Cannot Turn on Airport Card after Archive Install of Leopard

This same thing happened to me. I was able to get Airport back using the following procedure.

1. Connect to network via Ethernet.
2. Go to Network in System Preferences.
3. Select AirPort and under the gear dropdown choose Make Service Inactive.
4. Hit the plus and add a new AirPort service (Airport 2 or whatever).
5. In the Advanced tab add the name of the wireless network you wish to join.
6. Hit Apply.
7. After a few moments, the new service found my network. I deleted the "original" Airport service and renamed the new one to Airport.

Hope this works for some other folks.

Hi Ryan,

I had the same problem after installing Leopard on an eMac. I actually put it down to the fact that I'd just installed the AirPort card (prior to Leopard it was hardwired to the Network).

Seems to be a bug with Leopard then. But I did exactly what you did and the AirPort card eventually showed up, and has been working fine ever since.

Regards,

Jamie

Thanks Ryan!

That worked! I was looking and reading all over this forum on this matter.

Ryan,
You rock. This was a huge problem and your steps below worked perfectly. (I did have to reboot to get the airport signal display working properly in the menu bar. Probably could have also solved that by toggling the 'show airport status in menu bar' option.)

Thanks!

Ryan,

Thank you, thank you, thank you! I have been scouring these forums ever since 10/26 looking for a solution to this airport problem. I'm back on line, baby!

Yes, this worked... You have to follow exactly these directions. To get the Airport status to show correct information, uncheck the "Show Airport status" click apply, check it again and hit apply again.

-- Jossi

Thank you! This kind of reminds me of windows.

That worked. Very well outlined procedure. Awesome.

You rock Ryan,

Searched countless forums and discussions which turned up dead ends. This was the only solution that worked...why can't Apple tell us this? FYI, I lost my Airport Card on my MacBook after upgrading to Leopard (Clean Install). Thanks again...

Mike in Niagara Falls, NY

God bless you, Ryan Godfrey, wherever you are.

Three cheers for Ryan!

To add to the general knowledge about this issue: For me, this did not occur immediately after installing 10.5. Instead, this problem occurred weeks later directly after installing ATT/Yahoo software for a Motorola 2210 modem (FYI: NEVER get ATT if at all avoidable - I've had unbelievably bad service over the last 6 months and only still use them because my apartment complex does not let me switch).

In any case, thanks for the solution!

I was able to finally connect to the AEBS at a transmit rate other than (1 mbps), but I can only receive a "Self-assigned IP address" resulting in no internet, any ideas?

This was for MacBook (Santa Rosa) 10.5.1.

Thanks

Message was edited by: cackeezy

Ryan - thank you, thank you, thank you.
It really works.
You've saved me from giving back my mcbook to repair

More kudos for Ryan here... AND a shout out to Kelsey too, because I also had the exact same problem. I'm not sure this problem has anything to do with installing Leopard, as I've been using Leopard successfully for over a month, on multiple wireless networks.

So for Google's eternal records, and hopefully your benefit, here's some more info:

1. I seamlessly installed ATT's FastAccess DSL software on my MacBook Pro, and got up and running on the web using the MacBook's built-in Ethernet port. The modem, like Kelsey's, is a Motorola DSL 2210-02-1006.
2. I attempted to configure a brand new AirPort Extreme and found I could not, because the MacBook's AirPort card was turned off, and therefore, the MacBook would not find the Extreme.
3. I followed Ryan's steps to turn the card back on. Note that I could not get the "Apply" button to light up (Ryan's step 6) when I was working with a newly created "Location". I had to revert back to the "Automatic" Location and disable (make inactive) the AirPort there.

Because my Extreme was not yet configured, the AirPort card found the Extreme but there was no "network" to connect to (ie, I could not get onto the Internet). I configured it manually using the AirPort Utility. I followed the Utility's troubleshooter to address several configuration "problems" one at a time, such as setting up WPA security. Curiously, the initial problem was described as "Double NAT" (Network Address Translation). My guess is that the Motorola router also uses NAT, and the Extreme's default configuration wanted to do the same.

However, none of the above should have prevented the AirPort card from turning on, and my guess is that Ryan's steps simply correctly rewrote some low-level system settings which the FastAccess installer screwed up. During the FastAccess install, the System Administration password is required, which is a clue that some low-level changes are being made.

I initially called ATT High Speed Internet Customer Care about this and they were unable to help. I then found this thread (with the MacBook directly connected to the DSL router) and worked on the MacBook (successfully!) while on hold waiting for Apple Technical Support.

I got through to Apple, referenced this thread, and they were helpful in taking information that they will pass on to their engineers. As they have a partnership with ATT, hopefully they will address this issue in a Leopard update.

Thanks again to Ryan and Kelsey for the posts.