DHCP/Wireless Weirdness - Need Assistance Please?

J

jbartlet

Registered
This may be an evil plot to cause me to lose my mind, but on the off chance it's something more mundane, here goes:

I have cable Internet. I have a Netgear wireless router that distributes IP addresses via DHCP. Pretty standard stuff.

There are currently three laptops access the Net through the router. Two are running flavors of OS9 and have no problems whatsoever. My personal laptop (of course it had to be mine) is a TiPB running 10.3.2 with all the latest updates.

Up until about two weeks ago, everything was fine. Now things are quite odd indeed. I can access most of the Internet with little trouble, but if I try to access a secure site, https, the wireless signal goes nuts. Or at least it appears so, The signal indicator goes out for a few seconds, then comes back halfway, then goes out, etc.

When I look at the IP address of the Ti, it's the standard assigned-by-the-router one. Then when the signal drops, it goes away, then appears as an odd IP address that resolves as BLACKHOLE-1.IANA.ORG. From what I understand, this doesn't mean much as it's a commonly found address.

My system log is full of entries about lookup and network change and setting host name (to my computer name) over and over, like every couple of seconds while this is going on.

As soon as I stop trying to access the https site, things calm down and I get my normal IP address back again from the router.

As I said, all updates have been done, I ran Virex just for jollies, and MacScan. I have Firewalk active, but it doesn't seem to be logging anything unusual.

I haven't made any changes to anything even remotely network related.

Everything works just swell in a DHCP Ethernet setting in my office.

Does anyone have any ideas/insight? I'm getting desperate and a little nutty.

Thanks for listening,

Judy
 
I have recently seen other weird things with airport card laptops. Like, being unable to print via appletalk(ethertalk) to a wired appletalk printer. For trouleshooting, can you temporarily disable WEP and try the sites?
 
I thought about that. WEP is off by default, and I never bothered turning it on, so I'm assuming that's not the issue. I'm just trying to figure out what happened in the last couple of weeks that caused this behavior. I know I didn't change anything, but obviously something's different. I've tried disabling unneeded services and disabling the firewall, but it doesn't seem to make any difference. Perhaps I should view this as a sign to buy a new PB :)

J
 
Is the "odd" IP address that gets temporarily assigned in the 169.x.x.x range? That usually means the DHCP server ISN'T providing the address. I think I'd buy a new router before a new PB... Maybe you should research this with Netgear?
 
The odd IP is 169.254.63.136. I just put in a new router, but it's still doing the same thing. What's truly odd is that it does not happen on my iBook (10.2.8) or either of the older iBooks (9.2.1). I'm thinking the solution might be to just reformat and start over with the PB. It's been through a lot, and it may just be that something got hosed. Can I still get a new PB anyway?
 
I'm not sure but it seems like a bug in the kernel.... :(
I'm running 10.3.2 and having the same probs, trying to reconfigure does nothing. It's getting really anoying... not sure what to do. Is there something i can o like install a new kernel...?

I have the same symptons like DHCP server working fine at office and uni. And also working fine through Airport....

When i use the terminal to manually do the ipconfig it tells me there is a (os/kern) failure. Use this command to see if it does the same to you:
Code: 
/usr/sbin/ipconfig set en0 DHCP
then
Code: 
/usr/sbin/ipconfig get en0

interested to see if you get the same error.
BTW what do i do if this is a bug how do i report it to apple??
 
tjek this from the 10.3.2 update of panther... seems like these issues were not solved by the update but for me at least created by this update

  • Resolves an issue that could prevent the computer from getting a DHCP lease after certain kernel extensions were unloaded and reloaded.
  • Resolves an issue that could prevent you from getting or maintaining an IP address via DHCP under certain conditions.
Click to expand...

So... do I wait for the next update before I can go online again with my powerbook?
 
Try downloading and re-applying the Airport 3.2 update.. I just did that and the problem seems to have cleared up.. for now.

Also, are any of you running the CompactAirport widget under Konfabulator?

How about the Cisco VPN client for OSX?
 
jbartlet, like elspif I think you should do some more troubleshooting. I have seen ethernet failures (hardware) on PBooks.
Try this in terminal: ifconfig en0
show us the result.
Next, ping the IP address of another computer on your LAN. Watch for a big variation in response time.
 
not running any extra plug-ins like VPN or Konfabulator.
I'll try reinstalling the airport update but version 3.2 was already on my system...

I'll keep you updated on my progress.
 
Well, I tried downloading and re-applying the Airport 3.2 update but it did not fix my problems. i can still not get online.

I'm not getting an IP adress. it seems like these updates have messed up my system. Is there anyway I can uninstall the 10.3.2 update and revert back to 10.3.1. That sounds like a dumb thing to ask but hey some genius may know... ;)
 
Yes it's easy to revert to 10.3.1. You reinstall Panther using the archive and install option in the installer and then update to 10.3.1. But before that, tell us the exact settings you have in System Prefs>Network. And the exact settings on the router. Something doesn't add up here. I don't think you've given us all the info available.
 
Well well,
It turns out my provider had cut me off :rolleyes:
So it wasn't any bug in Apple's software it was my internet connection.
Once my internet provider reset my connection it was sweet again.

Anyway figured it would be good to let you guys know what was the reason.
 
I'm running 10.2.8 and I think there's DHCP lease problems here, I cant get mine talking to my router other than at startup, but for the time (an hour I think) that the computer has its IP it connects fine then after the lease expires it can't renew it and just assigns that stupid private IP. I tried the terminal snippets above and when I typed
ipconfig set en0 DHCP
I got permission denied.
- huh?
I'm not so good at understanding the underpinnings of the UNIX stuff, so is it a simple problem of permission problems?
Cheers
 
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