Airport Issues - Serious Issues

[LectortheVector]

Wheeewwww ... where to begin ... ?

1. Okay, so ... about a month ago, my internet was disconnected by the Comcast for lack of payment. This issue has been resolved - however, connecting to the internet through airport is now (almost) IMPOSSIBLE.

I don't know my current internet speed right now, but it seems as though it's been flushed down the toilet. I've been to many, many, many, ... many sites to fix this issue - but I'm going to start out from the beginning.

The first thing that happened was I was unable to connect to the internet through WiFi (airport). So my solution to this was to download this program that would allow fix up some files and fix my airport issue. It did not (but the program required me to enter my password, and I suspect it did something to my airport drive ... thing). After running this program, I was unable to connect and was getting the error "connection timeout" with a little warning triangle next to it. (Network Diagnostics showed "Airport" with a little yellow circle next to it; on, but not in use)

So I went into System Preferences -> Network -> Assist Me... -> Assistant, renamed the location name to "name", clicked "continue" -> first radio button -> my wifi network -> and then I entered the password, to which the response was "invalid password". This kind of pissed me off. The password was absolutely correct (and I know this for a fact).

After running a few codes that I found online through Terminal, I noticed that the password would go through but that the Airport icon would cycle through its connection animation and either would not connect (0 bars) or would display a triangle with an exclaimation point inside.

Annoyed still, I ran a new command through Terminal. This one was "cd /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration", [enter], "sudo -s rm *.*" (and then my password, for the sudo command). Supposedly this would delete my "corrupted plist files" ... or something like that ...
I ran this command and then rebooted, though this was to no avail.

After a couple of days, I realized that I had used Time Machine a few months back, and that my old plists may be on that drive - I was in luck, they were! So I duplicated my current plists and moved them to my desktop, then I transfered the old ones into my ".../SystemConfigurations" folder. That reset my old networks that I had deleted a while ago and added two new, unknown plists. Well, the problems persisted, so I moved my old plists back (because I prefer to have my newer networks selected). So ... I'm currently connection (I suspect because of those two plists), however I have extremely limited connectivity (I was loading Google in 15 seconds and Facebook in 20).


The plists I have now are as follows:

com.apple.airport.preferences.plist
com.apple.Boot.plist*
com.apple.nat.plist*
com.apple.network.identification.plist
com.apple.PowerManagement.plist
com.apple.smb.server.plist
NetworkInterfaces.plist
preferences.plist

*one of the two new plists


SO ... I searched Google for some answers for my low connectivity - what I found was something called "OpenDNS", and I honestly have NO IDEA what it is, but I seem to be running websites faster with it than without it (Google at 5-10, and Facebook at 10-15).

There are some applications that I use outside of Firefox and Safari to connect to the internet, however, and after a few attempts to connect (meaning constant connectivity), they force you to quit the application and start all over again. This is a problem I am facing right now because I need to use these applications.



In addition, I'm not really sure if this is somehow connected to my internet issues, however Safari, Google Chrome and iTunes have been experiencing some ... "problems".

2. Google Chome will crash whenever I use a "command" command, like "command+s" or "command+a", "+c", "+v", etc.

3. Safari treats pages differently now than it used to. Anytime I hit the spacebar in a text field it scrolls down the page (if the page is scrollable), and sometimes when I click on a text field, it takes two or more clicks to register.

4. iTunes crashes whenever I attempt to access the store.

I know this is a VERY LONG post, however if you could read through the problems and offer a plausible solution, your help would be EXTREMELY APPRECIATED.

I have numbered the problems I am having so that if you have a solution, it is easier for me to understand which one you are addressing, so please, if you could, number your answers as well to correspond with the issue.

I apologize in advance because I haven't really edited this post very well (I'm typing it up on TextEdit because of the Safari issue above), so I intend to take another look at it after I post it and make it easier to read/comprehend (I assume it looks like half-block-text after half-block-text).

 

[blueroom]

Sounds like your fiddling made it much worse, if it were me I'd reinstall OSX and TM restore. You shouldn't need to muck with your MacBook and AirPort.

 

[orvn]

What was the application you installed in the beginning that fueled this fiasco?

Careful with rm *.*, when you couple that with a sudo you can do some serious damage. Essentially, everytime you do that in a library directory that houses plists OSX regenerates default preference lists: so it's sort of a hack to reset your settings. This includes com.apple.nat.plist and com.apple.Boot.plist.

OpenDNS's servers do tend to parse domains faster than the dns' of many ISP's.

Let's start here: how is your home network configured?
What devices connect to what?
Did you configure your router yourself (OpenDNS is usually setup using your home networking modem/router)?

I assume this issue does not occur when connected via ethernet?


* * *

All those questions aside, this is a pretty tricky fix, because, at this point, you have multiple problem areas. As Blueroom suggests, a wrestling with this issue might not be the best idea and might be near impossible for someone without a good understanding of unix and that which lies under OSX's hood.

Your most painless option is probably to revert to a Time Machine backup:

1) Open Time Machine, find a backup from before these problems began (by the sounds of it, that's three months ago for you!)

2) Create a smart folder someplace convenient- say, on your desktop- that displays all of your most recent files.
Hint: searching date:>10/1/11 will output all the files modified or created after Oct. 1st, 2011 (i.e.- the last three months).

3) Back up important files to a separate disk drive. You might want to consider backing up all sorts of things, whether it be new applications or preferences- depending on what you use your computer for.

4) Revert to the old Time Machine backup.

5) Test network connections.

6) Copy all important data back.

Make sense?

 

[MarkMS]

As blueroom said, I think it's better if you backup important data to a external drive and start with a fresh install of OS X.

If I was in your situation, I would do the following:

1. Check if you have the latest updates to your version of OS X. If you have all of them (especially the Airport/WiFi updates), then make a new user account and log into it. If the problem persists, move to Step 2.

2. Back up critical data only. (Docs, images, music, videos, etc)
3. After fresh OS X install, start customizing your preferences as before. Place data back where they were.

Reason I wouldn't use Time Machine to restore my original settings/data is because you might have backed up a corrupted file. Use the Time Machine data in case you lose a file that you forgot to back up in Step 2.

4. Update OS X to latest version making sure you grab the latest Airport card updates too.

If that didn't help, then I would seek help from Apple. There might be a problem hardware wise. Not sure, really. Come back to this thread and update us if it helped or not.

The only time I've ever had slow connectivity was when I upgraded to DSL. My ISP had horrible DNS servers. If you didn't know, DNS servers translate domain names to IP addresses. OpenDNS does that but faster than normal DNS servers your ISP gives you. So use the tutorials from OpenDNS when you install OS X again. IF possible, put their DNS servers on your router so you don't have to go through the settings on all your machines to add them.

I hope this helps you.