10.6.5 and wifi issues

Did you delete the Airport service "-" and then recreate it "+" in Network Preferences?

In another thread I noticed someone made a reference to Facebook and WiFi issues. Interestingly enough, I think my issues may have been Facebook or anything re-directed thru Facebook. After repeated dropouts of my wife's iMac, I realised that each time she dropped out, she was either on Facebook (her main activity on the mac) or a game thru Facebook. Then I noticed that Facebook was having serious issues and has had for a week or two starting about the same day as Santa delivered our new iMacs. I've since set our two Macs & modem/router back to default settings, cleared out the "keychain" file entries using the keychain utility software and now when her iMac says is has disconnected, I get her to try a reliable and quick site in her bookmarks (our local TV guide) and we have not noted any problems since. Not going to hold my breath but things are looking up.

You might want to look-up the dd-wrt driver upgrade. It's open source but improves Linksys reliability.

BTW.. I noticed my effective wireless throughput was seriously degraded with a Linksys router. I did not experience high efficiency until I went to ZyXEL and then eventually Airport Extreme/TIme Capsule.

Thanks for the guidance DrVenture. I've been looking at it. Here's some logs excerpts

MacBook:
02/01/2011 18:08:06 kernel en1: Deauth received - toggling link for media change event

Hostapd Server:
Jan 2 18:08:01 hostname hostapd: wlan0: WPA rekeying GTK
Jan 2 18:08:01 hostname hostapd: wlan0: STA 00:23:6c:xx:xx:xx WPA: EAPOL-Key timeout
Jan 2 18:08:02 hostname hostapd: wlan0: STA 00:23:6c:xx:xx:xx WPA: EAPOL-Key timeout
Jan 2 18:08:03 hostname hostapd: wlan0: STA 00:23:6c:xx:xx:xx WPA: EAPOL-Key timeout
Jan 2 18:08:04 hostname hostapd: wlan0: STA 00:23:6c:xx:xx:xx WPA: EAPOL-Key timeout
Jan 2 18:08:10 hostname hostapd: wlan0: STA 00:23:6c:xx:xx:xx WPA: event 1 notification
Jan 2 18:08:10 hostname hostapd: wlan0: STA 00:23:6c:xx:xx:xx WPA: start authentication

Unfortunately, as you can see above, the airportd options provided don't cover the EAPOL exchange or the MacBook is simply ignoring the GTK rekey process, as that's the only entry that occurs when the connection drops. FYI, both these devices are synced off the same NTP source.

If I get time, I'll see if I can configure the hostapd node to run a tcpdump capture focused on the macbook and run with it from there.

Thanks,
John

By reading this thread I was able to fix my band new MBA (xmas gift) to connect to the house WLAN. I was away for the holidays so the update to 10.6.5 was done over an open wifi. Coming back to the house (first connection) the MBA wouldn't see the WPA link at all, much less connect to it. I changed it to WPA2 to no avail. Removed/re-added the AirPort service and still had problems. Ran the repair permissions and still no service. Only when I changed my WLAN from channel 12 to channel 6 did the MBA see the network. Once that was done, joining it was straightforward.

I'm posting only to provide feedback that indeed the problem appears to be with the choice of channel on WPA-secured WLANs in the hopes that Apple engineers fix this in an upcoming fixpack.

If you have bluetooth disabled, try enabling it to see if that helps with the wifi...

I was having wifi issues with a Mac Mini (Intel Core 2 Duo) after I updated to 10.6.5 tonight. I tried all the steps, including removing the airport interface, booting in safe mode, clearing preferences, etc.

My wifi is a Netgear WNR3500L and set to 145Mbps ('N mode') with WPA2-Personal. My iMac and Macbook Pro connected just fine after updating to 10.6.5. My iPhone didn't have any issues either. But the Mac Mini kept reporting "Connection timeout" when attempting to join the wifi network.

I also did the repair permissions, which did find many issues with Airport, but that didn't help either.

I change my wifi security to WPA and even "none" but the Mac mini still wouldn't connect.

While reading the tear down instructions on ifixit.com, I realized that prior to the update, I had disabled bluetooth. Noticing that the Mac Mni has a combined airport/bluetooth interface, on a hunch I re-enabled bluetooth. My mac mini connected immediately to my WPA2 N network without any issues.

I can reproduce this now as well. If I disable bluetooth and reboot, I can't connect to wifi. I can only connect after I re-enable bluetooth.

Well if you read this thread or an other with same topic you find me being one of those suggesting to change channel.

It did fix the behavior, but I have gone trough the rest of this threads fixes too and now I'm able to join on any channel again.

So no, It's not the channel. But some where in the setting files for the network, either cached or not.
If your able to get it to work on channel 6, then you should be able to get it to work fully again.

10.6.6 has seemingly fixed this issue for me. Crossing my fingers.

I had updated to 10.6.5 and noticed the dropping about every 20-30 minutes and went back to 10.6.4.

10.6.6 = no fix

Still no fix on my MacMini 166Gz Core Due
Card Type: AirPort Extreme (0x168C, 0x86)
Firmware Version: Atheros 5424: 2.1.14.5

Have tried many things...
WEP -> WPA: Fail
Channel 11 -> 6: Fail
Re-apply 10.6.5 Combo Update: Fail
Delete Airport from Network preferences and re-create all networks: Fail
Delete all preferences and restart: Fail
10.6.6: Fail

And still
2xPC, 1xiMac, 1xiPhone, 1xiPad, 1xiPod Touch, 1 x Blackberry are connected.

The most bizarre thing is that I have an Airport Express that the mini happily connects to
see Music Network below - yet my Home Network which all the other devices love - and has much greater signal strength, the Mini will refuse to connect to.... except for an
hour or two the other day - after I logged off, worked in another account and logged back in.

Sigh.

Music Network (Airport Express):
PHY Mode: 802.11g
Channel: 13
Network Type: Infrastructure
Security: WEP
Signal / Noise: -70 dBm / -96 dBm

Home Network (Netgear DG834g):
PHY Mode: 802.11g
Channel: 6
Network Type: Infrastructure
Security: WPA Personal
Signal / Noise: -43 dBm / -96 dBm

To add my $.02:

10.6.6 did improve things for me, dramatically. BUT, not as good as it used to be. With 10.6.5, I had to be within about 10 feet of the router (Linksys b/g/n). Now, I can get up to the next floor and maintain connection.

I used to be able to go to my third floor (master bedroom) with not many problems in 10.5. I cannot do that now with 10.6.6.

So they fixed something but perhaps not everything. I just got a little ZyXEL USB adapter that I will try tonight and report back if that works any better. It was only $15 from newwegg so worth a try.

-Ashley

I had some trouble with the 10.6.6 update.

I had my network back working properly using 10.6.5 after the update had crippled it.

Deleting network prefs, repairing permissions and deleting all cache files. Then recreating the network made me back online.

Now and then i still suffer from some network drops but using network diagnostics report that it's on the ISP end. However I doubt it as when stopping airport and starting it again seems to fix it. Then runs for an unknown length of time smoothly again.


What about DHCP key renewal settings?

If it works on an other account, this really refers to that something is wrong with some file under your home folder.

Try flush the whole ~/Library/Chaches/ folder contents.
But make sure u do all the other "fixes" too.

MrARH wrote:
10.6.6 = no fix

Still no fix on my MacMini 166Gz Core Due
Card Type: AirPort Extreme (0x168C, 0x86)
Firmware Version: Atheros 5424: 2.1.14.5

Have tried many things...
WEP -> WPA: Fail
Channel 11 -> 6: Fail
Re-apply 10.6.5 Combo Update: Fail
Delete Airport from Network preferences and re-create all networks: Fail
Delete all preferences and restart: Fail
10.6.6: Fail

And still
2xPC, 1xiMac, 1xiPhone, 1xiPad, 1xiPod Touch, 1 x Blackberry are connected.

The most bizarre thing is that I have an Airport Express that the mini happily connects to
see Music Network below - yet my Home Network which all the other devices love - and has much greater signal strength, the Mini will refuse to connect to.... except for an
hour or two the other day - after I logged off, worked in another account and logged back in.

Sigh.

Music Network (Airport Express):
PHY Mode: 802.11g
Channel: 13
Network Type: Infrastructure
Security: WEP
Signal / Noise: -70 dBm / -96 dBm

Home Network (Netgear DG834g):
PHY Mode: 802.11g
Channel: 6
Network Type: Infrastructure
Security: WPA Personal
Signal / Noise: -43 dBm / -96 dBm

Earlier in this thread or another thread someone with a mini solved their problems by enabling bluetooth. Not sure why they had bluetooth off but found they had to have bluetooth enabled to get wifi working.

Well 10.6.6 did sweet bugger all to fix the issue. Guess Apple is too busy with their Mac Store to care about the small percentage of users (us) with the issue.

I'm pretty tempted to wipe my entire machine and install up to 10.6.4, but I just don't have the time to do it atm.

About to bin the iMacs and go back to PCs even though I hate Windows 7.

Same problem since upgrading from 10.6.4 to 10.6.5 here. All devices (iMac G5, iPhone 4, HP Notebook) work well; except the MacBook!
Network outages even when sitting next to the airport.
Best seen when using

ping -c 1000 google.com

Tried hard for several hours to fix the issue using all tips found online.
Turnded every parameter on the wifi.
Repaired permissions, dropped devices, set preferences, upgrder to 10.6.6.
Nothing worked 😟

*Finally downgraded OSX to 10.6.4
Result: IT WORKS!*

One small issue remaining: The signal strength indicator is showing ways to good signal strength.

MacBook System Profiler Information:

Hardware-Übersicht:
Modellname: MacBook
Modell-Identifizierung: MacBook1,1
Prozessortyp: Intel Core Duo
Prozessorgeschwindigkeit: 1.83 GHz
Anzahl der Prozessoren: 1
Gesamtzahl der Kerne: 2
L2-Cache: 2 MB
Speicher: 2 GB
Busgeschwindigkeit: 667 MHz
Boot-ROM-Version: MB11.0061.B03
SMC-Version (System): 1.4f12
Seriennummer (System): 4H64205NWE7
Hardware-UUID: 00000000-0000-1000-8000-0017F2319D6C
Sensor für plötzliche Bewegung:
Status: Aktiviert

Airport non-working (10.6.5):

Softwareversionen:
Menüerweiterung: 6.2.1 (621.1)
configd Plug-in: 6.2.3 (623.1)
System-Profiler: 6.0 (600.9)
Netzwerkeinstellung: 6.2.1 (621.1)
AirPort-Dienstprogramm: 5.5.2 (552.11)
IO80211-Familie: 3.1.2 (312)
Schnittstellen:
en1:
Kartentyp: AirPort Extreme (0x168C, 0x86)
Firmware-Version: Atheros 5424: 2.1.14.5
Locale: ETSI
Länderkennung: CH
Unterstützte PHY-Modi: 802.11 a/b/g
Unterstützte Kanäle: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 36, 40, 44, 48, 52, 56, 60, 64, 100, 104, 108, 112, 116, 120, 124, 128, 132, 136, 140
Status: Verbunden
Aktuelle Netzwerkinformationen:
mywifi:
PHY-Modus: 802.11g
BSSID: d8:30:62:31:1c:fe
Kanal: 1
Netzwerktyp: Infrastruktur
Sicherheit: Persönlicher WPA2
Signal / Störungen: -46 dBm / -96 dBm
Senderate: 54

Airport (working 10.6.4):

Softwareversionen:
Menüerweiterung: 6.0 (600.22)
configd Plug-in: 6.0 (600.27)
System-Profiler: 6.0 (600.9)
Netzwerkeinstellung: 6.0 (600.22)
AirPort-Dienstprogramm: 5.4.2 (542.23)
IO80211-Familie: 3.0 (300.20)
Schnittstellen:
en1:
Kartentyp: AirPort Extreme (0x168C, 0x86)
Firmware-Version: Atheros 5424: 2.0.19.4
Locale: ETSI
Länderkennung: CH
Unterstützte PHY-Modi: 802.11 a/b/g
Unterstützte Kanäle: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 36, 40, 44, 48, 52, 56, 60, 64, 100, 104, 108, 112, 116, 120, 124, 128, 132, 136, 140
Status: Verbunden
Aktuelle Netzwerkinformationen:
mywifi:
PHY-Modus: 802.11g
BSSID: d8:30:62:31:1c:fe
Kanal: 6
Netzwerktyp: Infrastruktur
Sicherheit: Persönlicher WPA2
Signal / Störungen: -80 dBm / -96 dBm
Senderate: 36