10.6.8 killed my airport

There are many factors that can come into play here. The 10.6.8 update MAY introduce some changes that make the airport card in the Mac more sensitive and this means it may pick up additional routers from other networks (networks you do not plan to connect to) versus what it did before the update. From a computer that is successfully online, you can run iStumbler to survey the routers in your neighborhood. When I did this I found several from other houses down the street that were broadcasting very strong signals. They were on the same channel my own router was on. First, I deleted the existing Location and created a new one. I then had to re-enter the router name and password. Then I went into the more advanced settings for that Location and removed all other networks from the list and told it to only connect to my preferred router. (Leave in names of routers you may connect to at other times, however, such as when you transport your Mac to another physical location.)

I believe that this effectively screened out the other routers whose signals were competing with mine. In fact in one location in a far corner of our house, the neighbor's router is actually stronger than my own, and this was preventing my Mac from consistently staying with my router. After the above changes, it now stays on the proper router, even when its signal is weaker than the others.

From reading the posts, it sounds like while my suggestion may solve SOME of the problems, others have to do with other factors (such as U.S. versus non-U.S. hardware).

I've had this issue for the last couple of days, and being a new to the world of macs, I struggled somewhat.

However, I run VirusBarrier and noticed that it had blocked a couple of blocked IP addresses, both of which were from the network.

I cleared these from the list, and bingo, my iMac is now successfully staying connected to the internet.

Hope this helps

Hi all

Not sure if people are still having issues with new install of 10.6.8 causing wifi to drop out all the time on the iMac. Just spent half a day pulling my hair out and on the phone to Apple. Tried almost everything suggested in the threads - reinstalled 10.6.3 and Safari worked like old - but Mail went belly up. Updated to the 10.6.8 Combo - and Mail worked and Safari went belly up and network was dropping again.

I talked the Apple guy out of a HD wipe - and tried some mroe suggestions here. It is obviously 10.6.8 talking to the wifi - as I have my MBP on the desk next to the iMac and it is fine.

Final fix (so far.... ) for me was deleting my wifi network from the network preferences (Turned Airport off / System Preferences / network / find your network name and delete) - then turned airport on and set the network up again.

Still slightly slow - but it works.

Hope this helps somebody as it seems there are lots of frustrated users. Apple guy "hadnt heard" of other people with the same issue. Here's to the power of collective intelligence - not the textbook...

Hello,

I had the same issue ... Please try to change the router security settings, it worked for me. I initially had it on WPA personal... and removed it to make it unsecured.. the signal strength on my Mac jumped up right away. Then I replaced the same WPA settings I had before, and my signal stayed the same (meaning issue was resolved). Maybe after downloading the update, the old settings were not being transmitted correctly... I dont know but its resolved 🙂

Hope that helps. Thanks harikris

Hi Steve

Thanks for the tips - and Harikris too. Through a combination of the two I THINK I have finally sorted it out. disabling security settings and then re-enabling them cleaned up the mess (so far!!)

thanks for the suggestion of iStumbler too - now I have a more realistic reading of the signal strength than Airports misleading one. I now have to convince my wife to move the freezer that is humming away between me and the router.....

Hi

I havent had any problems again. All back to normal speeds - which is good as I was about to put a brick through the iMac screen. I have a funny feeling that Apple must obviously scan these pages and try to fix bugs - as issues seem to mysteriously fix themselves over time.

Hope you stay bug free.

Same problem as others. UPdated to 10.6.8 and lost wireless capability. Luckily I had ethernet available.

I went into the networ prferences....deleted my wireless network...turned of airport. waited 30 seconds and turned airport back on. all seems to be working fine now.

Helloo Brightond,

Does the connection stays good after reboot?

In my case, after the bootup it connects to WiFi but that is a fake connection. Meaning it doesnt connect to internet, ping to router fails. All i need to do is turn the adapter off and on then it is good to go.

The same problem exists in Apple's latest and greatest OS (Mountain Lion) too. It made my Mac slow and because these annoying connection problems i switched to snow leaopard but here also connection problems exists 😟

SnowLeopard atleast better in speed/multi tasking.

--

Ranganadh

Lost my connection 2 weeks ago. Still cannot get it back. I can connect right beside the modem but as soon as I walk a few feet away I lose my connect. I have scoured the net and tried everything.

Is there a fix for this yet?

Well after many hours spent researching this problem, I finally fixed it. Like you all, after updating an old mac from 10.5.8 to 10.6.3 (and then .8 as part of my attempts at a solution) my airport was basically dead. I could only load google and even that was slow and only possible sometimes.

Anyway, for the longest time I assumed it was some sort of setting I needed to change on my computer--after all, that was what had changed. I did briefly fiddle with the wireless settings but everything was as recommended so I didn't spend too much time there.

What finally worked for me was resetting my **** router settings. Why I didn't think to do this before is beyond me--it is so simple.

The problem, I think, was the router channel. I noticed that the Region field in the router settings was set to "Europe" which apparently corresponds to a different set of frequencies. Also, in the system profiler, I saw that some channels (specifically 12-14) were not supported by my airport card (while I think it is standard in Europe to use those channels). My router would not let me change the region manually but resetting all settings to factory default took care of that (I think I could have manually assigned a channel too).

Very glad to be done with that. I feel like such a fool to have neglected to try such an obvious solution from the start, but I'm glad it's over. By the way, I'm referring to the router settings accessible on the router management portal accessible by typing 192.168.1.1 or some other IP address into your address (I don't know what that IP corresponds to cause I think that that's the same for all Netgear routers or something). Anyway, good luck with your problems!

More generally, I would suggest to just look through all your router settings and make sure nothing is amiss. If you don't care about preserving your settings I would go straight for the hard reset.

I have an iMac and as originally running a LAN through its built in Airport. After I upgraed to 10.6.8 my Airport insisted on assigning itself an IP address. I did everything listed through all four pages of this thread and after two hours was about to give it up. However...

I don't know why, but I tried setting the IP address manualy to within the range my router had set up - 192.168.2.3 - and vvoila! I have WiFi back and am running my MacBook Pro, iPhone and iPad just fine!

Give that a try and let me know if it works for other machines/configurations.

Mike

Yes in the end the 10.6.8 upgrade was the culprit.

The internet comes and goes. At it's worst, I have to pull the ethernet out and plug back in constantly. If I'm lucky, I'll have internet for hours at a time without problem. But as I write this my internet will probably black out.

Over 2 years later and still no answer to this dilemma. The longer this issue goes unresolved, I realize that Apple wants my $19 and force me to upgrade to Mountain Lion.

It's a great way to get people off Snow Leopard and onto the IOS version of OS X, Mountain Lion.

Shame on you apple for this mess. I'm seriously thinking about another option after this long enduring mess.😟

FYI everyone:

Deleting the alf.plist file IS NOT the solution. Unless deleting it every 10 minutes is a solution to you.

Having the same issue with 10.6.8 on my 2008 Macbook Pro 17". Really bad wifi connection with my home time capsule after the upgrade. Works great at work and the Apple Store (of course). My 2010 Macbook with 10.6.8 already installed from the store has no issues.

Wonder if the Mavericks OS upgrade (free) would be worth the trouble?

Fitst try to reset your PRAM: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1379

10.6.8 combo update introduced the Airport issue for me on my MacBook Pro. The SMC reset fixed it however.... http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964?viewlocale=en_US

Thanks for the tip!