OSX's "Automatic" Location is broke

[Satcomer]

This is a warning and rant.

Why has OS X's Network Location "Automatic" broken all versions of OS X and not fixed? I don't know how many network sharing and Airport weirdness has been solved by just making a new custom "Location" (System Preferences->Network pane) fixes? Come on Apple please fix this problem for once and all!

 

[ScottW]

Sat,

I was in the same boat as you, until I realized that "Automatic" just meant DHCP, vs Automatically picking a pre-defined location. Obviously, it would be cool if I could plug in my Ethernet or Airport sense the MAC address of the router associated with a given "Location" and pick that location settings and switch "Automatically".

It is helpful to have the drop down list in the Apple Menu as I can easily manually switch to a desired location that I wish not to use DHCP for.

Thus, not sure if its broke, but rather missing a KEY feature to make it more useful.



It does seem like many, many years ago OS 9? That it worked like I described? Perhaps not.

 

[Satcomer]

Well Scott I can't point to all the different Apple discussions on Networking issues where the fix was simply changing to a custom Location. I as a Network Engineer I have come the simple conclusion that something is weird going on in the Automatic Location (it has to do with caching of networks and such in code base). Then by magic it is fix by simply making a new Location and this clears this elusive network cache fixes a lot of issues (including the DNS bug that Apple is fixing in the upcoming 10.6.2 release (See this blog to see what I mean)).

Apple need to take a hard look at the Automatic Location in OS X! It is almost become unacceptable in OS X networking because of this "Automatic Location" issue.

 

[chabig]

I haven't heard of a single problem with the Automatic setting...every. Can you be more specific about the problem you have?

 

[Satcomer]

I don't have the problem but other on this forum have come across thing problem time & time again. By them just selecting a Custom Location fixes almost half of the wireless problems. Just you a search on "Airport" on this forum and you will see the YEARS of problems.