Wifi connection bad since upgrade to 10.4.10

Hi gbraad,

You are not alone. I am having this problem since I upgraded it from 10.4.9 to 10.4.10. I am still searching a solution to this.

Stan

Ditto, same here. The more threads I read, the more it seems that the problem is related to the 10.4.10 patch. Of course, I should really just stop reading and wipe out the HD and reinstall 10.4.9 to be sure- which I will do soon.

My Setup:

Linksys WRT54GSv4 with DD-WRT v23 SP2
Regular wireless routing mode
Channel 1
WPA-PSK AES

I had my network running two WRT54GS in wireless bridge mode at one time. I didn't need the expanded range, thus wireless bridge made better sense for me. It's amazing what these routers and OSS can do. Wish my MacBook could take advantage of it.

One more thing, my wireless drops even though the signal bar shows 4 bars. Turning off the airport and turning it back on results in NO wireless signals detected. This is EXACTLY the same symptoms you are having.

I think the same, I have many problems with the wireless and kernel panic, since I upgrade my OS to 10.4.10, so, I'm expected people from apple can solve this problems. All problems are related to the airport and the Atheros drivers.

I'm having this problem too, except a slight variation. I had connection drops before the 10.4.10 update but they were relatively rare... maybe once a day, if that, and they always required a reboot.

Now after 10.4.10, they happen every 10 minutes. EXTREMELY obnoxious. However, all I have to do is turn off AirPort and back on again, and it's back.

Every 10 minutes is truly annoying and I really need to get it fixed soon. 😟

MacBook Core Duo 2GHz Mac OS X (10.4.10)

same problem over here too. i just got this macbook a week ago. instaled the upadate to 10.4.10 and now i get nothing grayscreens, kernals, and bad wifi connectivity. However, all this never happened when my mac isn't running off the battery.

this is annoying since i actually have to restart my entire computer because it is the only way that I can fix it. It's horrible and now I have to go and find my old tiger CD to fix it. oh and has anyone had problems with safari too? most of my applications seem to just randomly shut down on me.

Not that this helps you guys much, but even after updating to 10.4.10 my wireless connection has been rock solid.

I'm using a Linksys WAG300N modem/router, the signal strength is full at 4 bars.

Hi Folks - just chiming in on this topic. I have a brand-new 13" MacBook, and as soon as I applied the 10.4.10 update (plus all the other updates that came up), I started having intermittent connection losses or slowdowns and even worse, kernel panics about every 15 minutes. So... since this was a raffle prize (yes, this 'book was a prize, cost me $50 to win it gloat gloat), I decided that I would go ahead and reformat/reinstall. All went well until I applied the 10.4.10 update. Guess what? Connection loss galore. I have found that I can usually clear it up by cycling the Airport power and/or sleeping/waking the Book, but that's a pain in the butt. No solution as of yet, so I guess that for portable purposes I'll be still using the 1.42 G4 iBook instead of my shiny new Intel-based Macbook. Oh, the irony.

Dual 1.8 G5, MacBook 13 2Ghz + lotsa other macs Mac OS X (10.4.8) Quadras rule!

Yep, me too! Had I known that the 10.4.10 patch was brand new, I wouldn't have installed it. I guess I just happened to catch the update cycle at that point. I've been having problems ever since: initially turning off AirPort and turning it back on would reconnect, but now that's not enough. So at the moment I have an ethernet cable going into my router to give me connectivity.

Is there no way to uninstall an update short of a total OS reinstall? And if I do an OS reinstall (fortunately I know where my system disks are), do I have to reinstall all my software? I'd rather not think about my Parallels/XP Pro/SQL Server 2005 partition.

Me too.

-Macbook/Z0ES
-wrt54gs/dd-wrt
-10.4.10 upgrade

Kernel panics causing "shutdown required.." message.

Two so far today. Panic log shows both from the Atheros (Airport) driver. I'm calling applecare tomorrow..

panic.log:

Mon Jun 25 18:38:51 2007
panic(cpu 0 caller 0x001A4A55): Unresolved kernel trap (CPU 0, Type 14=page fault), registers:
CR0: 0x8001003b, CR2: 0x269aff14, CR3: 0x01eb7000, CR4: 0x000006e0
EAX: 0x00000006, EBX: 0x13931107, ECX: 0x269aff14, EDX: 0x13642a5c
CR2: 0x269aff14, EBP: 0x150f3bf8, ESI: 0x269aff1a, EDI: 0x136422c8
EFL: 0x00010206, EIP: 0x00198d64, CS: 0x00000008, DS: 0x3f9a0010

Backtrace, Format - Frame : Return Address (4 potential args on stack)
0x150f39f8 : 0x128d08 (0x3cc0a4 0x150f3a1c 0x131de5 0x0)
0x150f3a38 : 0x1a4a55 (0x3d24b8 0x0 0xe 0x3d1cdc)
0x150f3b48 : 0x19aeb4 (0x150f3b60 0x1 0x1 0x1)
0x150f3bf8 : 0x9a0e1e (0x269aff14 0x13931107 0x6 0x3f9a0900)
0x150f3dd8 : 0x9a3059 (0x136422c8 0x0 0xeda7000 0x0)
0x150f3f08 : 0x39b3c3 (0x13642000 0x3b79080 0x1 0x36e84c4)
0x150f3f58 : 0x39a595 (0x3b79080 0x135eb4 0x0 0x36e84c4)
0x150f3f88 : 0x39a2cb (0x3b788c0 0x0 0x8000 0xf0b)
0x150f3fc8 : 0x19ad2c (0x3b788c0 0x0 0x10 0x0) Backtrace terminated-invalid frame pointer 0x0
Kernel loadable modules in backtrace (with dependencies):
com.apple.driver.AirPort.Atheros(230.8.5)@0x96f000
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IONetworkingFamily(1.5.1)@0x7c4000
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOPCIFamily(2.2)@0x577000
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IO80211Family(160.2)@0x7da000

Kernel version:
Darwin Kernel Version 8.10.1: Wed May 23 16:33:00 PDT 2007; root:xnu-792.22.5~1/RELEASE_I386


*******

Mon Jun 25 21:19:20 2007
panic(cpu 0 caller 0x001A4A55): Unresolved kernel trap (CPU 0, Type 14=page fault), registers:
CR0: 0x8001003b, CR2: 0xa0000094, CR3: 0x01eb7000, CR4: 0x000006e0
EAX: 0x00000006, EBX: 0x138d0107, ECX: 0xa0000094, EDX: 0x13642a5c
CR2: 0xa0000094, EBP: 0x15133bf8, ESI: 0xa000009a, EDI: 0x136422c8
EFL: 0x00010206, EIP: 0x00198d64, CS: 0x00000008, DS: 0x03c80010

Backtrace, Format - Frame : Return Address (4 potential args on stack)
0x151339f8 : 0x128d08 (0x3cc0a4 0x15133a1c 0x131de5 0x0)
0x15133a38 : 0x1a4a55 (0x3d24b8 0x0 0xe 0x3d1cdc)
0x15133b48 : 0x19aeb4 (0x15133b60 0x4b8010 0x15133b88 0x19a319)
0x15133bf8 : 0x9a0e1e (0xa0000094 0x138d0107 0x6 0x3f864e10)
0x15133dd8 : 0x9a3059 (0x136422c8 0x1 0x4b285c 0x4bb070)
0x15133f08 : 0x39b3c3 (0x13642000 0x3b78300 0x1 0x36e8160)
0x15133f58 : 0x39a595 (0x3b78300 0x135eb4 0x0 0x36e8160)
0x15133f88 : 0x39a2cb (0x3b85c80 0x0 0xee6ae98 0x13818b)
0x15133fc8 : 0x19ad2c (0x3b85c80 0x0 0x19e0b5 0x382cd90) Backtrace terminated-invalid frame pointer 0x0
Kernel loadable modules in backtrace (with dependencies):
com.apple.driver.AirPort.Atheros(230.8.5)@0x96f000
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IONetworkingFamily(1.5.1)@0x7c4000
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOPCIFamily(2.2)@0x577000
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IO80211Family(160.2)@0x7da000

Kernel version:
Darwin Kernel Version 8.10.1: Wed May 23 16:33:00 PDT 2007; root:xnu-792.22.5~1/RELEASE_I386


*******


Macbook Z0ES Mac OS X (10.4.10)

Let us know if you get any resolution from Applecare. They were closed when I tried to call last night.

I am a new switcher from Windows and had only had my MacBook for a few days before I had this problem. With hearing Macs rarely crashed I was very worried about this problem so I arranged a replacement, which arrived about an hour ago.

Unfortunately I am now experiencing the same problem as everyone else on my replacement. I was seriously contemplating returning my mac and getting a refund. That was until I found this thread and saw lots of people were experiencing the same issues.

Is it worth keeping hold of my MacBook and waiting on a possible fix? and do you guys think there will defintely be one? Thanks from a new,and worried, Mac user. 😉

MacBook Mac OS X (10.4.10)

Hi,

sboger -- unfortunately I'm not enough of a computer geek to know what your kernel panic codes meant, but I thought I'd offer this update (from a rather less technical perspective) to any watchers:

I reinstalled the OS from the system disks (I just had my HD replaced, so it was really no big deal -- hadn't transferred all my schtuff back yet) after royally mucking everything up trying to replace .kexts w/ that installer inspector program (blanking on its name right now)

The wireless now works flawlessly. I think I haven't even upgraded to 10.4.9 yet -- it's whatever version was on the restore DVD's from my MacBook of July 06.

I had tried the usual things like deleting preferences, turning airport on and off, changing to WEP, even disabling any protection on the wireless network (which wouldn't be ideal, obvi) -- to no avail. The only thing that worked has been the downgrade. I was lucky enough NOT to get kernel panics, I just got no connectivity (or rather, it knew it was connected even in Network Diagnostics, but it could not translate that to working internet somehow). Anyone know if it could somehow be a TCP/IP binding thing? I have only the vaguest understanding of BSD.

I'm also not enough of a geek to know what your nifty codes mean after your Macbook name, sboger -- but for reference mine is a black from 7/06, and I usually unquestioningly install all the things software update tells me are available (so I assume I have the latest firmware, etc).

I'm not sure who manufactured my airport card -- is there a way to tell? I assume it's 802.11g as opposed to n, but I'm not sure (my cheapo router is b/g, so doesn't matter anyway). It would be really cool if we could narrow down the trouble to people with a specific profile!

Curious to hear how your AppleCare discussion goes. They were fairly unhelpful with me (just had modem restarting etc advice, and then said to bring it in to the geniuses) -- they must have heard of this issue by now, though.

Anyone have a trick to allow the Apple installer to downgrade your OS to the previous version? I'll probably be downloading the 10.4.9 combo tonight, but it would have been easier if I hadn't had to try to hack it. 😉

I have experienced 2 kernel panics since updating to 10.4.10 (the first time ever, since I got my MacBook in March), as well as the wifi connection issues. I can confirm that the entries in my panic.log are very similar to what sboger pasted above - the backtrace (at least the portion referencing kernel loadable modules) is exactly the same (except for the memory addresses, of course).

Regarding the wifi issues, I've noticed that the connection just drops about 5 minutes after the power cable is unplugged from the laptop. That is, 5 minutes even while the laptop is in continuous use - it's not like the whole machine is powering down to conserve power in this case. To check this, run the following command in a terminal (press Ctrl-C to stop it, eventually):

while true; do date && ping -c 1 google.com | head -n 2 | tail -n 1 && sleep 5; done

This will simply ping google.com once every 5 seconds until stopped. You'll notice that there are no replies to one or two of the pings, which seems ok, but after approximately 5 minutes, there are no ping replies at all, and none of your other applications are able to use the network. This is despite the Airport icon showing a full-strength connection in the menu bar.

As mentioned by other users, closing and opening the lid does bring the wifi connection back up. However, unloading and reloading the Atheros driver using kextunload and kextload has no effect.

I've been contemplating doing a clean reinstall to 10.4.9, although that seems like too much effort for now, compared to keeping the laptop plugged in as much as possible, and running Software Update every day or so.. 🙂

p.s. The wireless AP I'm using is a Netgear WG602v3, with WPA2-PSK enabled. I should note that I had been running this configuration for months without any problems, until the 10.4.10 update. There is also a Windows XP Home PC that has no issues using the AP.

Black MacBook Mac OS X (10.4.10)