Mac OS X 10.6.8 update killing some AirPort networks?

“OS X Lion’s set to ship around mid-July, but Apple’s recently-released 10.6.8 software update will upset many users, as it’s messing around with some AirPort wireless networks,” Jonny Evans reports for Computerworld.

“My own wireless set-up’s has been impacted by the problem, which manifested itself shortly after an upgrade to the new OS. One moment my Macs were online, the next they weren’t,” Evans reports. “A trawl through Apple’s support forums shows others are also affected.”

Evans reports, “iOS devices seem unaffected (though I’ve not tested the Apple TV). This implies that there’s nothing wrong with the network and that the problem affects only the Macs, and only those running the latest OS.”

Full article with some suggestions that may help if you’re affected here.

60 Comments

  1. No problem here either on my Airport Network via Airport Extreme 5 GHz band. However, perhaps unrelated, there were a considerable number of permission errors after the most recent Airport Utility update. Strange an Apple update would get the OS permissions wrong. One pass via Disk Utility fixed it.

  2. I had a problem with the wireless on my mac mini; iphone and ipads were fine. What i found was when i opened the internet, firefox or safari i would drop to a crawl. I ran a steady ping to my outside dns and sure enough it would begin to drop. I ran a tracert also and the same thing internet window up and on the screen routing issues. I have fios but i dont use their wireless i use my airport plugged into there lan port. Both devices were on different networks because both routers were giving DHCP depending on which you were plugged into. I swapped my airport device to stop passing dhcp and give my fios router ip address and now the problems is corrected. I had no issues before the update and like i said my iphone and ipad had no issues at all. hope this helps anyone else.

  3. With SJ’s Puritanism, AirPort will only show signs of connection problems if you’re using your Mac to trawl through pornographic websites.

    1. In the interest of science only, I googled “porn”
      and cruised many sites for a few hours on my
      AirPort and can verify that there were no
      problems. Will do so again tomorrow just to
      make absolutely sure. 🙂 🙂 🙂

  4. This article is a good argument against instant blogging. It sounds like Jonny Evans had a problem, theorized that it was caused by 10.6.8, and wrote a blog post about it before he found out the root of his problem. I have 10.6.8 and absolutely no problems with anything whatsoever. It didn’t clear up my acne, but that’s only because I don’t have acne.

    1. That settles it, then. I mean, you and your friends didn’t have any issues, so it’s rather obvious that anyone claiming that something’s wrong must be a lying attention whore, right?

      Finally, your mentioning of your acne issues was nothing short of a brilliant move…y’know, to drive home your point.

  5. I bought a new MacBook Pro 15″ last week and I’m having some problems with my AirPort Extreme after installing 10.6.8: it loses connection to the router and the internet, and the only way to fix it is by disabling and re-enabling the Airport card. Wife’s old 2008 MacBook has no problems after upgrading to 10.6.8 though…

    1. Just so everyone knows, and calms down… It wasn’t 10.6.8 that did this.

      Myself and others have had this problem for at least 2 months now. We have been sending regular log files and such to apple (their request) to get to the bottom of the problem.

      In other words, it has been happening prior to 10.6.8, this guy writing the article just now realized he has the problem.

      If you go through the Apple Discussions you will find the problem dates back awhile. It’s not everyone, it’s intermittent.

      I personally go days with no problems… then boom, my iMac is FUBAR. a restart cures it everytime, sometimes i do have to recycle the airport as well.
      My PC/MBP/PowerMac/iphone/ipad work fine.
      It’s my Airport/iMac that get screwed.

      The guy says it’s AirPort.. but people with other routers have the same issue. It has to do with the Mac Drivers for the airport cards. Bootcamp drivers work fine.

      Apple has been working on it, but has not released any fix yet.
      although some of us on the discussions have found ways to minimize the problem. Don’t know why, but some of us have disabled the AirPort cards.. and gone wired for a few days. unplug and turn Airport back on… problem only randomly appears.

      99% of the people are not having this problem… and it’s not 10.6.8

      1. I too am having this problem. It is on my MBA. Some stuff still works fine. iChat, Twitter app and so on. Browser just won’t load any web pages. Go to network and remove the airport card add it again and instantly everything is back running. No pattern either. Sometimes, I think it is my office VPN that causes it. But, it happens some days never having used the VPN. Hope there will be a fix in Lion. This is the first and only Mac that I have had an issue with. All others have always been solid.

  6. AirPort Extreme Dual Band w Improved Antenna @ my house serves a Mac Pro, iMac Core Duo, Mac Mini x2, Mac Mini Server, Apple TV, iPad 2, iPhone 4, a Kindle (current gen), a Wii, and an iPod Touch. No crazy problems here & as you can tell by the list, it gets used by quite a variety of devices.

Reader Feedback

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.