Airport 2.0 does not work anymore with AP/1000 base stations... Help!

R

rsieb

Registered
Hi,

I have a PowerBook G4 with a built-in Airport Card, which I use to connect to a network composed of various Orinoco AP/1000 base stations (I am the only Mac user on the network, all the rest are PC's using Orinoco Silver PC-cards).

Since I upgraded my client software to Airport 2.0 (Apple Software Update), the network does not seem to "see" my card anymore. On the client side (my Mac) this is what happens:
1) I make sure AirPort is on
2) I select the correct name of the network from the control strip menu (I think this indicates that AirPort "sees" the network, right?)
3) The client asks access to my keychain for the password. I allow this.
4) Then apparently the password (which was stored from the previous version of AirPort and worked fine then) is not correct, because I am required to type in the password again.
5) I get the error message "The password you entered is not correct for the selected AirPort network". Of course I triple checked the password, to no avail.
6) Same thing happens when I enclose the password in double quotes or even when I translate it into hex numbers and put a dollar sign before it.
7) Same problem happens both under Mac OS 9.2.1 and Mac OS X 10.1.

I checked with the IT guys and the problem is that they never even see the card trying to connect when monitoring the network.
* The Orinoco software should allow them to see any client card with or without the right password, but they don't see mine.
* Of course I have tried on different locations, very close to base stations, but there is no change.
* On the other hand, I think I was able to set up a computer-to-computer network with an Orinoco-Silver-enabled PC. So the hardware should be OK.

I am really confused. How can I connect to these base stations again? HELP!

Looking forward to somebody with some expertise here...
rsieb
 
I know that this is no help, but IIRC one of the improvements of Airport 2.0 was a higher security level with a higher bitrate for the passworts encryption. It seems like this could be the cause for your problem. Have you thought about "downgrading" again, something like reinstalling 10.1 and 9.2.1, so that it replaces the newer Airport 2.0 software with the Airport 1.3? Never tried if "downgrading" is possible, though. I am running Airport myself to get my father (Mac) and my brother (PC Orinoco Silver) to my DSL Modem, and I decided not to upgrade to Airport 2.0 since everything is working and I don't wanna change a winning team ;)

Anyway, I would try the downgrade, allthough I never tried something like this...
 
I'm in exactly the same boat as you (TiPBG4 RevB w/ Airport 2)
on an office network w/ AP1000's and at home w/ an RG1000.

They both work for me.

You should have your sysadmins doublecheck that:

1. if they are using MAC address access control, your in it.
2. The WEP passwd in the AP1000 MUST!!!! be in keyslot #1,
they cannot use keyslots #2-4.
3. Have them temporarily allow unencrypted connections.
That will at least tell you if it is only the encrypt.
that is giving you problems.
4. They should check the firmware level on the card in
the AP1000. The latest is 7.52
 
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