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Level 1

12 points

10.5.6 causing terribly slow Internet access

I have of course been searching on this for a while now, a few weeks, but every result is usually some conclusion about DNS issues, which I find tough to believe is the cause for two reason.

1) I have wiped clean my iMac and reinstalled everything fresh, no restored data and everything was as quick as it had ever been up to 10.5.5, installing 10.5.6 either by 5.5>5.6 patch or the entire combo update has caused many internet enabled applications to take a painfully long time to load information.

2) One of my friends supporting a university Mac OS (etc) network has said that this same issue has been reported on about 190 of his machines.

My DNS is cached locally on the router and is used by my PS3, 360, iPod Touch, PSP, DS, Windows XP machine & iBook (10.3.x), the only two devices with any problems at all are the two 2008/iMacs and only when they run 10.5.6.

So, getting that out of the way has anyone got any news about this? Has anyone found a solution that does not lay blame entirely on the DNS server?

The two prime examples would probably best be Safari 3 had gone from loading pages with ease to the connecting phase for several seconds to upwards of a minute before a page even starts to load, on other occasions loading about 70% of a page and the last 30 taking a good while to complete. This is also true of Safari 4 beta.

I use dashboard a lot, I use the weather widgets every morning before I go to work and under 10.5.5 or below the access time was from immediate to 2 seconds maximum. I am now waiting 20 seconds or double every time I load DB up to check.

There were other examples but I fear this is long enough as it is. Any information would be appreciated as I finally caved in and updated my girlfriends iMac because I was not happy leaving it on old security updates for so long. She is not at all pleased.

We have two times:
Hardware Overview:

Model Name: iMac
Model Identifier: iMac8,1
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2.66 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 6 MB
Memory: 2 GB
Bus Speed: 1.07 GHz
Boot ROM Version: IM81.00C1.B00
SMC Version: 1.29f1

Mac OS X (10.5.6)

Posted on Feb 26, 2009 1:54 PM

90 replies

James Snook Author

Level 1

12 points

Mar 12, 2009 4:32 AM in response to Neville Hillyer

You hit upon a good point, we do pay Apple care, so perhaps I should talk to them.

+Not an option+ was in reference to my router software not giving any sort of options as to how it behaves, DNS wise. It just becomes the gateway for the network and thus far has done a great job (FRITZ!Box SL) but I am thinking of replacing it anyway.

You talk about Firefox and Safari, but I have stated several times this is something that appears to be effecting generic webapplications, not simply web-browsers. I use Safari (4, beta, currently) but without any sort of blocking on. How this would help with the dashboard weather widgets for example I do not know. I believe Opera 9 was also showing the same behaviour.

So far though in between work shifts I am getting the impression that the OpenDNS may - perhaps - have made a difference. Which is certainly confusing me more (although I am as yet un-sure of the issue being actually solved) because it would imply that something fairly significant changed in 10.5.6.

As said, clean format and install works perfectly, as long as I remain at 10.5.5, .6 will immediately reinstate the problem. No matter how it is applied.

I will contact Apple I think, we may as well get something out of the care plan. I forgot about that since outside the Mac falling apart on my desk I rarely need technical support!

Mar 12, 2009 4:49 AM in response to James Snook

I suspect that providing a DNS server in the Mac network settings will result in the router DNS being ignored. As I said earlier you can still do this with DHCP.

James Snook Author

Level 1

12 points

Mar 13, 2009 3:01 PM in response to James Snook

(Annoyingly) it seems the OpenDNS servers have solved whatever the issue was. I clearly - massively - overlooked this to begin with by not trying it.

But the question for me remains, what the **** changed between 10.5.5 and 10.5.6 to make SO MANY DNS servers useless for Mac OS X? Nothing else in my house has this problem, just this one update for this one OS revision.

That bothers me a great deal.

Thanks for all the input, people. I will be more willing to try the ideas that seem impossible from now on.

Mar 14, 2009 8:15 AM in response to James Snook

Am I correct in thinking that your problem relates only to the following combination?

1 - 2.66 GHz Intel iMac

2 - OS X 10.5.6

3 - Use of the FRITZ!Box SL DNS rather than putting a DNS in your Mac network settings.

Can I assume that the problem goes away if you change any one of these three? In particular does it go away if you put any external DNS in your network settings?

Where is the evidence that 10.5.6 makes SO MANY DNS servers useless? Could it be that the incompatibility is only with the FRITZ!Box SL DNS?

James Snook Author

Level 1

12 points

Mar 14, 2009 8:49 AM in response to Neville Hillyer

The evidence, that I can tell, is the plethora of other people who have complained about this, all over the internet and in many cases my personal friends at work and at home.

I take that to mean it is not just me.

And yes, I am using two external OpenDNS servers now, I said that appears to have solved it, I also said previously that is why I disabled DHCP, to remove the forced local server address.

The last lingering questing is simple. What has 10.5.6 changed that has done this. People have had these problems, it is not simply conflict of equipment in my house.

Message was edited by: James Snook (badly needs sleep, might be sounding rude)

Mar 14, 2009 9:31 AM in response to James Snook

I can see little consistency in other reports about 10.5.6 being slow.

As I said before you will not be using two external DNSs - it will pick the first one in the list as long as it works.

It would appear that any external DNS will work for you, ie it is only your local DNS which is incompatible with your iMacs.

Why can't you retain DHCP with a DNS in your network options?

There are several reports on Linux forums about these symptoms being cause by IPv6. Are you sure you have turned IPv6 off as I advised earlier?

James Snook Author

Level 1

12 points

Mar 14, 2009 9:36 AM in response to Neville Hillyer

Yes I am sure, nothing said here aside using the OpenDNS server has had any effect, and this was known to me before I resorted to posting here as I had previously tried all logical options.

DHCP forces the local DNS server, and as you know that will be the one used since it sits atop the list. I turned off DHCP to add external servers.

I have tried one external DNS service, this shows nothing about any other external server. If for whatever reason Apple broke compatibility with my router, I am left wondering why a university sub network of 190 macs suffered the same problem with the same update. They are not using a home router.

Mar 14, 2009 10:45 AM in response to James Snook

I assume that we have been discussing a home based iMac and not a university based one. University networks have a series of quite different issues.

My experience of most university staff is that, in general, they use Apple default settings. Are you sure you have turned off IPv6?

Have you tested your theory about DHCP overriding a external DNS specified in your network settings?

As a matter of interest does your router have an external DNS server setting?

Have you or any software you use modified your hosts file? Since all DNS lookups start with this file changes to it can have unexpected consequences.

There are many Macs which do not have the difficulties you have reported with 10.5.6.

James Snook Author

Level 1

12 points

Mar 14, 2009 11:42 AM in response to Neville Hillyer

Yes, as we established previously these are two computers in my house exhibiting similar problems in a similar situation to a number of other people including one case of a university network, the admin being a personal friend.

There is nothing left to solve. I am very aware of all of the things being suggested and have tried to give enough information to avoid covering well trodden ground on the topic. Without intending to claim any great understanding of all things involved neither I nor the friends I mentioned are at all unfamiliar with computer networking, this is just one of those head scratchers that happen to everyone sooner or later.

None the less, thank you for the effort involved. But at this point I am willing to accept that like many other incidents there is simply something different about the update for various users. And yes, obviously not all of them.

I am going to investigate further the changes to networking and DNS specifically in the service release of 10.5.6 when I find the time, because although it is clearly not the differences between 10.4 and 10.5 that were earlier linked in the post by William, it does appear to be some similar situation.
Should I reach any conclusion I will try to remember to put it back here because I know there are enough other people who it is upsetting out there. Just as any OS hiccup might.

Thanks again, all who joined in.

Mar 14, 2009 7:35 PM in response to Neville Hillyer

Neville

I think I've been pretty clear about my situation with 10.5.6 being extremely slow.

1: Everything was cool on my iMac on 10.5.5, when I upgraded to 10.5.6 all internet traffic came to a screeching slowdown.

2: this is not just internet browsing, but also email traffic and anything else that goes to the internet

3: I have tried the OpenDNS servers, no changes

4: IPv6 is off

5: When I have my MacBook sitting right next to my iMac using the same network connection with the same configuration and the same DNS servers (but with IPv6 on) I have no issues

6: I have done the repair permissions, and other suggestions here and other posts. I've run the scanners to see if my traffic is being hijacked and it is not.

7: No other machines in the house (iMac G4 10.5.6, MacBookPro 10.5.6 and a couple of Windoze PC's) have any issues, nor does my Yamaha receiver that has internet radio or my Dish ViP622 that has access to on-demand movies from the network.

8: If I turn the airport off and then back on, network performance is good for a few minutes, then back to a crawl.

It's this one stupid machine.

BTW, MacBook Pro started out as Leopard and has been upgraded to 10.5.6, the iMac started as Panther and has been upgraded a number of times. That's really the only difference that I can see.

I'm still suffering from horrible net performance.

The configuration again is an iMac Intel 20" (plastic/white) 2.16Ghz, 2.5GB RAM. The internet connection is a cable modem connected to an Airport Extreme, connected wirelessly to my iMac.

Mar 15, 2009 3:35 PM in response to unclemiltie

This is interesting. I must admit that I had previously concentrated mainly on James' reports.

Could this be a wireless issue? Have you tried an ethernet cable? If this does not work I don't know what you can try except a clean install.

Experiments by myself and others indicate that such a long upgrade history results in very slow permissions repair on some models and this may be an indication that the OS would benefit from a cleaner install. I am not sure this would help your reported difficulties but it is probably worth trying.

My approach would be to:

1 - Back up all data especially all user folders, bookmarks mail etc

2 - Reformat disk - this will destroy everything !

3 - Install Leopard from DVD

4 - Install latest combo update

5 - Install everything from software update - it took 2 attempts last week

6 - Reinstall applications

7 - Carefully replace user data (not libraries) as required

Notes:

It may be difficult/impossible to get iPhoto to work properly after this - consult other iPhoto users before you start if this is important to you.

I am not sure if iTunes will be affected - also consult before you start if this is critical.

If you have sufficient disk space I would also advise using Carbon Copy Cloner to clone your whole disk before you do anything else so that you could, if necessary, reinstall your existing OS, data and software - this will take some time but it is an excellent insurance and you can always use the backup later to extract individual data items.

James Snook Author

Level 1

12 points

Mar 15, 2009 9:28 PM in response to Neville Hillyer

I believe iPhoto has a backup and restore function inside the application? And iTunes should be fairly simple by backing up the contents of the Music/iTunes folder as this is where the database for rating, listening info and the like is kept by default. Then all that needs to be set by hand is the application preferences, of which there are not many.

Just an edit to remind, I also have tried a clean install two times, to no heltpful effect. The only differences being mine is a newer iMac and I have +never upgraded from a previous OS+. It will be interesting to see if what does not fix my (possibly similar) problem fixes his.

Message was edited by: James Snook

Mar 16, 2009 5:58 AM in response to Neville Hillyer

There may be a few easier things you could try if you have not already done so such as:

1 - use a local fixed IP rather than DHCP

2 - regularly dump your DNS cache

3 - run AppleJack in auto mode

4 - manually reinstall the last combo update - it appears to do no harm and it may overcome the partial update reported by several people.

Mar 20, 2009 6:02 AM in response to James Snook

hi ,i think i have the same problem as you describle ,however, it`s not because of network problem, but becaurse of some disk problem ,
after you reboot your computer ,open the terminal ,type :top ,then wait the crash time come ,keep you eye on the terminal ,if a process named "mount_msdo" apears ,then it`s the same problem as i encounter , the solition is here :

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=6579012&#6579012

if is it`s not as same problem as i describle ,google the process name (which use 100% of cpu) on the terminal

Message was edited by: fora wang

James Snook Author

Level 1

12 points

Mar 21, 2009 3:38 AM in response to fora wang

This is not even nearly related.

10.5.6 causing terribly slow Internet access