Airport problems after update

How did you move "AirPort" to the top of the list? I have tried dragging, with no success.

Thanks.

I have tried every single suggestion made above and in addition I've reset my pram, updated the router firmware and even tried a new router from a different company. Nothing helps. Personally, I think it has to do with the security setting because on my network at home, it is unsecured and I don't have any problems. At work, I need security, and I've had nothing but problems. I've changed the security settings and that doesn't help either.

How did you move "AirPort" to the top of the list? I
have tried dragging, with no success.

Thanks.

no need to hold down a second key, just click on the one you want to move, hold the click while moving it, then release - so, it's just a quick motion of click, move, release

I too have the issue where the wireless will not auto connect 9 times out of 10 when the machine is booted. This issue seems to have started with 10.4.8

I changed my network to broadcast the SSID and I am able to click on the wireless icon in the top right of the screen and then select my network - this works 5 times out of 10. The other 4 times my network does not appear and I have to turn airport off and then back on again or logout and then back in.

I tried putting AP to the top of the port configuration list and also resetting PRAM as suggested but that made no difference.

I have now implemented a workaround:
The machine has two accounts defined, one for the kids which auto logs in and my administration account.

I've changed the kids account to not auto login, when the machine boots I just select the kids account to log in and the wireless always connects.

I've tested this about 10 times from power on and no matter how quickly I click on the kids account icon and log in the wireless has always connected.

Powermac G5, iMac Core Duo Mac OS X (10.4.8)

I have tried all the suggestions, too, and it has made no difference. I tried calling AppleCare, but after 20 minutes on hold, I gave up.

Is there another way to alert Apple to this problem besides calling AppleCare? I bought a Mac specifically for the security online and dismantling or foregoing the secure connection seems to be the "fix".

Microsoft may have more problems, but at least it's easy to contact the company for help and a fix when something goes wrong or there's a download issue.

I have a 20" Core Duo running 10.4.8 and have been having some aggravating problems with this thing. After a period of inactivity (ie overnight - the imac does not go to sleep, hard drive does not spin down, only display sleeps) the iMac will lose the wireless signal, and I have to go to the airport menu and reselect my network. (Airport Basestation btw).

Other times, I appear to be connected to my network and have problems with my printer:
I have an HP printer with an ethernet port connected to my airport basestation via ethernet. When I want to print, sometimes I have to turn airport off, then turn it back on, then printing occurs normally. The computer is not able to find the printer unless I do this. It will then print normally for an hour or so before having to do this again. All firmware is up to date on the basestation. My ibook which is 10x farther away from the basestation ALWAYS prints immediately. Further, my wirfe's work windows laptop never has this problem printing wirelessly.

Sometimes while surfing, safari will tell me I have no internet connection. When I click reload, it usually comes up fine. Now that I see others have been having similar issues with airport since 10.4.8, thinking back I don't think I had this problem before upgrading to 10.4.8.

I have even tried formatting my hard drive and doing a clean OS install. Same problem.
I called Apple trying to explain all this weirdness and they were no help. They acted like they had never heard of any weird things going on with AirPort on the Intel iMacs. Looking at the discussions, this seems to be untrue. Any help is appreciated.

I may actually have found something that works. After screwing around with the discussion boards for over a month, I finally "googled" the problem. One suggestion, I believe from MacFixit.com, was to go to Apple - Support - Downloads and download the combo version of OS X 10.4.8. Reportedly, the combo downloads available from the Apple site have less likelihood of problems than prompted update downloads.

Well, I tried it -- although I downloaded the wrong one first -- with an Intel machine, be sure to choose the OS X 10.4.8 intel -- and for the first time since I originally downloaded 10.4.8, at restart, I was automatically connected to my closed wireless network with WPA2 encryption.

I guess I'll know it worked for sure if everything is ok tomorrow. Meanwhile, it might be worth a try for others who have had this problem. And...from now on, when there's a problem, I'll go to Google first.

"Is there another way to alert Apple to this problem besides calling AppleCare?"

leogirl,
Apple is aware, as following the 10.4.8 Update, Apple listed on the Intel-based iMac Support main page (under "Popular Articles") an article containing their suggestion for a fix. http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=304482 Many users have found that it does provide at least some relief.

Combined with another fix posted in a few other threads concerning this issue, plus also adding on a re-run of the 10.4.8 Combo Update, I have had a big improvement, although not yet had a return to complete functionality. It's gotten good enough that it's not causing me any problem, since I turn off AirPort prior to initiating restart or shutdown. [Afterwards, turning it back on always works.]

I was having problems with WEP so it's not just WPA. I could never get WPA to work even on 10.4.7 and my router doesn't yet support WPA2.

Making my user account not auto login is still working 100% so at least I have a workaround until Apple sort this out.

Thanks, myhighway. I am just learning my around the various Apple sites and am not yet proficient at finding helpful articles. I read your post after trying the Combo download and since that seems to be working, I haven't gone to the article yet. I certainly appreciate the guidance, though. Every bit of insight will help the next time there's a problem.

For now, I'm giddy with relief that my connection is working properly.

Cheers.

leogirl,
Glad to hear it's better. Re-running the Combo Update helped to further improve my Core Duo, as well, so that's definitely something others might want to try.

After losing connection for most of October, Under the System Preferences, I changed my network configuration within the TCP/IP tab to use "DHCP with manual address". I assigned it the IP 192.168.1.102, an address within the allowable range on my wireless linksys router. I have not been down since manually assigning the IP, which has been 3 days now. If there are any problems created as a result of this, I'm unaware of them so far.

My un-expert opinion has me guessing If you have other machines on your network, you may want to give them manual IP addresses as well.

Ryan
Chico/Paradise, CA

iMac Intel Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Hi all,

Bradley, you're not alone. I ran in just the same problems after updating our brandnew i-mac G5 17" to 10.4.8. I also read the techdoc and followed the instructions. I do not use WPA2 but a simple WEP password. After checking all the possibilities including a lot of restarts, I recreated the network all over and gave it another restart. It just does not work. The odd thing is if you uncheck the auto login feature in your accountsettings -so you have to sign in at startup with a password again- airport is perfectly found and running perfectly fine! That is why i doubt if the problem is in the airport connection or the router. It looks more to a systemproblem to me. So i think till Apple created a workaround in v. 10.4.9, we will have to sign in manually at startup, manually choose our preferred network, or (what i did) switch off airport and connected a piece of LAN cable. That is sadly not extreme but it works!

Ofcourse if anybody knows another workaround i'll be happy to hear!

Kind regards,

Julius Visser

I think my problem has been fixed. Steps I took:

1. Trashed the /library/systemconfiguration folder
and the /users/user/library/preferences/com.apple.systempreferences.plist file

2. Reset the PRAM (on restart Option + Apple + P + R)

3. Downloaded OS X 10.4.8 update directly from apple's web site and reinstalled.

It's been three days and I haven't been able to reproduce the problem yet. My printing problems are resolved (so far) as well as airport connection and safari issues.

PS I use WPA2 on my network.

iMac intel Core Duo 20" Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Great! And for those who posted later, this does seem to be the best fix. I had tried all of the other suggestions from various threads re this issue and nothing worked except the manual download.

I have had no problems for three days now, still using WPA2 encryption.