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Mac OS 10.4.10 and MacBook AirPort Issues? [Updated]

Update:
I've worked on battery power until my charge ran out (~2:45) and didn't have one drop from Airport or any kernel panics... or really any fanfare at all - it all just worked... like it should.
I charged the battery back up to 100%, shutdown, rebooted on battery and have now been working on and off for an hour and a half, in and out of sleep-mode, a couple of more test reboots, etc. -- no issues whatsoever.
Finally - I have a *portable* computer again!
 
[Update: close but not quite working; see below]

Finally!

Also seems to be working here in about 4 total hours of on-battery, wireless use.

Maybe I can leave my desk now!

Thanks to any Apple Devs who worked on the patch and may read this.

UPDATE: Although no kernel panics and no more frequent wireless drops since installing the new Airport update, Airport still does seem to "sleep" once it's not used for some time. The icon drops from 4 to 3 bars (within a few feet of the wireless router) and restores to 4 bars once the wireless is active again. On two occasions now, the web became unavailable for a bit until wireless woke up (watching a movie in Quicktime, then exiting to find all e-mail offline and no www response for about 30-60 seconds). It's BETTER than before the update, so I'm still glad I installed the update, but this issue does NOT appear to be fixed. Apple: Please keep working on this!
 
Boxcar Edit said:
[Update: close but not quite working; see below]

(snip)

It's BETTER than before the update, so I'm still glad I installed the update, but this issue does NOT appear to be fixed. Apple: Please keep working on this!
Click to expand...

Agreed. On my MacBook, however, "better" is a long way short of "acceptable".

I'm sharing my Mac Mini's 2Mb broadband connection via Airport, and even with every software update available installed, the results are not good.

At least 25% of all pages in Safari hang indefinitely, only loading after clicking stop and refresh. Some pages won't load at all if you click on a link, but if you use "Open in new window", they load just fine. Most of the time.

Most bizarrely of all, if a page is hanging and I go into the iStat widget to see if there is any data moving in or out, the web page unfreezes in the background and (usually) loads up.

iStat is showing data moving at 5-10k per second, when it moves at all, which is just a little below the ~250k I should be getting when there's no other demand in the network.

Not good enough, Apple. Really not good enough. I haven't been this frustrated with a system update since 7.5.3!

Cheers

Jim
 
Initially the update had appeared to fix the problem on my MacBook (1st revision).

However after a couple of days the connection dropping problem has returned. Once again I have to go through the Network Diagnostic tool to wake the connection up again.
 
Glad I didn't apply it now! Since doing the workaround of getting airport drivers from the combo update, my MBP has been rock solid.

Such a poor showing from Apple! If this work around wasn't about I would have got a refund and bought another make by now.
 
Same problems here, my panic log file reports the airport kernel extensions aswell... dodgy to connect after waking too.

Also my airtunes has been dropping out heaps when using my airport express but when i connect with Lan it works fine.
 
DENZIE said:
Same problems here, my panic log file reports the airport kernel extensions aswell... dodgy to connect after waking too.

Also my airtunes has been dropping out heaps when using my airport express but when i connect with Lan it works fine.
Click to expand...

Good to know. Assuming this was after applying the late July 2007-004 Airport update, yes?

SUGGESTION TO ALL: To send better info to Apple, let's all please indicate whether we've installed the new July 2007-004 Airport update when posting our issues.

My system is getting progressively worse after installing the Airport update, as it did over days following the 10.4.10 install, and it now drops to 3 bars and cannot connect both a) much more frequently, and b) without working again until cycling Airport off and back on. Last time it began this way, then required switching users or restarting to kick things into gear.

Also to be clear, the old problems only occurred while on battery and wireless. The drops now occur even with the power cord connected. This makes me think to recommend against installing the last Airport update, as without it one can at least plug power in and use wireless consistently.

To save others the effort, here are things tried so far, with Apple's help, that did not work:
1. Adding a new Airport "location" profile
2. Deleting (temporarily removing) the root hard drive's Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration file.

When trying #2 above, however, I did experience the same quirk I saw when installing 10.4.10, where I could not connect via wireless initially until I turned on SSID broadcasting at least once and selected my router from the Airport menu; after doing this once following the upgrade or SystemConfiguration deletion, I could turn broadcasting back off and still connect. Connecting via "other" while broadcasting was off did not work and gave a "failed to connect" message. Anyone else see this?

Suggestion to all #2: Apple will need to continue to hear from us, via calling tech support or submitting info on their site, so they know the issue was not yet fixed and can get logs and other data from us to help diagnose the problem. Thanks to all who've been posting here as well as letting Apple know directly.
 
My Macbook still drops connections, though less frequently than before the update. Getting to be a bit of a piss-off. :mad:
 
SSID Brocasting?

One more question to all....

For those who have intel portables, do you have SSID Broadcasting turned on in your router (so you can see your wireless network's name in your Airport menu) or off?

Has anyone noticed if having SSID Broadcasting turned on helps any with the new (July 2007-004) Airport update installed?
 
Boxcar Edit said:
One more question to all....

For those who have intel portables, do you have SSID Broadcasting turned on in your router (so you can see your wireless network's name in your Airport menu) or off?

Has anyone noticed if having SSID Broadcasting turned on helps any with the new (July 2007-004) Airport update installed?
Click to expand...

Sorry to say that I've had SSID Broadcasting turned on the whole time and still have the drop outs.

I use my MacBook at different sites and get the same problem with different makes of router.

Still the slight inconvenience of the occasional drop outs is less than the inconvenience of using Vista or XP on my other 100% wireless connected laptops.
 
Boxcar Edit said:
One more question to all....

For those who have intel portables, do you have SSID Broadcasting turned on in your router (so you can see your wireless network's name in your Airport menu) or off?

Has anyone noticed if having SSID Broadcasting turned on helps any with the new (July 2007-004) Airport update installed?
Click to expand...

Not using a dedicated router ... the broadband goes straight into our Mac Mini via ethernet and "Internet Sharing" is enabled.

Prior to the 2007-004 update, all wireless internet access was problematic.

The update appears to have fixed the Mini, since it now plays nicely with the iMac (which appears to have been unaffected, according to Apple, since the 2007-004 update was not listed for iMacs or MacPros).

Airport on the MacBook, however, is still FUBARed, making the web borderline unuseable, and preventing a successful sync with .mac.

I note that some people are reporting that this issue does not occur, or is less pronounced, when running their MacBook on mains rather than battery. I must stress that this is not my experience.

Bah!

Jim
 
Here is the timeline of my problems

  • Got new SR MacBook Pro and keeps KP when on battery
  • After no Apple fixes I applied the workaround with the combo update and its worked rock solid ever since
  • Rolled back the update and applied the new patch last night. No KP but slow connection & reception issues.
  • Applied the workaround combo update again and working perfectly again.

My lesson learned from this is Apple have a seriously buggy driver here. If this workaround hadn't come out I wouldn't be the owner of a MBP pro anymore, its just not acceptable.

In the end though, that workaround saved my bacon! Come on :apple: get your finger out and fix the problem once and for all.
 
Please phone Apple Tech Support

Hi, all.

Please, please phone Apple tech support if you've installed the July 2007-004 Airport update and are still having wireless connectivity problems.

Apple is working on this issue but so far I may be the only one who's reported the issue and had it escalated up to a wireless product specialist. They'll need more than just my logs (and to have it confirmed that it's not just one machine having problems). Just in case these wind up mattering, please let them know what router you're using and any unusual configuration changes.

Apple's tech support phone # is 800 275-2273. You may want to note that the Tier 1 tech support people don't seem aware of the issue and the wireless product specialists may need to be involved to get a solution.
 
before this update i always had full airport reception, but now i get three bars sometimes, and when i get three bars, web pages wont load. I have been clicking on links twice, once to ge to where i want to go, then once more when i notice ive only got 3 bars and the page is not going to load. I hope there is going to be a fix for this problem soon.
 
I have had the same 3-bar cutoff, several times an hour. I called the support number listed earlier in the thread. The rep told me they were aware of this problem and didn't have a fix. We redid my network preferences, but that didn't help.

The only other suggestion they had was to re-install OSX (!).
 
A significant improvement ...

jat357 said:
The only other suggestion they had was to re-install OSX (!).
Click to expand...

A quick question ... are people only experiencing problems with their Airport internet connection from within Safari?

The reason I ask is because I've been having Activity Monitor running while I'm attempting to access the internet, and noticed that, for example, Usenet downloads were running at pretty much full speed whilst web pages were crawling, if they loaded at all.

So ... just out of interest, I installed Firefox. Guess what? It's a huge improvement.

I'll admit that I prefer Safari's interface, but I think I can get used to this just to get back to being able to use the internet again!

EDIT to add: Not perfect, by any measure because I still get significant stalling, particularly on forms, but definitely much, much better.

Cheers

Jim
 
MBP Santa Rosa 2.2 GHz - Wireless Performance Unreliable and Slow

Bought a 2.2 GHz MPB on 8/12/07. Out of the box I could connect to the wireless router (Belkin N1, 128-bit WEP) with full strength but could not connect to the internet. Hardwired MBP to router and had blazing performance. Downloaded software updates, including the July 2007-004 Airport update. I was then able to connect and load pages, but performance was slow and many pages would hang 80-90% of the way into the load. Airport connection has dropped and then reconnected (seemingly randomly) a couple times. Called Apple Care and spoke to wireless specialist. After pressing him for a while, he finally searched the database and confirmed that others have reported the issue. He thought this was serious enough that another update should be forthcoming, but offered no solution in the interim. So I take it that these wireless issues are not just limited to Santa Rosa MBPs, but also MacBooks?
 
Jim Campbell said:
EDIT to add: Not perfect, by any measure because I still get significant stalling, particularly on forms, but definitely much, much better.
Click to expand...

The hell with it. Just reinstalled back to 10.4.9 and all is fine. Data flows up to the maximum expected rate with silky wireless smoothness. I've managed a successful .Mac sync for the first time in over a week.

Thanks a bunch for all the help, Apple! :p

Cheers

Jim
 
i know i get the wireless dropout on my Mac in my sig.

it will be doing great one minute with all 5 bars then all of a sudden will drop to 4 bars and i wont have a connection. 4 bars should not be low enough to drop a connection.

i have even experienced where once it would drop the connection and you would turn off wifi and turn it back on and see the SSID of the router you was just connected to but it dont auto connect to it. when you try to it say's the network was unreachable ( maybe due to encryption ) but the weird thing is that i run unencrypted wifi. after a reboot if the system ( Mac ) it will most of the time re connect.

wile all of this is going on my windows XP PC with wireless still has a connection. so i know its not the router or modem.

something is defiantly screwed uo in the airport software. i know its not a hardware issue. or only limited to intel Mac's

in 10.4.8 and 10.4.9 i had no issues with wifi dropping out. i ran with 3 bars and didn't have a issue ever.
 
Is this issue limited to the 15" MBPs or are people with 17"ers having problems?

I have the latest OS X installed (10.4.10) on a 17" and haven't had a single dropout?

In fact the only problem I had was when I first installed the patch , it rebooted and wouldn't connect to my preferred network until I typed in the network name.. ever since that it's been fine.

FYI: I hide my SSID so I assume that caused it to lose the network temporarily :)
 
Exactly the Same here!!!

dordal said:
I concur that this only happens on batteries, not on AC, and only with certain routers.

I have a new SR MacBook Pro 2.2, and it will work flawlessly with my Buffalo WHR-G54S (running DD-WRT firmware) while on AC, and it kernel panics after only a few minutes on batteries. It works fine with a Linksys WRT54GL, runing HyperWRT firmware (both AC and batteries)
Click to expand...

Same... week old MBP 2.4 .. Happened w/ A.C. just now on Hotel System w/Linksys WRT54GL :mad: ; I would like to Fix it soon.. only Temporary "quick fix" seems to be Turn Off/ On my Airport and IT COMES RIGHT BACK!!

Must be Apple Fix soon... I HOPE!!
 
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