Good Airport connection but no Internet

C

CaptainPat

Registered
Problem: iBook lost Airport Internet connection when upgraded to Tiger

Background data:
iBook and G5 iMac (base station) both running 10.4.5
iBook Airport connection works (can print wirelessly)
iBook Internet doesn’t work. Can not ping www.apple.com or ip numbers on the net. (Not a DNS problem)
iMac can ping iBook ip and vice versa and has no Internet problems
iMac (base station) can ping iBook router number (which is different from the one shown in the network panel for the iMac)
iBook can not ping iMac router number

Network Diagnostics says:
"This computer's Internet connection appears to be operating normally."
Run it anyway and it says: "Your Internet connection appears to be working correctly."

Thanks for any guidance,

Pat
 
A little more background about your configuration might be helpful. Would like to know what your Airport Base Station settings are, your iBook & iMac TCP/IP settings are.

Also try opening the Terminal and type "ping 199.199.195.5" and see if you're able to get through. That would tell you that Internet IS working, but DNS is not.

If could send screenshots of your configuration, that would be awesome!
 
It looks like cable going into your iMac is your uplink to the Internet. Or, you may have configured your Airport Extreme to not provide network routing.

Try plugging the cable from the iMac into the "WAN" port on your Airport Base Station and then see if your iBook can surf the net. If it works, you'll need to plug another cable into the "LAN" port of the Airport Base Station and run that to your iMac.
 
And another thing . . .
There is a considerable wait before the terminal responds to pings of anything beyond the base station. Similar wait (more than a full minute) before failure response from browser.

Thanks for any suggestions.

Pat
 
macworks said:
It looks like cable going into your iMac is your uplink to the Internet. Or, you may have configured your Airport Extreme to not provide network routing.

Try plugging the cable from the iMac into the "WAN" port on your Airport Base Station and then see if your iBook can surf the net. If it works, you'll need to plug another cable into the "LAN" port of the Airport Base Station and run that to your iMac.
Click to expand...

You got it. Cable modem connected by Ether to iMac. No Airport Extreme and no Airport Base Station except the iMac (Base Station) itself. iMac internet works perfectly. iBook--using the iMac for an Airport Base Station--does not. It used to work. Now it doesn't.

Thanks,

Pat
 
Ahh, IC. So you have Internet Sharing turned on on the iMac (Sharing pref-pane > Internet ) and it's configured to share from Ethernet and the Airport box is checked below.

Is the iBook's TCP/IP configured using DHCP? When you plug the iBook in with the iMac's Ethernet cable, do you get Internet? While you're plugged in with the iBook over Ethernet, check for software updates -- it may be that you need to update the Airport Software on the iBook and/or iMac.

You might also need to run "Repair Permissions" on one or both of the computers (Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility).

Another possibility is that you need to shutdown then boot into Open Firmware -- Power on then immediately hold down COMMAND + OPTION + O + F. The computer should boot into Open Firmware which will be indicated by a white background with black text. At the prompt type the following:

Code: 
reset-nvram
(then press enter)
Code: 
set-defaults
(then press enter)
Code: 
reset-all
(then press enter)

The computer should then reboot. Do this on both computers. You won't be harming anything be executing these steps.

The only other possibility that I can think is to go into Hard Drive > Library > Preferences > System Configuration and try removing the various files in there. They may be damaged. First try moving com.apple.airport.preferences.plist, preferences.plist to your desktop, then reboot. This applies to both computers. Verify that you have working network settings and that your Internet Sharing is still on. DO NOT trash these files as you may need to move them back into place. If you find a solution that works, you can go ahead and trash them.

If none of these things work, it's likely that a recent update to Mac OS X (the 10.4.5 update?) may have a bug that's preventing the Internet Sharing feature from working.
 
Bless you for trying but I went methodically through the list of options and I'm still stuck. iBook did connect with Ethernet cable. There were some Airport s/w updates and I installed them. Same problem. Network checks out perfectly except no Internet on the iBook.

A couple more points of interest:
The two computers can network just fine--share files etc. over Airport.
The iBook keeps acting as if it is busy--slow to respond and clicking hard drive. Activity monitor shows nothing unusual. It's just sitting there with the only measurable activity being the activity monitor. If I start Safari it shows no significant activity during the minute it takes to give up looking for the outside world. Sometimes it says that it couldn't open the page because the "server stopped responding" and sometimes it says there is no Internet connection and offers the diagnostics option.

Thanks again, macworks, for your valiant effort. That was an interesting process.

Perhaps this little iBook will get a trip to the local Apple Genius soon.
 
Took the iBook to the Apple Store and it hooked right up to their Airport network. Took it home and found the problem in the iMac Sharing preferences. Apparently they got set up to share an Ethernet connection, not an Airport connection. In my defense, the interface is ambiguous and the Help pages are for an older system with very different controls.

Such a mystery from such a simple cause!

Thanks,

Pat
 
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