.
August 10th, 2005 at 1:35 am
70I have iBook G4 with OS 10.3.9
Airport worked fine until I accepted the update to 4.2.
Now I constantly get dropped bars and stalls.
Also, I had to configure a password to my router to get on at all. Sometimes it works great if another computer is on the system and connected to the net, but not always.
Is there anyway to go back to 4.1?
I tried downloading the 4.1 update but it refused to install saying my computer was already current.
August 13th, 2005 at 8:47 am
71Oh boy - this is all very worrying.Here’s my story.
A new Mini and an old G3 ibook linked up to a wireless router with airport cards. I upgraded both to Tiger and they worked fine for a few weeks. Then I needed to find some space on the hard drive of my ibook and I deleted some old system files. Suddenly I’ve got an intermittent fault on the wifi - it connects for a minute or so and then disappears. When I can see my network (which is also intermittent) and I select it, I get a message telling me there is a problem connecting to the network.
I guessed it might be an extensions problem and found out that the ariport card extension was modified when I cleared out the old system files to create space (I’ve no idea how or why!) So I’m going to try the fix of reinstalling the old version of the extension.
Meanwhile the Mini is working fine with Tiger, but I’m staying away from updates for a while just in case.
Could it be a number of different problems producing the same fault? maybe that’s why they’re finding it hard to fix?
Will let you know how I get on.
August 16th, 2005 at 11:34 am
72Is anyone still working on this problem? I need help.
I’ve tried all of the fixes that I can get my head around and it’s still not working for me.
So far I’ve:
Deleted both the com.apple.kernalcache in sys/lib/caches and the com.apple.airport.preferencesplist in lib/prefs/syscon. Then deleted the airport extensions and used Pacifist to install the extensions from 4.1. I’ve repaired permissions. No good.
I’m pretty sure it’s a problem with the extensions because it all kicked off when I deleted some previous system files which I thought were redundant (doh!). (and see previous post above)
I’m stuck - has anyone got to the bottom of this?
August 17th, 2005 at 3:50 pm
73Been following posts with interest. I seem to have a problem no one has post, but I suspect the root cause of it may shed a more fundamental light on some of the other problems.
I have an Airport-enabled Powerbook G4 that is getting its internet from a 3rd-party wireless modem. If my SSID is not hidden (i.e. others can see my network), my powerbook will sometimes lose the connection upon waking from sleep. I can fix by either turning airport off and on again… or just reentering my password in the airport pulldown menu.
But I normally keep my SSID hidden for security reasons.
However, under those circumstances, if my Powerbook goes to sleep, when it wakes up and is not connected, I am incapable of resestablishing a wifi connection. Not by using “other” in the airport pull-down NOR by turning airport on and off again.
It’s almost as if the wireless modem says, “With my SSID hidden, once you establish a connnection once and lose it, My Dear Powerbook, I will not let you do it again!” or perhaps my Powerbook is saying, “Hey Dude, once I’ve connected to a SSID-hidden network once and lost it… well, you’ve had your chance and I ain’t connecting again… unless you want to turn off the SSID hiding feature…”
The only way I can get a connectiong again is either going to my wireless modem and turning Hide SSID off and on again. Or simply turning the modem on and off. After I do either of those things, if I turn my Airport off and on (or manually type in the info), my Powerbook will reconnect.
However, this has occured with two different brands of wireless modems - which makes me think it’s my Powerbook.
Other Info:
This occured on Jaguar and Tiger
First with my original Linksys wifi router and now a Westell Versalink.
This has occured on a variety of channels.
Thoughts?
August 29th, 2005 at 2:13 pm
74I have this same problem in Jaguar (10.2.8) - someone mentioned it’s a problem with an Aiport extension from 10.2
After waking from sleep, I can see my network but not actually log on to it (gives me an error message) and the only way to fix this is by re-booting the router. Not even restarting the computer works.
What’s the fix? Re-install the extension for Airport? What’s the best way to do that?
August 29th, 2005 at 3:05 pm
75After reviewing most all of these posts, it still seems these problems are still not resolved. This problem came to light for me when I installed 10.4.2 on my G4 Cube with an airport express, and my Ibook G3 with the airport express. I had them kind of working at some point, but I was still getting the fabled “Problem connecting to airport network”. However now it is much much worse, there is one problem that has been occuring since my initial attempts to fix these problems. I have not read about or found anyone else with the same problem at all. I simply can’t even turn on my airport express cards without the system first lagging down and eventually freezing up. I click the “Turn on Airport” button, it waits, then I get the dredded pinwheel, nonstop.
Anyone else having this problem? Is it just me?
Thanks!
September 7th, 2005 at 1:30 pm
76Nope, no pin wheel problem for me. Just a connection that’s there and then not there, for no good reason.
I’ve just re-installed Tiger to try and get back to square one but no joy. I’ll try taking off the security from my 3rd party router but I’m not holding out any hope for that because the problem started when I was at a friends on their network. I think it may well be something to with the extensions but god only knows what, and he probably couldn’t fix it anyway. Can anyone explain why Apple aren’t tryng to fix this?
September 8th, 2005 at 11:09 pm
77If it is the extensions what do you do again? I have read through many of these fixes and did notice #25 i think, but did not know if this would be the same fix for 10.4.2.
I an connect fine but the problem iks is when I go into my living room which is 35-40 feet away.
My connection stays strong and then all of a sudden when I am in another room it drops off completely. So I connect to another network from somewhere else and the signal is there and strong for only 3-4 mins and then disappears.
Not sure what to do at this point. Is it a hardware issue or is it software?
Darcy
September 12th, 2005 at 1:01 am
78I tried all of the above suggestions but still the problems with intermittent and weak signal persisted. I had to change my router (D-link DI-624) because it broke down (on top of everything else). So I got a Linksys Wireless-G…and somehow my problem has been resolved. I have changed nothing except my router. I cannot explain why it works now.
September 12th, 2005 at 6:03 pm
79I’ve had the same problem with intermittant wireless service through my PowerBook-G4 with Tiger 10.4.2 and a D-Link router. Apple had better get on the ball with this one!
September 14th, 2005 at 11:24 am
80D-Link DI-624+ Mac Mini Tiger 10.4 Wireless & Ethernet
I have a D-Link DI-624+ which was working fine until introduced a Mac Mini
The Problem
==============
The Mac Mini had Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger)
Using WEP shared keys and Airport, the D-Link DI-624+ crashed almost immediately and had to be rebooted and would only work if Airport on the Mac was disabled
Using fixed Ethernet, the D-Link DI-624+ would crash after 5->20 minutes and had to be rebooted
The Solution
==============
I did both of the following at the same time and so don’t know which one was the fix, but now Airport / Wireless on the Mac works fine with the router
1) All Mac software updates, taking the OS to 10.4.2
2) New firmware on the D-Link DI-624+ (upgraded to 2.07 from 2.02)
ftp://ftp.dlink.co.uk/di_broadband_…_bx_fw_v207.zip
Remember to write down your router settings, these will be wiped in the firmware upgrade
(which includes setting the router address back to 192.168.0.1)
Note the DI-624+ is not the same as the DI-624, which will require different firmware
The DI-624+ was purchased in the UK which has its own dlink.co.uk site (not dlink.com)
_________________
Peter Walsham
Axomic Ltd
OpenAsset Image & Digital Asset Management for Architects
http://www.axomic.com
September 20th, 2005 at 5:36 pm
81Hi Everyone!
Just to compound the problem, here is a summary of my experience|:
I have had a G4 1.33GHz iBook since April. I use a Belkin F5d7630 wireless router. The iBook worked flawlessly with my wireless router up until I did one of the security updates for 10.3.9 I think it was either security update 2005-002 or 005-003 that started the problem. My iBook shipped with 10.3.7.
After applying this patch, I experienced the same problems you have all been having - no automatic connection after sleep and problems connecting after boot…having to turn off wifi then turn it back on and manually selecting the SSID. Really annoying after a while!
I since upgraded to Tiger and the problem has remained. I posted this because I don’t think the problem is Tiger 10.4.2 The problem definately started since 10.3.7 and before 10.3.9. Subsequent updates have made no difference.
I have tried the suggestions listed above relating to Keychain and the length of the computer name. Again, no improvement. I don’t think the problem is hardware - generally, faulty hardware will either work or it won’t.
I am seriously considering downgrading to 10.3.7 to see if it cures the problem. Let’s keep this discussion going. I wasn’t aware of how many ppl were having this problem until now.
September 21st, 2005 at 3:29 am
82Memory leak causing wifi to drop?
I’ve noticed that after startup or wake my free RAM starts to steadily decline. From around 1 Gb to about 30 Mb or less (total RAM is 1,5Gb in a 12″ 1.33 iBook G4, system and one or two applications sake up about 500Mb). When free RAM reaches close to zero the wireless connection is dropped and it takes a restart to get it up and running again.
To me this says there is some ‘memory leaking’ going on, that might be leading to the wifi problems. Has anyone any thoughts on this? similar experiences?
September 29th, 2005 at 9:09 pm
83yes, another issue, even after the ‘fix’. Stay PC… it works
October 4th, 2005 at 1:18 am
84Ibook G4 with airport extreme + Dlink DI-624 router. Works fine with wep at 128 encry. When using wpa, it will disconnect approx 10mins.
October 8th, 2005 at 5:25 am
85WPA = no matter what networkname [wlan.meij.net OR meijwlan] I choose, with complex or simple password [dfç*%GF%&GF OR password], it does not work.
My DLS modem is a SpeedTouch.
Turn off security and it starts working.
Tiger is just not 100% WPA compatible.
October 27th, 2005 at 12:36 pm
86yes i have had this problem and it is really beginning to annoy me. everytime i turn off the computer or it goes to sleep o lose the internet connection. have you worked out a solution yet? thanks
October 27th, 2005 at 12:44 pm
87also another thing, has anyone else tried locking the settings in system preferences > network > lock, as this does not work either has it worked for anyone else?
October 30th, 2005 at 7:29 pm
88got the same issue
iBook G4+DI-624 both w/ latest updates.
Connections are dropping and when the iBook wakes up, i can’t seem to re-establish the connection.
Anyone get an answer from Apple?
October 31st, 2005 at 11:58 am
89I connected to my neighbors WiFi and let my iBook go to sleep for 10mins or so. Guess what, it reconnected just fine to his network after waking up.
Maybe this is just a D-Link issue?
November 1st, 2005 at 5:01 pm
90Read this!
http://earthlingsoft.net/ssp/blog/2005/10/ibook_ram_problem
November 2nd, 2005 at 12:46 pm
91Maybe this extra angle is helpful.
10.3.9 was working well for my house, with just an airport express supporting two wireless G4 laptops.
Express (purchased early 04) fried recently in power spike.
Just purchased *new* Express, and now, with the new firmware from the CD, and still using 10.3.9, I am having the connectivity problems described above in spades. Spotty connection, which sleep will always destroy.
Computer always sees wireless network, thinks it’s connected, but it cannot see my ISP.
For me then, there are a number of options involving software mismatches or even hardware trouble with the newer express.
Think I’ll return the blighted thing and just wait for Apple to sort this out. Nice to see so much good company in this problem though.
November 2nd, 2005 at 6:07 pm
92Check software update for fix!
November 9th, 2005 at 10:18 pm
93Same problem as others: got a 1.42 iBook running originally on 10.4.2. No problems, then I upgraded to 4.3 and found the airport signal cutting out after 15-20 minutes idle time. Also, the new airport update proves no solution.
Curiously, if I conduct an internet activity requiring ACTIVE participation, the signal stays open indefinitely. However, if I run a passive internet activity (e.g. downloading), the signal cuts out without fail. I wonder if this is a design feature rather than a design flaw.
November 11th, 2005 at 11:14 am
94Update to my last post: the Airport signal now cuts out even during active internet use. Reversing my earlier statement, this is likely a design flaw rather than a feature.
Either way, still sucks.
November 13th, 2005 at 4:39 am
95I have the same problem of frequent loss of the network (for several months), but I am connecting to the airport express from a PC, not from a mac. So the problem is that the Airport Express is seriously flawed (it seems).
December 2nd, 2005 at 10:13 am
96To Hitesh:
Thank you! The name change solved my problem with connecting to a DLink wireless router. PCS worked fine. iMac on 10.4.3 stopped working. This fixed it. I swear I don’t remember giving my computer that “name” and I can’t figure out why this problem started when I did the 10.4.3 update.
Anyway, thanks.
Roger
December 11th, 2005 at 11:45 pm
97Hi-
I also had the same sort of problems with not connecting to the internet when waking the G4 iBook from sleep. What fixed the issue for me was an upgrade to the firmware of Linksys router. Now everytime it is woken it connects instantly. Cheers!
- John
January 6th, 2006 at 4:17 pm
98I just bought a Imac G5 20″ and the wifi do not work properly!
The network connection break after few minute on the web
i cant make software update or use Itune music store.
What should I do ?
So I have plug the eterneth cable and wait tomorow to bring back this machine.
January 11th, 2006 at 10:56 pm
99Hi guys, I have a 1.2Ghz iBook G4 and my internet connection is so sketchy, Safari crawls, Mail gives up checking for mail and iChat is unusuble, I have only had these issues since switching to Tiger
So I am reinstalling Panther and will doubt whether I will ever buy another Mac again, those Sony VIAO’s are nice
January 25th, 2006 at 8:38 am
100Have tried most of what all of you have mentioned, running OS X Tiger 10.4.4, with an iBook 900MHz at home with Airport Express, and the signal just keeps dropping every now and then. Very frustrating. This did not happen before.
February 1st, 2006 at 12:07 pm
101Same problems here a tiBook 400, have several cards (Dell TrueMobile and a RaLink based card) but since tiger the connection is very unstable. Dropping at unforseen times, and not reconnecting after sleep. Worked perfectly before.
I’m thinking about going back to 10.3. Tiger seems snappier and Spotlight is great, but this is very annoying.
I just seems Tiger has had more attention from the intel folks and the powerpc machines are having a lot of trouble.
My Dell laptop drops the connection too, but a few times a day and reconnects immediately. The Tigerbook, needs a lot of coercing to get it going again (re-inserting the card, reconnecting to the network etc)
February 3rd, 2006 at 7:13 am
102Not sure if this has been resolved as the date of each persons post is not made. Just to say that I have a 17″ pb and a pismo (upgraded). I have used the Pismo on wireless networks all over the world on hundreds of different networks and it has an amazing success rate.
Since upgrading to 10.4.4 on both machines the 17″ is fine and the Pismo with original airport card see the network for about 5 seconds or so then drops it and never sees it again.
I suspect that apple have decided that original airport cards on upgraded pismos are not their market anymore and do not test Tiger on them anymore. So roll back time on that machine at least. Shame it is 6 years old and going strong in every other area.
March 7th, 2006 at 7:08 am
103I am using an iBook G4 with Tiger 10.4.5 and a Belkin wireless access point. I had very flaky wifi until I changed the channel on the Belkin. iStumbler can see the Belkin on channels 1-8 and can’t see it on channels 9-13. The same iBook works fine at work (Airport Express throughout, although iStumbler isn’t showing me anything on channels above 8). I’m not sure if that means it’s an iStumbler issue, an Airport issue or a Belkin issue.
March 19th, 2006 at 7:15 pm
104Powerbook G4 1.67 w/ 10.4.5. Had problems where airport lost its mind and did not automatically connect to wifi networks. When I manually connected I would get a password prompt. Even though there were keychain entries in my keychain. Tried repairing keychain: no success. Tried removing individual entries and re-entering them with no success. I ended up backing up my whole keychain and created a new one. Moved my old keychain over to new keychain (mv command) and everything now works.
May 14th, 2006 at 10:27 pm
105Setup: Powerbook G4 with OS 10.4.6 connecting with internal Airport carwd to an Airport Express hub
I fixed my automatic reconnection from sleep problem by going to System Preferences->Network then configuring AirPort in the AirPort tab:
By default, join: Automatic
It had previously been:
By default, join: Preferred networks
Setting it to Automatic fixed the reconnect from sleep problem, without messing with Keychain Access.
June 6th, 2006 at 3:59 am
106Setup: Mac Mini Dual Core running OS X 10.4.6 connected with internal Airport to a Linksys WRT54G. My network is closed (no SSID broadcast) and uses WEP.
I can connect no problems whatsoever, but if ever I lose the connection, I can’t get it to reconnect automatically. It does work if I turn the Airport off and back on again, or if I power cycle the router though, suggesting some kinds of reconnect are working. Also manual reconnect (by selecting my network name from the airport pulldown) works every time.
I’ve tried various combinations of Automatic, Preferred Networks, Keep trying known networks … etc, but nothing seems to work. Very frustrating as I’m trying to keep the mini headless, so every time I need to reconnect I need to plug in a keyboard/mouse!
It seems lots of people are having this type of problem (or variations thereof), so I’m guessing its a software bug. It would be nice to know what triggers it (does anyone know ?) so that I could script a workaround until a fix appears.
September 27th, 2006 at 7:52 pm
107macbook X.4.7, airport through netgear WGR614 v6, no connection trouble except when returning from an type of sleep orlong period of idling without sleep. after waking i can selec my network and it conect fine but i still have to manually connect, have tried various keychain solutions to no avail, tried prefered network settings too, but right now nothing is working to fix the problem
December 18th, 2006 at 12:49 pm
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March 21st, 2007 at 3:16 am
109Hi guys! I’ve a problem with DI-624 wireless connection and my ibook G4. I have to surf the net using an old analogic modem because in my town faster connections are unavailable. Because of I want to use wireless internet I installed windows xp and Free Proxy on an old PIII which is cable connected to DI-624 router. In this way I can surf the net using my iBook G4 wireless connection. The problem is that the connection seems to be stable but every 5 minutes stops receiving and sending data for about 30 seconds or more: in this moment I also can’t ping PIII host. I thought the problem was proxy program but connecting my iBook through cable connection works really fine. Do you have some advice? Thanks a lot.
(I’m afraid, my English is very bad… I’m Italian:p)
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