Panther: More on problem with AirPort connection
Posted by Pierre Igot in: MacintoshNovember 11th, 2003 • 11:56 pm
Something is definitely not right with Panther and AirPort-based connections, at least in my setup. I haven’t been able to get things to improve in the past couple of days. My AirPort software is up-to-date (3.2) — although the AirPort Admin Utility hasn’t requested that I update the firmware on the AirPort Base Station itself in a while… (It’s still at v3.84.)
Typically, what happens is that, all of a sudden, my computer running Panther appears to lose its connection to the AirPort Base Station. The status in Internet Connect disappears (except for the name of the AirPort network), and if I try to access the Base Station using the AirPort Admin Utility, it cannot find it.
Then I try to turn AirPort off and back on on the computer. Sometimes, this brings the AirPort connection back to life, and I can see the AirPort Base Station again (which is still connected to the Internet, so the problem is not with the Base Station itself as far as I can tell).
Other times, I have to take more drastic measures, such as restarting the Base Station itself. Presumably, this sends a new signal to Panther which sort of “wakes up” and sees the Base Station again. But then I have to reestablish the connection to the Internet again.
Restarting the computer usually works as well, although it is really the last ditch resort. (Logging out and back in doesn’t work. Switching users doesn’t work either.)
I have yet to determine why all of a sudden the connection between the computer and the Base Station is interrupted. There is absolutely no new interference in my office. This is clearly caused by a bug in Panther. It might be related to sleep issues. I often find that the connection has been lost when I return to my computer after it’s been asleep for a while (although the only thing that’s supposed to be asleep is the monitor). It might also simply be that the problem occurs after a while, whether the computer asleep or not.
Also, this morning I was actually using the computer, trying to access a web site, when all of a sudden the connection was lost again. So there were no sleep-related issues in that particular case.
It’s all very frustrating, as can easily be imagined.
November 12th, 2003 at Nov 12, 03 | 12:11 am
you have a BT dongle around your keyboard or something? My setup with the BT dongle messing up my AP connection after upgrading to 10.3. sometimes the BT will go, sometimes the AP will go.
November 12th, 2003 at Nov 12, 03 | 3:59 am
jim: no dongle
Judi: it’s a dual 1.25 GHz G4 (MDD) tower. I also have a TiBook, so I am all too aware of the AirPort reception problems. But this problem is different. The connection is lost even though the computer does not move, is always in the same room as the Base Station, and has 80% reception when the connection is there.
Never had any problems with 10.2. It’s clearly a problem with Panther. (The TiBook is still running 10.2 and doesn’t have any problems.)
November 12th, 2003 at Nov 12, 03 | 12:20 am
Which computer is it again? I know that the Aluminum and Titanium laptops do not have nearly the AirPort reception that they should. My husband has a 12″ G4 PB and I have a 12″ iBook. We can be sitting right next to each other whether it’s in a lobby or in our home and I’ll have a full, steady signal on mine and never lose it and he can lean ever so slightly in any direction and lose his signal. Or not have one at all.
November 12th, 2003 at Nov 12, 03 | 10:35 pm
Luis: You have 5.2 because you have an AirPort Extreme Base Station. I only have a regular “graphite” Base Station.
Apple has just released Mac OS X 10.3.1, which doesn’t fix the AirPort problem. (It does fix the FireWire 800 problems, though, apparently.) So we’ll have to wait until 10.3.2 at least. Frustrating!
November 12th, 2003 at Nov 12, 03 | 7:55 pm
The same thing is happening to me. I ,however, have firmware version 5.2 installed on the base station. I usually have to power cycle the base station to get the connection to work again. It then only lasts for 20-40 min and I have to do it again. Everything was fine before doing this last AirPort software update.
The way I found to fix the problem is to reset the base station and then not change any settings. Yes, it’s highly insecure. Now that AirPort supports WPA I can’t even use WEP!
If you search Apple discussion forums you’ll find out this is happening to lots of people. Lets hope Apple fixes it soon.
November 17th, 2003 at Nov 17, 03 | 9:56 am
I have the same problem.
Mac G4 cube with airport connecting to a Linksys WAP11 connection point. No problems with Jaguar, loads with panther.
G
November 21st, 2003 at Nov 21, 03 | 12:31 am
Same problem here. iBook 600 with a dual ethernet or “Snow” airport. The Airport seems to drop it’s IP address and self assigns. Rather irritating…
November 29th, 2003 at Nov 29, 03 | 4:31 pm
same problem here; it’s nice that it’s not just me but frustrating as hell to be hard wired with my airport at my feet flashing;
December 11th, 2003 at Dec 11, 03 | 3:38 am
similar problem here: sometimes my Airport-based LAN works fine and I can both access other computers of the LAN and connect to the Net, but sometimes I can just access the LAN but no connection to the Net (my computer doesn’t get an IP address from the Airport base). Airport base is not the problem as my Macs running Jaguar work fine, only the ones running Panther have this problem. And problem seems to occur randomly, and to dissapear randomly as well…
December 11th, 2003 at Dec 11, 03 | 3:53 am
I haven’t experienced the problem since doing a clean install of Panther. So maybe there’s something about “unclean” installs here.
December 20th, 2003 at Dec 20, 03 | 12:36 am
Thanks for the fix! I have been having the worst time with a SNOW AP. It stays in the antenna icon and is selectable but dissappears from the AirPort Admin Util after about 5 minutes. I took away the PAssword and it has been working well for several hours.
Thanks again!
January 6th, 2004 at Jan 06, 04 | 2:47 pm
I have been having the same troubles for the last 2 days. My new powerbook loses its connection to the airport. It happened 2x today, once while I was working and once when it wok from a sleep. INterestingly enough, it didn’t end there. My ethernet card was unable to access the internet. 3 hours lost trouble-shooting today. Got my printer back (had lost it when the airport dropped) and I had a deadline so the ethernet card will have to wait for another day.
January 6th, 2004 at Jan 06, 04 | 11:41 pm
Lots of networking issues with Panther as far as I can tell. I have two AirPort stations connected to each other with an Ethernet cable (the second one acting as a relay), and Panther appears to have “corrupted” one of the two somehow. Even resetting it didn’t work. I’ll have to try some more. Pain!
January 13th, 2004 at Jan 13, 04 | 2:39 pm
Hello, Im having the same problem except im using windows / linux based notebooks and pcs with three differnet nics, its actually the airport itself, I am using some wlan monitering tools and there is something wrong with the firmware.. It keeps dropping the connection, it has beein pissing me right off, so I ended up smashing it with a sledge hammer.. A waste of money I know but it felt sooo good . no joke!
January 13th, 2004 at Jan 13, 04 | 6:59 pm
I’m kind of happy I’m finding these pages!
I have the same problem BUT do not use an Airport Base Station (Extreme or normal).
I do, however, have an Airport Extreme card in my 20″ FP iMac and it’s losing its connection to my wireless LAN (DLink gear) sporadically. It also fails to resolve all the ip addresses on my LAN (the ARP tables are incoimplete). I’m running 10.3.2.
My Powerbook running 10.2.8 has no such problems, despite having weaker signal strength.
I’ve scratched my head since getting the iMac (Christmas) and am convinced there’s either an issue with Airport Extreme (802.11g? Can this be throttled back in the cards to 802.11b?) or (more likely) with Panther.
A hard wired connection works fine, but that’s simply not practical in my setup.
January 13th, 2004 at Jan 13, 04 | 10:49 pm
Andrew: Check out this post, in which I describe how I managed to “revive” a seemingly dead AirPort Base Station. Of course, now that you’ve resorted to physical action, it’s a bit too late :).
Andy: Did you try doing a (completely) clean install of Panther on your iMac? I am not sure whether you can force your iMac’s AirPort Extreme card to use 802.11b instead of 802.11g. Maybe with AirPort Admin Utility?
Normally, you can check your D-Link’s configuration (with a web browser) and determine whether it’s using a mixed mode (b and g) or g only or b only.
January 13th, 2004 at Jan 13, 04 | 11:04 pm
Pierre
Panther install is all the machine has ever had on it as it was brand new at Christmas. A reinstall might help, but I doubt it. It would also be a real pain in the backside :)
Can’t find any way at all of forcing the card into 802.11b mode. The airport utilities only get you onto a wireless network or sort out base stations I believe.
The system works most of the time with all devices apart from 1 – a DLink print server that only uses 802.11b. And it drops its connection every now and then (usually twice a day). Restarting the machine cures it, but all the while my other devices (a PC and a Powerbook) can all connect fine, including to the print server.
I’ve tried going back to Airport 3.1.1 software but that didn’t help. Am considering going back earlier still (3.0.4) to see, but am not hopefull.
The more I look at this, the more I’m convinced it’s Panther causing the issues.
Thanks for your reply though. I’ve noticed a LOT of threads on the Apple support forums about dropping connections and will post on there once Apple’s maintenance work has been completed.
Andy
January 13th, 2004 at Jan 13, 04 | 11:44 pm
I think you are right to suspect Panther. I personally certainly did experience major disruptions after upgrading. But somehow they’ve cleared up.
When the connection drops, have you tried turning AirPort off and then back on?
January 13th, 2004 at Jan 13, 04 | 11:49 pm
Tried that. Doesn’t seem to work.
The only thing that seems to solve it is to restart the machine, though I haven’t tried restarting the router (seems no point as the other machines are OK using it).
The problem is definitely local to the iMac/Panther. My problem not being able to connect to one of the devices on my network from that machine may be linked, it may not be.
I might look into creating a bootable 10.2 volume and see if this cures the ills on the machine…off to research this now (new to Macs, but I’m sure it’s doable :)
January 14th, 2004 at Jan 14, 04 | 12:05 am
Good luck. Sorry you have to deal with all this as a new Mac user :-/.
You should be able to create a bootable 10.2 volume either on a separate partition on the same HD or on an external hard drive.
January 15th, 2004 at Jan 15, 04 | 11:58 pm
Two comments:
I recently got some similar flaky behavior with my Graphite. However, in my case it was the router that was going bonkers (Macsense MIH130). A firmware update later, and the router was rock solid again. Along with it, so was my Airport connection. Before, I’d have to reset the network at least once a day, so I feel your pain.
Number two, you may be suffering from the dreaded Graphite power supply problem. Unless you got a later one (revision 1.1), chances are that your capacitors are dying. Many, many folks have cured their flaky ABS simply by exchanging the capacitors. Adding Ventilation holes is also a good idea.
The URL I gave should take you to the top-level ABS page. There are resources for the Graphite, Snow, and Extreme model. In the case of the Graphite, I have a comprehensive repair page. Cheers! CvW
January 16th, 2004 at Jan 16, 04 | 1:25 am
Thanks for the advice. However, I haven’t heard of such a slow death for the Graphite with the faulty capacitors. AFAIK, the failure is usually abrupt, and you get the dreaded red/amber LEDs that won’t go away.
Anyway, in my case, things appear to be back to normal now, so if my capacitors are dying, it must be a very slow death :).
Thanks for the link!
January 28th, 2004 at Jan 28, 04 | 7:03 am
I’ll chime in with the same lost WiFi signal in Panther. My 1.33Ghz, 17″ Al PowerBook loses it’s signal about once a day. Mac OS X 10.3.2. Wifi OK on four other Macs running from Jaguar down to OS 9. WiFi is served from a Linksys BEFW11S4 10/100, 802.11b, 4-port, wireless router with a cable modem WAN. (Linksys makes excellent products, by the way. I’ve set up many for clients.)
My Al PowerBook is the only thing affected, and the only unit running Panther. My fix is consistent and simple: I must restart! I’ve tried every other manipulation in this forum, including a clean install, to no avail. And, restarting this “unix” box every day really rubs against my better sensibilities.
I will monitor the forum in the hope that Apple eventually fixes this very annoying issue.
–
Tim Foelker
Web, design, and database services provided by
Professional Techworks, http://www.protechworks.com
February 5th, 2004 at Feb 05, 04 | 4:04 am
I’ve got a 15″ powerbook with this problem, running 10.3.2. Oddly enough, this problem does not affect my girlfriend’s 12″ powerbook, also running 10.3.2. The airport connection is never explicitly cut, and I continue to have full signal the whole time, but I randomly lose my connection to the internet and have to restart the airport to make things work again.
It seems to be related to having multiple wireless networks present at the same time. It never happens to me at work, where we have a single, unencrypted network, but happens a lot (every 2-3 seconds, sometimes) at my apartment, where there can be up to three other encrypted networks visible to my machine.
It doesn’t seem to be correlated to having my network at home encrypted or not, and it shouldn’t be signal interference, since I’m using channel 10 and the other networks are on 1,2 and 6. And again, it’s never happened to the 12″ powerbook, with identical patches from apple.
Maybe this is a hardware problem with the airport cards, and mine’s just flaking out?
Michael Hohensee
February 5th, 2004 at Feb 05, 04 | 4:16 am
I think it must be a software thing with multiple networks (or rather multiple access points). My networks are not encrypted. But I do have a roaming network.
For one thing, Apple’s documentation appears to be wrong. In order to create a roaming network with a dialup connection to the Internet, you need to set the main access point (the Base Station that provides the dialup connection to the Internet) with the “Share a single IP address (using DHCP and NAT)” option in AirPort Admin Utility, even though Apple KB article 58596 says that you shouldn’t use this option.
I am pretty sure that they have made significant changes in Panther that cause certain things, especially setups with multiple access points, to fail when they worked just fine with Jaguar.
The likelihood that this is a hardware problem is very low. (There are too many reports by different people.) I got Apple to acknowledge that there was a problem, but my report is currently stuck at the “Has been forwarded to our engineers” stage. So for now we continue to be stuck with flaky AirPort. Grr.
February 5th, 2004 at Feb 05, 04 | 5:20 am
The above makes it sound like it’s a hardware problem with the airport card itself, since it happens with multiple kinds of base stations, and isn’t universal to Panther, since others with the same software config, on the same network, don’t have these problems. (unless there’s a significant difference between how Panther does airport on a 12″ as opposed to a 15″ powerbook.
February 5th, 2004 at Feb 05, 04 | 5:35 am
Did you try swapping the AirPort cards in the 12″ PB and the 15″ PB? That would help rule out a possible card defect.
It’s still quite possible that a software problem would only manifest itself in certain hardware configurations. That would (help) explain why Apple didn’t catch it in its own testing process.
February 13th, 2004 at Feb 13, 04 | 11:58 am
Yes, I think we’ve narrowed it down to an issue with Panther and multiple networks. My problem is with a roaming network, but it might be a more general issue with multiple networks. It might still have to do with interference, or rather with the way that Panther handles it.
I’ve certainly done my bit by sending a detailed bug report to Apple… I hope everyone does the same. It’s the only way to ensure it gets fixed. Still, it’s disappointing that Apple let such a big problem slip through in the first place. (Don’t they have roaming networks that they test their software with?)
February 13th, 2004 at Feb 13, 04 | 11:33 am
i can agree with the last few posts. i’ve got a pb 12″, panther 10.3.2, and the connection seems to become unstable as soon as there are more the one wireless network in the area. i thought it was the base station, but my other machine (compaq with cisco aironet card) has no issues at all. the other networks are all running on different chanels, so i don’t think it’s an interferance issue. i’ve also played around with milticast rates, setting diff. chanels, reinstalling panther, downgrading the base station firmware. nothing.
hope this gets fixed soon.
February 16th, 2004 at Feb 16, 04 | 4:46 pm
Seeing the same thing, snow airport… hasn’t worked correctly since 10.3, I actually had to go out and buy a Linksys. No multiple networks, worked fine in OS9 through jaguar.
Spent a total of SIX HOURS over the course of two days with apple support, going through tech after tech. Finally got one who said “i think this might be part of an ongoing problem we’ve been investigating” who then took all of my information and said he’d get back to me that week. Nothing… and 10.3.2 has come and gone (it’s been over a month) with no wireless love.
February 16th, 2004 at Feb 16, 04 | 11:05 pm
yeah, hopefully enough people have sent in bug reports and they are working on the problem… 10.3.3 or possibly an AirPort Software update. I guess we’ll see. Sure is annoying — and a bloody great waste of time, as you said. The kind of stuff that makes you go “Mmmm” about Apple quality control…
March 1st, 2004 at Mar 01, 04 | 2:14 am
well, we’re having the same problem but with jaguar. all of a sudden the signal in one of the computers just went very weak. nothing else anywhere has changed. grrrrr
March 13th, 2004 at Mar 13, 04 | 1:43 am
Similar problem with AirPort losing net connection while retaining local signals (Rendezvous works fine, for instance). Restarting base station reconnects to the net.
Snow base station; TiBook using Panther, iMac using Panther, two iBooks using Jaguar.
The modem isn’t the problem; I connected directly through it while the AirPort was malfunctioning. The AirPort signal itself is fine, although I have typical TiBook problems. AirPort Admin doesn’t show the affected Base Station. Gradually, users lose connections and the only way to resuscitate the local area is by power cycling the base station.
March 15th, 2004 at Mar 15, 04 | 7:26 am
Sounds similar indeed. I’ve found that the problem is completely unpredictable, that the connection comes and goes seemingly at random. It’s not a problem with the modem in the ABS (or any other link to the Internet). It’s definitely an AirPort problem.
In my case, however, the Rendezvous connection is lost as well. All connections between the AirPort-equipped laptop and the BS are lost. AirPort Admin cannot even see the BS, even if I am holding the PowerBook right next to the BS. It’s ridiculous.
But I am only having the problem with the second BS in a roaming network environment. My main BS is working just fine. And it’s not a hardware problem, because I’ve switched the two BS and their configs, and the problem is remains.
See this post for more.
March 15th, 2004 at Mar 15, 04 | 7:59 am
One is on channel 1 and the other one on channel 11. And I’ve tried changing these settings as well, to no avail. I suppose I could try swapping AirPort cards as well, but it would be really strange if the card had suddenly become defective at the same time I installed Panther and started experiencing the problems.
March 15th, 2004 at Mar 15, 04 | 7:37 am
Out of curiosity, what channels are your base stations running on? I’ve noticed that the problem typically crops up when someone elses’ networks are visible, and running MacStumbler has shown that two of these peripheral networks are sharing channel 6. Mine is channel 10, and the other network which is usually visible is on channel 1, so it’s possibly not direct interference, but some kind of software glitch caused by the appearance and disappearance of extraneous networks…
I haven’t gotten a chance to swap out the airport cards in my and my gf’s powerbook yet. I’ll try to convince her to let me abuse her beloved machine sometime. :-)
March 16th, 2004 at Mar 16, 04 | 3:10 pm
I’ve got the same Airport problem here, too. I have a PB 1.25Ghz withh 1.5GB of RAM. I’m running 10.3.2 and my AirPort connection typically disconnects me both at home (white base station) and when I’m out and at cafes. Anyone had any success trying to lick their problemms with OS 10.3.3?
March 16th, 2004 at Mar 16, 04 | 4:20 pm
I really don’t think it’s only Panther as I am still having these problems with Jaguar (10.2.8). And when we tried file-sharing the other day,all hell broke loose! lost the printers, lost the connection to internet… eventually restarted both the BS and the modem and that brought everything ‘back’ but still can’t get printer to work.
i wonder if it’s to do with apple talk. should it be on (it alsways seems to be a trouble maker)… it got turned on with file sharing…
March 20th, 2004 at Mar 20, 04 | 2:14 am
YOWZA! I wish I could take credit for this, but I found this posted on an Airport discussion on Apple’s support site. This fixed the problem for me on my 15″ AluBook 1.25Ghz with 1.5GB of RAM running 10.3.2. 48 hours later and still no problems! Here’s what I did: “Just did the macosxhints.com trick: ran Setup Assistant from /system/library/core services. Everything’s back. I have snow ABS.” Good luck.
March 20th, 2004 at Mar 20, 04 | 4:07 am
I am assuming you are referring to this Mac OS X hint. I guess I will have to give it a try on my PB. It doesn’t seem to refer to the same type of issue though… It’s for people with Snow Base Stations who have a signal, but no connection. In my case, the signal itself disappears altogether. But I’ll try just the same.
March 20th, 2004 at Mar 20, 04 | 4:36 am
Well, I just tried running the Setup Assistant in CoreServices in my PowerBook G4, and it didn’t make any difference. Still losing the connection to the Internet as soon as I take a few steps from my second Base Station (wired to the main BS via Ethernet).
March 22nd, 2004 at Mar 22, 04 | 4:14 am
Based on the number of people experiencing problems with AirPort in Panther, I highly doubt that this is hardware-related. OTOH, I’ve just got an email from Apple saying that they had closed my bug report about this because it was now a “duplicate” and a “known issue”. That’s a good sign! A solution might be coming soon.
March 22nd, 2004 at Mar 22, 04 | 4:37 am
I just called tech support, and they’re sending me a new airport card. I think there are two different problems going on. One of which is an intermittent hardware problem, as proven by the fact that the network disconnect problem transferred itself to the 12″ PB when I swapped cards. The other is when the PB loses signal from the base station without seeming to realize it, which is probably caused by poor calibration of the antenna and maybe a flakey base station (in my case, at least). I’ll let you know if the problem reoccurs with the new card.
March 21st, 2004 at Mar 21, 04 | 9:22 am
Here are two emails I’ve sent this weekend to the Apple bugfixers. I’m curious as to whether anyone can confirm/duplicate any of this:
Saturday, March 20th:
My airport network settings are as follows:
Airport:
By default, join A specific network: <my own network>
This computer is not allowed to create networks
Show airport status in menu bar
TCP/IP:
Configure IPv4: Using DHCP
AppleTalk:
AppleTalk is inactive.
Proxies:
No proxies are set. Use Passive FTP Mode (PASV) is set.
Note that changing the above settings has had no effect whatsoever on the problem at issue. I’ve even tried a complete clean reinstallation of OS X 10.3, to no effect.
My wireless base station is a D-Link DWL-2000AP, running on channel 10, 802.11g, with WPA encryption. (although the same problem occurs when it is set to 802.11b, or to any other channel, and whether or not the network is encrypted –it first occurred when the network was unencrypted, in fact).
My Airport Admin Utility is v3.3, if it is relevant.
I’ve also attempted to check for a hardware fault by swapping the Airport Extreme card from the 12″ Powerbook for the one in my 15″ Powerbook. It looks like the cards themselves are ok, since the problem is not transferred to the 12″ with the card, but continues to occur on the 15″.
Additional possibly relevant information is an observation I’ve made while writing this email. I’m running the MacStumbler wireless network detecting program, and I’ve noticed that the strength of my wireless connection drops down and finally vanishes altogether from the MacStumbler window, while the signal strength monitor on the menubar continues to indicate a good signal. It looks like the machine is failing to notice that it is losing the wireless connection, and hence does nothing to reestablish it until I manually restart airport. Also note that this signal loss takes place over a range of less than 6″, with a clear line of sight. If it is a hardware problem after all, it may be something to do with my 15″ Powerbook’s antenna.
Let me know if you need any more information.
Michael
Sunday, March 21st:
Hello again. I’ve got an update on the problem. In my last email, I said that I’d swapped my airport card for that of a machine which hasn’t experienced this problem, and that the problem hadn’t transferred with it. It now looks like this was an error. Yesterday, we didn’t see four networks simultaneously (two of which are on channel 6, a possible requirement for this problem to occur). For the first time ever, the 12″ powerbook (with the airport card from the 15″ in it) experienced the invisible loss of connection. I’ve also noticed that with the cards swapped, the 15″ doesn’t lose its network connection in the same way (although it does sometimes grind to a halt, which tricked me yesterday). I think the latter problem is either to do with my base station or my 15″ PB’s antenna.
Given that nothing aside from the card has been changed on the 12″ PB, it looks like it’s a (possibly intermittent) hardware problem with the particular airport extreme card, although it may be linked to software in that the software doesn’t detect the situation and attempt to reestablish the connection.
I hope this is helping. Thanks,
Michael
March 29th, 2004 at Mar 29, 04 | 5:29 am
Well, it’s been a good part of a week with the new AP card, and I haven’t had any problems yet. It’s looking like the new AP card did the trick (knock on wood). It might be worth calling tech support and asking for a new card if you’re still having trouble.
June 12th, 2004 at Jun 12, 04 | 9:32 pm
Pierre, thank you.
I did a reset of Airport base station yesterday, had an update of Airport Admin to 3.4, Panther is Version 10.3.4.
Suddenly everything was ok. Then after an hour another problem occurred:
All the Airport configs seemed ok and the Admin tool showed the base station. Internet connection status was ok. But I didn’t get to the Internet anymore with Safari, Mail or any other program… :(
It’s really a pain… Again I’m connected directly to the cable modem…
Thanx, Karin
June 12th, 2004 at Jun 12, 04 | 11:10 pm
…wow. Asked a collegue and he suggested to update the Airport Firmware. It worked! Now I have again my normal connection via Airport – cable modem – internet.
I’ve got the following Airport Versions with Panther:
Airport Admin 3.4
Firmware Airport 4.0.8
Ok. There’s still a problem: Airport is not visible in the admin tool… But at least I can connect via Airport to the internet…
Cheers, Karin
June 12th, 2004 at Jun 12, 04 | 7:17 am
Karin: My problems too started when I upgraded from Jaguar to Panther. And I did have a Base Station disappear on me at some point. You probably need to do a complete reset of the Base Station (instructions provided in Mac Help), followed by a complete reconfiguration, preferably while connected to it through Ethernet.
June 12th, 2004 at Jun 12, 04 | 5:09 am
I read all of the comments now – but there’s nobody having *my* problem:
I just upgraded from Jaguar to Panther, and the Airport Admin Utility doesnt find the Base Station at all.
I already had a lot of trouble with Jaguar (after waking up from sleeping mode, airport wasnt there), but now its totally gone :(
Its no fun having the cable modem directly on my G4, because there’s no firewall (that’s why I have airport!). For a certain time I can go on this way, but I would appreciate if you know of a solution by apple… (Airport firmware? Update Airport Admin Utility?)
Thanks.Karin
June 12th, 2004 at Jun 12, 04 | 11:27 pm
Karin: In my experience, AirPort under Panther can be rather painful. But there are so many factors that I can only offer limited support here. I’d say as long as the connection is working, don’t worry about it too much :).
August 28th, 2004 at Aug 28, 04 | 5:16 am
Any news on your problem?
After changing my graphite base station for the white (extreme) version I experienced the same problem you described. This happens on only one of four Macs in the network so I guess the base station is not to blame
August 29th, 2004 at Aug 29, 04 | 6:36 am
Jan: I am afraid I’ve given up on AirPort and switched to a wired Ethernet connection for my G4. I still have AirPort on on the G4, however, so that I can monitor the Base Station and reconnect/disconnect to the Internet if needed. But my primary connection to the Base Station is now via Ethernet. (The BS is in the same room as the G4, so it doesn’t require too much cabling.)
Of course, since I have made the change, I haven’t seen a single connection drop. In fact, this confirms my suspicion that it’s a software-related issue that tends to crop up during “intense” (relatively speaking) wireless networking activity.
August 29th, 2004 at Aug 29, 04 | 7:20 am
Thanks
I’ve opted for the same solution.
Is it a coincidence this happens to the mac closest to the base station?
August 29th, 2004 at Aug 29, 04 | 7:27 am
I don’t know… I’ve seen the same problem on my wife’s PowerBook, which is in another room (still not very far from the Base Station, and with three or four bars of reception normally).
September 2nd, 2004 at Sep 02, 04 | 7:07 am
It seems that the recent airport firmware update has solved my problem.
Hope it helped you too.
September 3rd, 2004 at Sep 03, 04 | 3:03 am
Well well well. I installed the AirPort Card Firmware update on the PowerBook G4 last night and turned the second AirPort Base Station back on in the other half of the house (roaming network). And, well, everything worked.
Last night.
Too soon to tell if it’s more than a coincidence, but maybe, just maybe, things have finally been fixed.
I’ll post a new entry when I can say for sure that things are working reliably.
September 16th, 2004 at Sep 16, 04 | 4:53 am
I am new to wireless networking. While both my PB g4 and win xp can access the internet fine, I cannot get the admin utility to bring up the tabs to change my security features etc. I set up the base without WPA or Wep, planning to utilize once nw was up and running. Now, when I open admin utility the base is there with the correct IP ending in .1.1, when I select configure it asks for my base password, I enter it and click ok, but then I get nothing— the screen goes blue and the admin utility never opens to allow me to change the security features etc. If I enter an incorrect PW it tells me so. So I know my pasword is ok. I just do not get anything but a blue screen after entering the PW. I have tried connecting to the base directly with an ethernet cable, but I get the same blue screen thing. Any ideas?