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Apple Releases AirPort Utility 5.3.2

My wifi on my 08 Mac Pro has always been horrible! from 5 bars to none and my wireless router is 10 feet away! My mom has the same problem with her macbook pro. The metal cases really interfere with the signal...it's hard to believe a software update will help this problem, but I am downloading with my fingers crossed...:rolleyes: Waiting for wireless n on airport.
 
I think people are getting a little confused here. This update is to Airport Utility. That is the software that manages the configurations of Airport Express and Airport Extreme Base Stations. It won't (or shouldn't) affect your Airport connections.
 
If anyone is having problems with wi-fi drops, I would recommend checking your router's channel setting. When I got a new Linksys router, I was constantly getting dropped randomly, but when I changed the channel to 11 instead of the default (6 I think), I haven't had problems since.

I'm sure a lot of you have tried it before, but for those that overlooked wireless channels, definitely play around with it and see if it helps.
 
Well, I now have *two* instances of 'Airport Base Station Agent' running as opposed to one.. and I don't even have an airport base station.

Should they be running? If not, is there a way to prevent them from restarting?
 
my airport extreme has been dropping the wi-fi

computerman-8 said:
Backups are still working the same as before. I find airport a bit more stable. This may solve the dropouts issue, Not sure.
Click to expand...

my airport extreme has been dropping the wi-fi for the last two weeks or so and was never experiencing this before that time , HAS anyone else had this problem????? and has this new update fixed that issue?????
 
I thought this might, have last, got Airtunes working again under Leopard - no such luck.
 
How did you do it?

veeco3110 said:
when i had 10.5.3 ((now back to 10.5.2)) i had a horrible airport issue where once i got onto my network at home, i would have 5 bars of signal strength. then it would just drop to nothing. did anyone else have this and did this airport update fix it?
Click to expand...

Though I don't have a need right now to do so, I'm curious as to how you went back to 10.5.2 from 10.5.3? Did you have to do a full erase and re-install? Did you just manually download the 10.5.2 update and force install it? Maybe revert to previous backup? (Hope you don't mind sharing. I'm always trying to learn from people here and throughout the web.)

Thanks for passing the knowledge... If you choose to. ;)
 
flopticalcube said:
I think people are getting a little confused here. This update is to Airport Utility. That is the software that manages the configurations of Airport Express and Airport Extreme Base Stations. It won't (or shouldn't) affect your Airport connections.
Click to expand...

So this update doesn't come with an AEBS firmware? Those make me nervous. I did one some months ago and I had all kinds of issues with losing remote volumes and seeing other Macs and the Apple TV on our home network. Had to downgrade the firmware for a while.
 
Ugh, after installing this update, cannot print any longer through the Airport Extreme. It took me so long to get printing working with my MP610 Cannon, now, it just wont print
 
Cave Man said:
So this update doesn't come with an AEBS firmware? Those make me nervous. I did one some months ago and I had all kinds of issues with losing remote volumes and seeing other Macs and the Apple TV on our home network. Had to downgrade the firmware for a while.
Click to expand...
Thankfully, no. I would like to get a decent version of the firmware too but I have very little faith in the Airport software team at Apple.
 
SHOlover said:
My wifi on my 08 Mac Pro has always been horrible! from 5 bars to none and my wireless router is 10 feet away! My mom has the same problem with her macbook pro. The metal cases really interfere with the signal...it's hard to believe a software update will help this problem, but I am downloading with my fingers crossed...:rolleyes: Waiting for wireless n on airport.
Click to expand...

If it's 10 feet away why not run an ethernet cable?

Don't you know wireless N has been available for awhile for a few years?
http://www.apple.com/wifi/
 
flopticalcube said:
Thankfully, no. I would like to get a decent version of the firmware too but I have very little faith in the Airport software team at Apple.
Click to expand...
I heard so many stories like this that I almost didn't buy my AEBS a few months ago. While I realize that some people (or perhaps even a lot of people) do have issues, and I can sympathize with them, I have never had an issue of any kind with my AEBS or WiFi on any Mac that I have ever owned, starting with a 1.5GHz PowerBook. I guess I am just one of the lucky ones. I previously had a Linksys WRT54G and the network (WiFi and wired) would sometimes freeze, but a firmware upgrade to the router fixed that. And I currently have 3 Macs (2 Intel, 1 PPC) and an :apple:TV in the house.
 
danny_w said:
I heard so many stories like this that I almost didn't buy my AEBS a few months ago. While I realize that some people (or perhaps even a lot of people) do have issues, and I can sympathize with them, I have never had an issue of any kind with my AEBS or WiFi on any Mac that I have ever owned, starting with a 1.5GHz PowerBook. I guess I am just one of the lucky ones. I previously had a Linksys WRT54G and the network (WiFi and wired) would sometimes freeze, but a firmware upgrade to the router fixed that. And I currently have 3 Macs (2 Intel, 1 PPC) and an :apple:TV in the house.
Click to expand...

You aren't lucky, you are in the vast majority.
Sites like this attract the very small percentage of users who have issues. (Many of which blame Apple for their own user error or unrealistic expectations)
 
One thing this update DID do was fix the Shared category in the Finder sidebar so every single computer on the network doesn't show up, only other Apple computers and Airports. Before, at work, it would show every computer on the entire network, i.e. 50 Windoze PCs that I never needed to network with. Awesome!
 
Confusion

I think there is some confusion on this board.

This update is for the Airport Configuration utility. It is the program in your utilities folder.

It is NOT an update to the WiFi radio firmware or the connection software.
 
megfilmworks said:
You aren't lucky, you are in the vast majority.
Sites like this attract the very small percentage of users who have issues. (Many of which blame Apple for their own user error or unrealistic expectations)
Click to expand...

You are mistaken. Everybody lost AEBS disk sharing with 10.5, which worked perfectly in 10.4. It returned for a minority of people with 10.5.1, and presumably for everyone with 10.5.2. Firmware 7.2.1 (and for some 7.3.1) was found to be the guilty culprit.
 
Cave Man said:
You are mistaken. Everybody lost AEBS disk sharing with 10.5, which worked perfectly in 10.4. It returned for a minority of people with 10.5.1, and presumably for everyone with 10.5.2. Firmware 7.2.1 (and for some 7.3.1) was found to be the guilty culprit.
Click to expand...
When I bought my AEBS it had 7.2.1 firmware and I was running 10.5.1 (or maybe 10.5.2) at the time. Of course Time Machine did not work with the AirDisk, but I didn't expect it to because of all that I had read; I never tried disk sharing on this version. Then when I upgraded to 7.3.1 firmware I got the ability to do Time Machine backups to the shared AirDisk, and it has worked great ever since. I have never had an issue.
 
I had my 1 TB media drive connected to my AEBS (hundreds of shows and movies, thousands of songs). It's what we use to serve our Apple TV and other Macs in the house. Of course, with the inability of our iTunes server to see it and the inability of the other Macs in the house to see it, we could not use it. I had to connect that drive directly to my Mac Mini media machine. You know how much of a pain in the @$$ it is to get iTunes to relocate several thousand media files?
 
Cave Man said:
I had my 1 TB media drive connected to my AEBS (hundreds of shows and movies, thousands of songs). It's what we use to serve our Apple TV and other Macs in the house. Of course, with the inability of our iTunes server to see it and the inability of the other Macs in the house to see it, we could not use it. I had to connect that drive directly to my Mac Mini media machine. You know how much of a pain in the @$$ it is to get iTunes to relocate several thousand media files?
Click to expand...
I am not saying that others have not had problems; I have no reason to doubt that they have, and for them (like you) the issues are very real I am sure. However, IN MY EXPERIENCE, the AEBS and Airport cards in MY iMacs and :apple:TV have been rock solid.
 
I have never been able to get my Airdisk to work reliably on my AEBS. They work for a few weeks then "poof", they're gone. Also, sharing a disk and a printer off the AEBS often brings the whole router down when trying to connect to the disk from 10.5.2 which requires a hard reboot of the router. Like Cave Man, I have since relocated the disks to my mini HTPC.
 
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