Network Preferences Lockout

[Swrdfshtrombone]

Hello all. Not sure if this has been a common problem in Jaguar, but I've been locked out of my Network Preferences. My DSL and Dialup have been working fine ever since I installed Jaguar, but after installing the latest update (10.2.2) I have not been able to change my Network Prefs. My Airport and Modem status icons have disappeared from the menubar, and when I click on Network in the System Preferences, it just hangs. Funny thing though...when I click on Network again, the pane shows up. BUT, I am not allowed to automatically get my DNS settings. In fact, the only option "Built-in Ethernet" gives me is "PPP", not "From DHCP server". When I check the "Show Modem/Airport status in menubar" box, nothing happens, and when I close Network Prefs, none of my changes apply. I've tried zapping the PRAM, but to no avail. Any help would be appreciated. I'm using a TiBook 500 with 10.2.2 installed. I desperately want my Internet connection back! Thanks. If I'm a newbie idiot, sorry in advance.

[onan]

This feels like a permissions problem. It might be fixed by running Apple's filesystem permissions fixer thingy. (My apologies that I'm too lazy to give you a link at this moment.)

Try this out, and see if things behave as expected: open up a terminal window and run:

sudo /Applications/System\ Preferences.app/Contents/MacOS/System\ Preferences


You'll be prompted for you normal user password. Once you supply it, you should end up with a copy of System Preferences running as root.

Try out the Network pane there. Does it still have the same problems, or are things now working correctly? If it works when run this way, then it's very likely a permissions problem.

[Swrdfshtrombone]

So, I tried to take your advise and discovered another disturbing thing: when I try to open the terminal, the icon pops up in the dock, and then closes itself. So if it is a permissions thing, I don't know, because OSX won't let me open the terminal to input your command. This is more serious than I thought...

Oh, and one more thing. In addition to not being able to get my modem and airport status icons to show in the menubar, I can't get the battery meter to show up either.

HELP!

[extra88]

My boss just got back from a trip to Honolulu (tough life) and found he had the same problem with his Titanium PowerBook (I think his is 400MHz). Built-in Ethernet and Airport list the connection options of a modem instead of the typical DHCP options. His menu bar icons are also gone. Another symptom is in Apple System Profiler, the Network Overview is completely blank. ifconfig lists the hardware (en0, en1) but says there's no media, that they're inactive. "ifconfig en0 up" change it to seeing the media and being active but there was no change in the System Preferences. I didn't try using ifconfig to assign an IP address. There was no change when a newly created admin-level account was used.

There's no problem with his Terminal.app and he installed the 10.2.3 update via Software Update pretty much as soon as it came out.

It's definitely not a hardware problem because if he boots into OS 9, Ethernet and Airport both work. Installing the 10.2.3ComboUpdater did not help. He had a leftover install of a Digitunnel beta, removing that (using its uninstall app) did not help.

One thing he *did* do on the trip was use a different PowerBook's battery, I think the battery was from a 867MHz PowerBook G4 (1 GHz/867 MHz). He's back to using his own battery but maybe it did something weird? I'm grasping at straws. We're going to try reinstalling 10.2 next.

[Swrdfshtrombone]

I ended up having to do a clean reinstall of the system software. That worked, but it sucked.

[extra88]

Thanks for the reply. My boss tried reinstalling Jaguar, preserving user settings but it didn't help. He did a clean install and that did the trick.

The fact that both Macs were TiBooks of similar vintage makes me suspicious but he needed a working machine more than we needed to figure out the true cause of the problem.

[Satcomer]

If you do a clean install please consider doing some preventive maintenance. Boot off the Jaguar Install CD and Launch Disk Utility and Repair Permissions. Then when you install large important programs Launch Disk Utility from your Utilities folder and Repair Permissions.

Doing this regularly in OS X has kept me free and clear of major OS problems. Case in Point: The Safari Bug erasing a User's Home Folder when a Option download was performed was no problem on my computers. I also dodged the iTunes original update bug that did the same thing.

I'm just stressing the point to periodically run Repair Permissions and you'll be able to save many of headache.