Excessive Airport Scanning after 10.5.2

Wayne - If the problem was the scanning when clicking the icon life would be peachy, but it's not. Running a perfect G4 Powerbook (without 10.5.2) side-by-side with my MBP (which was perfect until 10.5.2), and loading the same half-dozen pages on each, the G4 can load the pages in about 15% of the time of the MacBookPro. That's the problem, or at least it was until I downloaded the latest updates yesterday. Now (fingers crossed) all is well again.

Hi. I was having exactly the same problem, my AirPort was constantly scanning, resulting in a poor connection. It was resolved when I updated my AirPort software--check for updates.

Well, I just got Comcast HS Internet, but I recall a few days ago a Software Update for Time Capsule and Airport something (I have the old AE+AirTunes as a router). Everything was fine until either Comcast (Arris modem) or the update messed my internet connection with drop outs and a permanent scanning.

THIS IS WHAT I DID TO "FIX IT": I simply removed the DNS that I added corresponding to Comcast, and I just left the usual 192.168.0.1 (my router, AE). Now speed is amazing, though it's still keeps scanning (if I check it in the menu bar; so I'm learning to overcome my curiosity and not to check it since it works).

Hope it helps.

PS I haven't read ALL the messages, since this is the longest post I've seen, so I apologize if this isn't new.

MB 2.2/2GB, Airport Ex+Airtunes (6.3), WPA/WPA2 Channel Automatic

Help. I am brand new to Macs, having purchased my MBP less than 12 hours ago. We got it up and running with no problems, got it authenticated on the router, and I was off and running. I got about half my docs off my PC, and then the Airport connection just went to ****.

I've tried just about all the fixes I can find, or at least the ones I can grasp! I'm definitely not much of a techie and my Mac knowledge is significantly more limited. I ran the update (twice, even), and that fixed things for about 20 minutes and now I can't get it to connect at all.

Can someone walk me through the more complicated options? Is this something AppleCare is going to be able to help with? I'm so frustrated - after two hours of enjoying myself on my brand new computer, I've now wasted more than 5 trying to solve this issue.

I have this problem as well, but with a slight difference that makes it seem not all OS related.

My Airport scans continuously and rarely connects at home. But when I am using wifi at the local library or coffee shop it works fine.

My experience is similar to that of the poster above: I can seemingly get on everywhere buy my house. In the last month, I've replaced my modem, router and even computer (though both were running 10.5.2), to no effect.

My (three-day old) router is from Netgear. I've been harassing their tech people until they finally insisted that it must be an Apple problem. At Apple they said I should buy an Apple router. I was five minutes away from doing that until I saw this thread--now I don't know what to do.

Basically, I have nothing new to add here, but just want to show the powers-that-be that one more person is very upset about this problem.

Here's the skinny. Turning off the icon on the menu bar doesn't work completely but it's an improvement. As I'm writing this, I've been downloading a file and I can watch as it drops the connection to scan because my download speed drops to 0, so yes, it is dropping the connection while it scans. I've removed it and and yes, I have seen my speed drop to 0 again but it's not nearly as often. It's not dropping the connection completely, but it's not sending & receiving data either. However, instead of scanning for 30 seconds to a minute, it now scans for a few seconds and then recovers.

Taking the icon out of your menu bar may help you but it's not a 100% solution.

Mostly, I'm IRATE. Apple, you dorks, I've been one of your biggest champions. Now I look like a dork for insisting that my boss buy me this POS. (start scathing sarcasm) Thank you so much!!! (end sarcasm) Do you think that since you created this freaking nightmare you might possibly be bothered to get off your collective trendy butts and fix it?

I started computing in the 80s on APPLE IIs. Stuck to it for the longest time even when PCs creeped in. I caved in and gave in to PC. Now twenty years later, after much persuasion by Mac friends, I get on the wagon and bought my daughter a MacBook and it comes with this Airport scanning problem; dropped signals and so on.

I have a 5+ years old DELL laptop and a near 4 years old ThinkPad alongside and they work wireless with no problems at all.

I am deeply disappointed with this lemon.

Un.freaking.believable. All this waiting for 10.5.3, and the problem STILL isn't fixed. Now I'm starting to get angry.

Now 10.5.3 is out, time to try it out. This issue has been driving me nuts for weeks, especially on VPN.

Great thread read to read though...

I've ALREADY tried out 10.5.3. If anything, the problem is worse.

Where do I contact Apple to tell them to get bent?

Everyone needs to be very specific as to which problem still exists after 10.3. For me, I had been getting constant network disconnects/dropouts. I had to switch to an ethernet cable and forget all about Wifi on my Mac Pro. I can not at this time confirm if this has been fixed in the new update.

However, there is another "problem" that people insist is not getting fixed. That is the "Scanning..." text that shows up when you click on the Airport icon in the menu bar. This is NOT an issue, as it is designed to search for new networks in the area when you click on it. Just don't click on it and you shouldn't have the "scanning problem".

I don't mean to sound like a jerk, but this has been mentioned several times here. The ONLY problem should really be these dropouts that come intermittently TO THE POINT THAT YOU GET: "not connected to the internet" messages on Safari, or errors with Time Capsule connectivity, or loss of Apple TV, or Mail going offline. ALL of these problems are stemmed from the ONE issue of Airport WiFi dropouts and have NOTHING to do with "scanning" when you click on the Airport icon.

Hopefully it is the dropout issue that has been addressed in the 10.3 update. But in any case, please be specific to the issues you still face after updating.

I am, in fact, referring to drops in connectivity sufficient to cause Safari page loads to fail, etc.

And yes, you do sound kind of like a jerk.

Anyway, switching to WEP instead of the infinitely preferable WPA2-personal has "solved" the problem.

Whatever, at least we all know what you're referring to specifically. Thank you for clarifying.

I'm also suffering this same problem. Knew it was since upgrading to Leopard and could easily have been since upgrading to 10.5.2 (cannot be 100% sure though).

Upgraded to 10.5.3 yesterday and it seems worse now.

Turning airport off and on again from the menu bar solves it for a minute or two, then the connection drops again.

I have a list of things from various threads to try and will post results (doing one at a time). But I'm not hopeful.

I suspect there's a fundamental flaw in the airport implementation in OSX at present. From reading many posts it's not router related (there are too many different types in use), nor is it related to the type of laptop in use (Macbooks, Macbook Pros and Powerbooks are all noted). Not seen any mention of Minis etc being affected though...I may try this later too.

Apple really need to get on top of this. They've done a good job of getting people to switch, but this sort of issue will cause them serious damage IMO.