Mac OS 10.4.10 and MacBook Airport Issues?

[MacRumors]

An increasingly popular thread on Apple's discussion boards appears to pin WiFi problems some MacBook users have been experiencing on the Mac OS 10.4.10 update. Users with the issue appear to experience symptoms ranging from WiFi dropouts to kernel panics.

Gaging the severity of a problem is always difficult to do from forum threads, as typically only people who have issues voice concerns. However, Mac OS 10.4.10 has had its share of bugs, already being patched once due to an audio issue with Intel-based Macs.

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[daneoni]

Hmmm, no issues for me.

[notsofatjames]

i didnt know it was a common problem, but my wireless has been playing up loads recently. I never would have thought it was OS X. I kept resetting my router and things, and it would still dropout, take 10minutes to connect.

[pebzbuan]

i think this is true because i'm having intermitent kernel panic with my mac and my wireless connection is intermitently disconnected.

[iHerzeleid]

Same problem here.

[LimeiBook86]

I had a problem but, I didn't think it was anything related to the system. I thought the router was to blame. I was using the AirPort signal and sharing it over ethernet to an older Mac. It worked fine, but iChat on the MacBook would disconnect while the older Mac connected could go online fine.

Then the wireless signal dropped all together and even with Internet Sharing disabled I had a lot of trouble getting online. I reset the router and I still had the same problem, it took a restart for me to get back to normal.

Odd huh?

[hanschien]

Originally Posted by iHerzeleid

Same problem here.

It's the same for me. I've noticed that Safari will not load web pages even though the airport signal shows full strength then followed by a kernel panic.

[scottrichardson]

Heya guys.

My wife's macbook 2Ghz / 1GB / 80GB is having the same problems. Initially just had issues with disconnections from our Linksys 802.11n router.. but then the kernel panics began, and have been increasing. I can't be sure, but I would say the problems coincided with the installation of 10.4.10. Pretty frustrating. It's not totally unbearable at the moment, so I'm hoping for a quick fix from Apple.

Further to this, the other two macbooks I purchased for my wife's two sisters, are both out of action at the moment. One with a siddently dead battery, the other won't boot at all. We're not having so much luck with the macbooks so far are we? Hopefully my 2.2GHz Macbookpro is a little more reliable... arrives any day now (can't wait).

Scottie

[jubjub]

I had some trouble.. but when I switched from WEP to WPA it worked again. It also worked with no security at all. I've had similar problems with some previous updates but then I just changed the channel and it worked again.

Edit: No kernel panics for me.. just no connection/signal.

[TBi]

I've had problems with WiFi dropping out on my macbook even before 10.4.10. However now i have a problem that although the connection doesn't seem to dropout, the internet seems to drop for a mili second every now and then. So my downloads just stop sometimes and when i'm using remote desktop it drops out.

[shadowfax]

I'm on a WEP network at home... I have been getting plenty of drops, mysteriously. I guess now i have an update to blame.

[SAukland]

Eureka! I just got off the phone with an AppleCare rep like an hour ago. My friend brought me her MacBook, she's having the same problems, getting hard-freeze crashes a few times a day.

Sure enough, when we checked the panic log in the Console, there were 20 entries, 16 of which were related to the Airport driver from within the last two weeks.

His recommendation was to archive and reinstall from the restore disks, and then run software update to get everything up to date. Now that it seems to be related to 10.4.10, I doubt I'll install that again.

[longofest]

For those who have the 802.11n enabler installed on applicable notebooks, it appears as though some discussion participants had some success re-installing the enabler.

I tried this, and so far, it seems to have resolved my issues. Your mileage may vary, as it didn't work for others in the Apple Support forum, but it may be worth a try while Apple is busy ignoring the problem working on a solution.

[Peel]

I'm releaved to hear this. I thought my Linksys WRT300N wireless router was dying on me. I'll be sure to try the reinstalling the wireless N enabler tip that Longofest suggests.

[hopejr]

I thought the airport problems I'm having in 10.4.9 (99% CPU whenever I log in) were bad enough. Thankfully I haven't upgraded to .10 yet.

[photobiker]

My girlfriend's MacBook has a kernel panic several times a day at an apartment where we are house-sitting. It sure is related to wifi because the stack trace that gets sent to Apple after each crash always shows some '80211' function at the bottom.

It doesn't seem to happen at our place. I don't know if it is related but we have a Buffalo router while our friends' place has a Linksys. Both routers have the same encryption scheme, I believe.

[chmorley]

I just noticed two days ago how abysmal my connection has been. I have an TV that has been updating *amazingly* slowly over the past couple of days (it's paired with my MBP). Even this page took nearly 30 seconds to load.

Working on a WEP network here, as well. I'll try switching to WPA, now that I've gotten rid of the old PC.

Chris

[twoodcc]

I'm sure apple is working on this now, and will address it soon

[ScubaDuc]

10.4.10 brought havoc to my Mini It refused to start and would hang with just a mouse pointer. Naturally, I did not back up like I should have, but I had just received my new MBB so I reloaded the start-up disk and I was able to connect the Mini via firewire tranfer mode

I did a clean install, repaired permissions at each steps and applied the cumulative update... Guess what? Same problem but this time the Mini started after about 20 minutes. I repaired permissions (again) and had the same problem after I had to restart because of QT...

And YES... WiFi drops off on my Mini...but it always has

The MacBook is much better and had no problem with the upddate...

Now I am pretty sure it's the 10.4.10 update so I'll try to keep the Mini "onsleep" hoping Apple will resolve the booting issue as well... If not, I'll just have to waste a few hours again

If MicroSuck had done this to my computers I'd be....x&éè觧 but because it's Apple....

[syklee26]

is this just on MBs? because my MBP has been having problems. I have changed my airport base 3 times thinking airport was the problem.

[Craigy]

Me too - same problem here since 10.4.10

[quigleybc]

No problems for me..

Some times I wish I had problems with any of my Apple products...but I never have in over three years and many devices...

oh well, as soon as I do I can join in on the complaining fun!

[jds3266]

Since my update I have noticed this issue. And I know that I am not alone, this is getting to be a major issue. I often have to turn off and on my wi-fi and or my router. While my wife's Sony laptop continuously works without a hitch.

Apple should rectify this problem. With that being said if I owned a PC these sort of problems would be minor to the rest of them.

BTW I use a WPA 26 hex login.

[bankshot]

Originally Posted by hopejr

I thought the airport problems I'm having in 10.4.9 (99% CPU whenever I log in) were bad enough. Thankfully I haven't upgraded to .10 yet.

I reported this bug last week in Apple's official bug tracker because I'd gotten so fed up with it. So far the status is still listed as "Open" with no updates. I really hope their answer isn't "wait for Leopard" since that's just a few more months away.

You probably know this already (since you identified the problem as being with airport) but you can always kill the "airport" process from Activity Monitor any time this happens. One of these days I'll figure out how to make an automated script do this every time I log in -- can't just make it a Login Item since it has to be run when doing a Fast User Switch into an existing session as well.

I hate to think of all the poor Macbook users who don't know enough to poke around in Activity Monitor and kill the offending process. For any of them, if this happens it will greatly reduce battery life, increase heat, and make the fans run pretty much nonstop. That can't be good for their Mac experience.

[bankshot]

Originally Posted by TBi

I've had problems with WiFi dropping out on my macbook even before 10.4.10. However now i have a problem that although the connection doesn't seem to dropout, the internet seems to drop for a mili second every now and then. So my downloads just stop sometimes and when i'm using remote desktop it drops out.

Yep, I'm having exactly the same problems lately. No signal loss, but all network connectivity goes out periodically. Almost reminiscent of when I first bought this Macbook over a year ago, when it was intermittently dropping packets. That one mysteriously went away after a day or so, but this one's continuing to occur. Usually it just drops for a few seconds or a minute or so. But the other day it went out all day until I finally rebooted. In the meantime, it was still working fine on the neighbor's open wireless network, so I used that for awhile...

No kernel panics or anything of that nature so far.