Airport problems after update

Question

Airport problems after update

I have been using my 20" Intel iMac for a few months now and have had no problems getting the built-in airport device to connect to my wireless home network. Yesterday, I downloaded and installed the new airport system update, and ever since I've been having big trouble. It doesn't show any available network connection at all (and I know my wireles network is working because my laptop can still connect). If I restart the computer, sometimes it will find my network and sign on, but then it drops the connection after just a few minutes and goes back to saying it can't detect any available networks. Has anyone else had any problems since the new update? Any suggestions on what to do? Thanks.

iMac 20" Intel, Mac OS X (10.4.7)

Posted on Oct 2, 2006 6:31 AM

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Answer 1

a brody

Level 10

85,320 points

Oct 2, 2006 6:33 AM in response to Bradley Lambert

The biggest problem for Intel Macs and wireless is third party routers and a standard known as TKIP. It appears AES is less problematic. I would try to switch to that.

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Answer 2

a brody

Level 10

85,320 points

Oct 2, 2006 7:01 AM in response to Bradley Lambert

See this article:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=304482

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Answer 3

Oct 2, 2006 8:22 AM in response to a brody

I tried the steps in that article, but I still can't get airport to even detect that there are any wireless networks present. As for the router suggestion (TKIP vs. AES), could you give me a little more info on that, or point me towrds where I could find more? I don't know enough about wireless networking to know how to change it. Thanks for your help.

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Answer 4

a brody

Level 10

85,320 points

Oct 2, 2006 8:29 AM in response to Bradley Lambert

What kind of router do you have? Is it an Apple Airport base station, or some third party router?

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Answer 5

QuickDraw

Level 3

704 points

Oct 2, 2006 9:36 AM in response to Bradley Lambert

I looked and followed that link as well, but I left it on preferred rather than putting it back to automatic, and now my minor problem with connecting after restart and/or waking up is now solved. So you might want to try leaving it on preferred. Of course you already should know the name of the network, encryption key...etc. It worked flawlessly for me. Prior to following that link and executing some of the steps I had to have SSID Broadcasting on all the time, not no more. I hope that this little tid bit will help you as well as others that are still having problems reconnecting.

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Answer 6

Oct 2, 2006 9:54 AM in response to a brody

It's a third party Westell VersaLink router running off of a PC. I've never had any problem with my iMac connecting to it prior to this airport update. When I restart the iMac, I can get it to locate the network and connect for a little while, but then it will lose the connection again and show no network available. I don't think it's signal strength or a problem with the router, because my laptop -- which is a Macbook (on which I have not yet installed the airport update) -- is connecting fine.

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Answer 7

a brody

Level 10

85,320 points

Oct 2, 2006 10:21 AM in response to Bradley Lambert

Most third party routers give a router address in your system preferences for the network which is also the address you enter in a web browser to edit the settings on the router with an http:// prefix. I.e. http://192.254.65.1 is a common router address. You may need to use a different browser than Safari to open it. My FAQ here lists alternative Mac browsers:

http://www.macmaps.com/browser.html

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Answer 8

Oct 2, 2006 4:55 PM in response to a brody

Unfortunately, I can't get any of your suggestions to work. If I restart the computer and go through the Network Diagnostics set-up, I can sometimes get it to find my home network and connect, though not everytime. The connection might last from 2 minutes to an hour or more, but then it is inevitably lost, and Airport shows no available networks, even though my MacBook is still connected to my home network and shows several other available networks from neighbors' houses, too. It seems like it must be a software problem since I had no problems before the update. Does anyone know anything else I can try short of taking it in to an Apple Store? Thanks for all your suggestions.

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Answer 9

a brody

Level 10

85,320 points

Oct 2, 2006 5:04 PM in response to Bradley Lambert

Does your wireless router have a LAN port? If it does, disconnect airport entirely on your menubar, and use an ethernet cable to connect to the wireless router. That will let you manage the settings of the router directly.

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Answer 10

Oct 2, 2006 7:10 PM in response to a brody

I'm able to access my router through my PC, but I don't know what settings to change, if any. I couldn't find anything about TKIP or AES.

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Answer 11

phjo

Level 1

30 points

Oct 2, 2006 9:39 PM in response to Bradley Lambert

TKIP is WPA, AES is WPA2... so you might try WPA2 if your wireless routeur supports it.

phjo

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Answer 12

Oct 3, 2006 5:19 AM in response to phjo

I've been using WEP so far. But I couldn't even get my airport to find the network when I set it to an open connection.

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Answer 13

a brody

Level 10

85,320 points

Oct 3, 2006 5:55 AM in response to Bradley Lambert

Try recreating your network location from scratch with no additional networks in the preferred network setup.

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Answer 14

craydoh

Level 1

54 points

Oct 3, 2006 9:16 AM in response to QuickDraw

Unfortunately for me, leaving "preferred" selected did not produce a solution.

Nor did following the post set forth above flagging the security issue and setting forth the steps for repair.

There are a number of other posts on this issue in this forum as well, and others still struggling to automatically join their wireless network regardless of the type of networking equipment in use.

I am not convinced that Apple is fully aware of the problem.

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Answer 15

a brody

Level 10

85,320 points

Oct 3, 2006 9:22 AM in response to craydoh

If the solutions offered here, or on my other thread don't solve it, I would call AppleCare and inform them of the issue you are having:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=672255

Note the only way to really get Apple to be aware of an issue is for everyone having it to call AppleCare.

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