10.6.5 and wifi issues

So I have a 10.6.5 system that works on a friend's home wireless network, and on the wireless network at work. Now I'm trying on my parent's home network. The router is a bellsouth versalink D90-327W30-06 firmware 03.08.02. It's a B,G router using WPA2 encryption on channel 6. The mac hardware is a summer '10 15" macbook pro 6,2. I'm having a little trouble with the wired network, but its working at the moment. The wireless is unusable. Here is a snippet from the console log. I see three MAC AUTH succeeded in three minutes, each followed by bad DNS server address. In the router log is a lot of error messages also about bad DNS requests.

11/27/10 2:41:57 PM ntpd[31] time reset +18000.097997 s
11/27/10 2:45:03 PM kernel Auth result for: 00:12:0e:72:45:a1 MAC AUTH succeeded
11/27/10 2:45:03 PM kernel AirPort: RSN handshake complete on en1
11/27/10 2:45:05 PM configd[13] network configuration changed.
11/27/10 2:45:08 PM configd[13] IPMonitor: ignoring bad DNS server address ''
11/27/10 2:45:08 PM configd[13] IPMonitor: ignoring bad DNS server address ''
11/27/10 2:45:08 PM configd[13] network configuration changed.
11/27/10 2:46:04 PM kernel Auth result for: 00:12:0e:72:45:a1 MAC AUTH succeeded
11/27/10 2:46:04 PM kernel AirPort: RSN handshake complete on en1
11/27/10 2:46:04 PM configd[13] network configuration changed.
11/27/10 2:46:08 PM configd[13] IPMonitor: ignoring bad DNS server address ''
11/27/10 2:46:08 PM configd[13] IPMonitor: ignoring bad DNS server address ''
11/27/10 2:46:08 PM configd[13] network configuration changed.
11/27/10 2:46:08 PM mDNSResponder[42] RegisterInterface: Frequent transitions for interface en1 (192.168.19.238)
11/27/10 2:47:28 PM kernel Auth result for: 00:12:0e:72:45:a1 MAC AUTH succeeded
11/27/10 2:47:28 PM kernel AirPort: RSN handshake complete on en1
11/27/10 2:47:30 PM configd[13] network configuration changed.
11/27/10 2:47:34 PM configd[13] IPMonitor: ignoring bad DNS server address ''
11/27/10 2:47:34 PM configd[13] IPMonitor: ignoring bad DNS server address ''
11/27/10 2:47:34 PM configd[13] network configuration changed.
11/27/10 2:48:19 PM kernel AirPort: Link Down on en1. Reason 8 (Disassociated because station leaving).

router log looks like this



SAT NOV 27 15:36:29 2010 LAN PC unable to communicate with DNS Server.(error = 'connection timed out', count=9)

SAT NOV 27 15:36:19 2010 LAN PC unable to communicate with DNS Server.(error = 'connection timed out', count=6)

SAT NOV 27 15:36:18 2010 LAN PC unable to communicate with DNS Server.(error = 'connection timed out', count=3)

SAT NOV 27 15:36:06 2010 DNS Packet Dump bytes (64-90)
BB:. 50:P 02:. 12:. D0:. 1E:. 41:A F5:. 69:i 34:4 18:. 0D:. 1C:. AF:. 5D:] C8:.
8D:. E9:. 2A:* 99:. 5E:^ 42:B 82:. 43:C 7E:~ 4E:N

SAT NOV 27 15:36:06 2010 DNS Packet Dump bytes (32-62)
AF:. AA:. 9D:. 2A:* 82:. 35:5 E1:. 15:. 54:T EE:. BB:. 3D:= 43:C 63:c 55:U 80:.
7C:| 5B:[ 94:. F6:. 2B:+ 4D:M 22:" DA:. 5A:Z 70:p E3:. 6C:l 59:Y CB:. 5D:] FB:.

SAT NOV 27 15:36:06 2010 DNS Packet Dump bytes (0-31)
91:. 6A:j A9:. 53:S 7A:z 67:g 2A:* B2:. FD:. D4:. 66:f 92:. 8A:. 63:c 2F:/ 03:.
7A:z C7:. 8C:. EE:. D0:. 1C:. 47:G 36:6 03:. BE:. 02:. 9B:. 0E:. 64:d C9:. 5B:[

SAT NOV 27 15:36:06 2010 DNS: Received invalid DNS request from 192.168.19.238 'Query expected not response'

SAT NOV 27 15:36:06 2010 DNS Packet Dump bytes (0-31)
63:c 72:r 6F:o 73:s 6F:o 66:f 74:t 2D:- 57:W 69:i 6E:n 64:d 6F:o 77:w 73:s 2D:-
4E:N 54:T 2F:/ 35:5 2E:. 31:1 20: 55:U 50:P 6E:n 50:P 2F:/ 31:1 2E:. 30:0

SAT NOV 27 15:36:06 2010 DNS: Received invalid DNS request from 192.168.19.238 'Truncated data in query'

SAT NOV 27 15:36:05 2010 DNS Packet Dump bytes (0-31)
63:c 72:r 6F:o 73:s 6F:o 66:f 74:t 2D:- 57:W 69:i 6E:n 64:d 6F:o 77:w 73:s 2D:-
4E:N 54:T 2F:/ 35:5 2E:. 31:1 20: 55:U 50:P 6E:n 50:P 2F:/ 31:1 2E:. 30:0

SAT NOV 27 15:36:05 2010 DNS: Received invalid DNS request from 192.168.19.238 'Truncated data in query'

SAT NOV 27 15:36:05 2010 DNS Packet Dump bytes (0-31)
6F:o 73:s 6F:o 66:f 74:t 2D:- 57:W 69:i 6E:n 64:d 6F:o 77:w 73:s 2D:- 4E:N 54:T
2F:/ 35:5 2E:. 31:1 20: 55:U 50:P 6E:n 50:P 2F:/ 31:1 2E:. 30:0 20: 55:U

SAT NOV 27 15:36:05 2010 DNS: Received invalid DNS request from 192.168.19.238 'Truncated data in query'

SAT NOV 27 15:36:05 2010 DNS Packet Dump bytes (0-31)
0C:. 00:. 01:. 00:. 00:. 11:. 94:. 00:. 02:. C1:. 57:W C1:. 57:W 00:. 0C:. 00:.
01:. 00:. 00:. 11:. 94:. 00:. 02:. C1:. 3C:< C1:. 3C:< 00:. 21:! 80:. 01:.

SAT NOV 27 15:36:05 2010 DNS: Received invalid DNS request from 192.168.19.238 'Nonezero number of answers'

SAT NOV 27 15:36:05 2010 DNS Packet Dump bytes (32-49)
63:c 34:4 66:f 39:9 30:0 31:1 65:e 34:4 39:9 38:8 36:6 38:8 61:a 36:6 33:3 64:d
37:7

SAT NOV 27 15:36:05 2010 DNS Packet Dump bytes (0-31)
70:p 6E:n 70:p 2F:/ 31:1 2F:/ 30:0 2F:/ 22:" 3B:; 20: 6E:n 73:s 3D:= 30:0 31:1
0D:. 0A:. 30:0 31:1 2D:- 4E:N 4C:L 53:S 3A:: 64:d 63:c 66:f 66:f 39:9 66:f 36:6

SAT NOV 27 15:36:05 2010 DNS: Received invalid DNS request from 192.168.19.238 'Nonezero number of answers'

SAT NOV 27 15:36:04 2010 DNS Packet Dump bytes (32-49)
68:h 74:t 74:t 70:p 3A:: 2F:/ 2F:/ 73:s 63:c 68:h 65:e 6D:m 61:a 73:s 2E:. 75:u
70:p

Ok, so what do I do now Dr?

Its been working for 2.5 years, and now I can't even get the wireless to connect to it.

From the logs your provided, seems fairly obvious the router is having issues on the WAN side. Have you tried rebooting the router? Have you tried the ping test I had suggest to others a few pages back?

I should be a little more clear when I say "having troubles on the WAN side". What I mean is your router is complaining it is not getting a response from DNS. You can test this easy enough:

Open a terminal and do host www.apple.com and and then do nslookup www.apple.com see what you get as a reply for both commands. Please post the output here. You can also try pinging the DNS server to see if it responds.

Message was edited by: DrVenture

Nope. Other clients are not having any issues as long as my MBP is not connected wireless. Including a loner MBP 10.6.5 I brought in from work to test with, and the household windows systems. Only my MBP is messing up. If you look again the router is complaining about bad requests and bad queries which are from the MBP client.
One difference between the two MBP is the bad one has parallels and bootcamp installed. Parallels is ver 6 and it says no updates available. Parallels is not running, but I suppose it still could cause trouble.

sean-o-mac wrote:
OK, will try this.

The only thing that seems a bit odd is that I never had a password added to my keychain for the wifi in the LHR Airline Lounge so there should not be a corrupted file to interfere with access in the first place. That said, the things tried (permissions fixed, prefs files deleted, etc.) weren't done when I tried on their network so its worth a shot.

Will reply back when I have a chance to try this out. I am off to try to replicate this issue using someone else's network first.

thx

In the suggestions where you go into System Prefs --> Networking --> Select Airport --> Advanced and in there delete all your preferred networks is designed to clear anything that might have been mucked up when you visited those sites. Probably has the same effect as deleting all the prefs files suggested as another fix.

A separate issue is that if your home network keychain password got corrupted, this is where you go to Keychain and delete this. I suppose if there is a keychain password for the London airport you should also delete.

impala_sc wrote:
Nope. Other clients are not having any issues as long as my MBP is not connected wireless. Including a loner MBP 10.6.5 I brought in from work to test with, and the household windows systems. Only my MBP is messing up. If you look again the router is complaining about bad requests and bad queries which are from the MBP client.
One difference between the two MBP is the bad one has parallels and bootcamp installed. Parallels is ver 6 and it says no updates available. Parallels is not running, but I suppose it still could cause trouble.

We do have a post somewhere in the forum of someone deleting Parallels and solving their wifi issues.

I found the item below on the net, so they did have to make some changes.

Parallels has shipped a new version of its powerful virtualization software for Mac, Parallels Desktop 6.0.11828. The new version, released to the public this past weekend, brings compatibility with Apple’s yet-unreleased Mac OS X 10.6.5, an update to its Snow Leopard operating system.

mikeyslaw wrote:
I would still like to know why my WIFI suddenly stopped connecting after 2.5 years of using this network?!

Difference between Hotel and University - is that only members of the faculty and students can open websites. You cannot view other users terminals unless you are specifically authorized to do so on the respective router.

Any ideas Apple!?

Message was edited by: mikeyslaw

So I have been following the issued since 10.6 was launched. Each and every update has resulted in several people having wifi issues. The list of solutions you see have been obtained by reading all the posts and seeing if anyone says that worked for them. So it appears not one thing goes wrong, but several solutions are common.

1. permissions. Seems like updates don't fix or cause permissions to break. So repairing permissions is suggested, and in general a good system.

2. Wifi router now much less compatible. Conspiracy theorists have a field day with this one, that Apple did something. Solution is a wifi firmware update.

3. WEP encryption seems to not be well supported in the updates (my humble and mostly uniformed opinion). Many people switch over to WPA have solved their problems. But this change in security my also just reset everything so some other glitch has been removed.

4. Keychain password. Several people solved by deleting keychain password or giving their router a new password.

5. Incompatible software with 10.6.5. Again we have some examples where people have tracked down something and by deleting they get functionality back.

As far as I can tell this is not happening to a large number of people. Those bugs make it to the front pages of the various Mac Fix-it type sites and the popular press. I have not seen the wifi issue addressed widely, but gets some press.

http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-10331876-263.html
This MacFixit article list many of the same things I have posted but worth revisiting for you.

I personally am not having this issue. I am like many users I just update with the software update. No clean installs, nothing special. I have sent along a summary of the issue to several sites that might have the skills to do an in-depth analysis but so far no one has taken me up.

And I am not Apple nor Apple employee just in case it was not obvious.

http://blogs.oreilly.com/digitalmedia/2008/03/flaky-wifi-update-not-os-x-mig.htm l

Blog where in 2008 OS updates had issues with parallels - sort of.

Same problem. I loose wifi signal so often, that I figured I'd start from scratch. I erased my macbook, loaded snow leopard, and the thing ran fine for a day. I even took the security off my wifi, thinking it had something to do with that. But no.... Now I'm back to the same problem. I have tried all fixes. The problem does not exist on my iMac with the same OS and on the same wireless network. Why the macbook is only effected, I don't know. I am so frustrated. Ready to go back to 10.5

I just checked my notes, below is listed a quick summary of all the fixes suggested (details can be provided and are in other posts in this thread). The top ones have helped other people with verification.

In your case, the time dependence seems to indicate a time based problem. For example interfering wifi channels. Or other intermittent events. Or running conflicting software at that time.

1. Verify that there are no interfering signals (other WiFi units and portable phones or microwave ovens). Change channels anyway.
2. Repair permissions
3. Delete network preference files
4. Change your security to WPA or WPA2
5. Network Prefs - get a new DHCP lease
6. Network Prefs – disable Ipv6
7. Delete Keychain password or create a new password
8. Network Prefs - Edit your wifi location (remove airport and re-install) OR create a completely new location.
9. Disable “always” broadcasting Network Settings on your router
10. Grab a Console log and post the results here
11. Create a new user and set up wifi for that user as a fresh start
12. Be sure your router firmware is up to date
13. Make sure there are no IP conflicts with other devices (change from standard DHCP to static or MAC assigned IP addresses).
14. Look for conflicting software (Peer Guardian, Parallels and VMFusion known issues)
15. See if you have country code issues with your router seeing a non US router header
16. Set up ping to continuously poll the router as a temporary fix
17. Reset your PRAM
18. Purchase a new Apple Airport Express, likely to work well with Macs, you get a N protocol highly rated router with USB ports and you get applecare support if you have continuing issues.

for the record, my parallels version is 6.0.11828.615184.
Since I was getting errors related to DNS on both the router and the client, I manually set the DNS server to opendns 208.67.220.220 server on the client. It has made things much better. Probably the DNS service provided by the router is no longer kosher with snow leopard. Pity, it has been reliable from the start across many systems. Very odd how this can vary from one snow leopard to the next. (It may not have been clear before, the clients were all using the router for dns service by default).

OK, an update from my end: I went into the local Apple store and spoke to one of their 'geniuses'. Of course, my laptop worked fine when I turned it on and accessed their network. They use Apple router products like I do at home so it got me thinking. I went back to the place I am staying and accessed the router itself and went over all the settings. Turns out I was WRONG about the encryption - they had it set to WEP. I changed to WPA2, created a new wifi name and password and connected no problem!

I guess I need to assume at the moment that what is going on here is that the new OS update has made WEP access absolutely impossible without telling anyone (or that I am aware of anyway). Any thoughts on this? If the airport Lounge WIFI in London used WEP this would explain my lack of accessibility. If this is what Apple have done, my main concern is for all the internet cafes out there who don't know this and still have old password encryption. Anyway, this is all conjecture for now, but the evidence it leading me down this path at the moment. If anyone has ideas or thoughts I would love to hear them.

One last thing to note: there is definitely something regarding Keychain defaulting to whatever password is oldest, so you would need to completely remove any remnants of old passwords if you wanted to use the same wifi connection name. I tried this first but didn't remove the old info from Keychain and it wouldn't connect. Changed the wifi name completely and all was ok.

cheers

hi all, it's relieving to know i am not the only one having issues but it's disappointing to feel so helpless!

i have a macbook, purchased march 2010. when i downloaded the OS update 10.6.5 a few days ago, on restart my computer had some bizarre burp and reset the date/time to 12/31/00, which i was able to fix and that's not posing an issue at this time. repaired disk permissions at that time as well.

however...my wifi connectivity is erratic and slow, and my boyfriend (with a recently purchased macbook pro) is having the same erratic connectivity issues. after reading these posts, i managed to change my router's security to WPA instead of WEP, and that has helped *a little* but the wireless connection is still slow - we're on Verizon FIOS, new install as of 11/3, and we werent having any issues until the 10.6.5 update.

currently i am plugged directly into the router via ethernet cable and having no speed or connectivity issues...and to confirm my suspicions that 10.6.5 has created this issue, i am also currently running a tv episode on Netflix on my Wii (which is wifi/connected to the same router) and having zero problems, streaming video is smooth and connectivity between the Wii and router is functional, no download or speed problems at all.

so...unless i am missing something...that suggests that it IS in fact an issue with the update, as both 2010 mac laptops are having post-update wifi problems, but the Wii is fine, and so are the computers when wired directly to the router.

i'll pass this on to apple, and cross my fingers. thanks again for all the info, everyone.

Message was edited by: nursenicole

Message was edited by: nursenicole

I set my security to none, just to see what would happen. It worked fine for just a day, then back to the fade in, fade out thing.

I opened my network preferences and diagnosis, and watched as my connection went from green, to yellow, red and back to green when I clicked on the preference window. Seems I can maintain a connection as long as I keep that window open, and click continue and start over once or twice. What a pain. I have all apple products. Imac is working fine on wifi. Only problems are on the laptop which has been reformatted in an attempt to fix the problem. Did not migrate setting back, starting from scratch.

I believe it is somehow related to the 10.6.5 update. I was having the same problems with my late 2009 Macbook Pro 13inch, and I ended up backing up the drive and wiping it and reinstalling a fresh copy of Snow Leopard and using the 10.6.4 combo update. So far, no issues.