Q: Mountain Lion/Mavericks 'breaks' wifi base station - Snow Leopard works fine

BDAqua:That was my guess from the working Snow Leopard settings, in fact if you check the first set of screen captures above, you'll see it's pretty much what you're describing (apart from me using 10.0.2.2 and 10.0.2.1). And though it works fine in Snow Leopard, those same settings get me nowhere in Mavericks.

Ain't technology grand?

ciru86 Re: Subnet Mask: From this page

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/tech/tk365/technologies_tech_note09186a00800a67f5.sht ml and others, it seems that there are 'natural' subnet masks for each range of IP addresses. (I've also tried various 'rule breaking' combinations just in case.)

Mini is back on 'self assigned.'

As for why DHCP isn't working on the laptop, I have no idea, but even years ago when I first bought the MacBook and set up the wireless connection (which was another ordeal, by the way, but I somehow stumbled onto a working system much sooner) DHCP never worked and I've always had to manually set those settings. (For what it's worth, 10.0.2.2/255.255.0.0/10.0.2.1 work on Snow Leopard, even though that Subnet Mask doesn't fit the 'natural' definition on the site linked to above.)

Thanks again (and again, and again) for your efforts, but I'm giving up for the night and going back to Snow Leopard so I can get some work done on the laptop. Feel free to move on to more accessible problems - and if I ever come up with an answer that doesn't involve buying a third-party wireless router, I'll let you know.

Quick addition ciru86 - I see you added a question while I was writing my last.

When I try to renew the DHCP lease, it simply reloads the 10.0.2.2/255.255.0.0/10.0.2.1 already there.

If I create a new Location - DHCP loads a quartet in the same range as the self-assigned address on the mini and 255.255.0.0.

Thanks, mblee, I had come across that article as well - with luck it will help those who are having problems at the receiving end of the wifi chain.

So, here's one last shot before drastic measures. I took both computers into an Apple Store this morning - unfortunately it was almost entirely a waste of time. All that was done was using other machines to confirm that my laptop could receive incoming DHCP addresses from their units, and that the Mini couldn't SEND DHCP signals TO their units (not a surprise given the earlier discussions about not normally having to set those parameters manually in receiving iPods and MacBooks, but a helpful confirmation), a trashing of system preferences, advice to do a clean install, then, I've-got-another-appointment-have-a-nice-day. (I realize that most of the things that people come in to a Genius Bar for are basic troubleshooting problems -like trashing prefs- but I had assumed that the geniuses would be prepared to at least attempt some fixes for something a little more challenging than that.)

But anyway, editorial over, the reason for the clean install suggestion was the theory that whatever system file tells the Mini to send out a DHCP signal is corrupted, and presumably if the upgrade from ML to Mavericks didn't overwrite it, neither would a basic reinstall. But this has ME thinking that if I knew where to find that file(s) I could just drag them over from the functioning clone and try that rather than a wholesale rewritnig of the disk. (And if moving a Snow Leopard file into Mavericks seriously screws something up, I'm no further behind, as I was going to have to do a clean anyway.)

So does anyone know the inner workings of the System well enough to know where I might find those files? (I would have asked the Apple Store rep but he was already gone, and given the encounter, I doubt he would have known.)

Thanks again,

I've trashed those prefs multiple times, I wonder can I overwrite them?

and further to that...

And another possible course of action...

As a reminder, here's the en1 data from ifconfig from the Mavericks boot;

en1: flags=8963<UP,BROADCAST,SMART,RUNNING,PROMISC,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500

    ether 60:33:4b:15:5f:20

    inet 169.254.252.104 netmask 0xffff0000 broadcast 169.254.255.255

    nd6 options=1<PERFORMNUD>

    media: autoselect

    status: active

and here it is from the clone;

en1: flags=8863<UP,BROADCAST,SMART,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500

    ether 60:33:4b:15:5f:20

    inet 10.0.2.1 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 10.0.2.255

    inet6 fe80::6233:4bff:fe15:5f20%en1 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x5

    inet 169.254.57.120 netmask 0xffff0000 broadcast 169.254.255.255

    media: autoselect

    status: active

Note among the differences the fact that the inet setting for Mavericks in the typical self-assigned address range while the same line for the clone shows the 10.0.2.1 range that I use on the laptop and iPod when things are working.

I know next to nothing about Terminal - would it be possible to paste the settings from one into the other, and would I have to restart to see a change?

Thanks

nat.plist from Mavericks

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">

<plist version="1.0">

<dict>

    <key>NAT</key>

    <dict>

        <key>AirPort</key>

        <dict>

            <key>40BitEncrypt</key>

            <integer>1</integer>

            <key>Channel</key>

            <integer>0</integer>

            <key>Enabled</key>

            <integer>0</integer>

            <key>NetworkName</key>

            <string>Wi-Fi Network</string>

            <key>NetworkPassword</key>

            <data>

            </data>

        </dict>

        <key>Enabled</key>

        <integer>1</integer>

        <key>NatPortMapDisabled</key>

        <false/>

        <key>PrimaryInterface</key>

        <dict>

            <key>Device</key>

            <string>en0</string>

            <key>Enabled</key>

            <integer>0</integer>

            <key>HardwareKey</key>

            <string></string>

            <key>PrimaryUserReadable</key>

            <string>Ethernet</string>

        </dict>

        <key>PrimaryService</key>

        <string>FB0FE982-2A62-49F5-9B56-318EF469804E</string>

        <key>SharingDevices</key>

        <array>

            <string>en1</string>

        </array>

    </dict>

</dict>

</plist>

============================

and from the Clone

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">

<plist version="1.0">

<dict>

    <key>NAT</key>

    <dict>

        <key>AirPort</key>

        <dict>

            <key>40BitEncrypt</key>

            <integer>0</integer>

            <key>Channel</key>

            <integer>0</integer>

            <key>Enabled</key>

            <integer>1</integer>

            <key>Extreme</key>

            <string></string>

            <key>NetworkName</key>

            <string>test</string>

            <key>NetworkPassword</key>

            <data>

            dABoAGkAcwBoAGEAZABiAGUAdAB0AGUAcgA=

            </data>

        </dict>

        <key>Enabled</key>

        <integer>1</integer>

        <key>PrimaryInterface</key>

        <dict>

            <key>Device</key>

            <string>en0</string>

            <key>Enabled</key>

            <integer>0</integer>

            <key>HardwareKey</key>

            <string></string>

            <key>PrimaryUserReadable</key>

            <string>Ethernet</string>

        </dict>

        <key>PrimaryService</key>

        <string>0</string>

        <key>SharingDevices</key>

        <array>

            <string>en1</string>

        </array>

    </dict>

</dict>

</plist>