Airport unstable connection

[DiGiTY]

I've been having problems with my Airport extreme card in my iMac G4 for almost two months now. The signal is excellent (full bars in menu icon) and it appears to successfully connect and authenticate (WEP 128-bit) to the router (Linksys WRT54G), but I get no internet or IP address assigned. Assigning a manual IP doesn't work either. So I snooped around in system.log in Console and finally found some clues, but I have no idea how they can help me. Here's some relevant snippets:

Nov 13 17:09:43 jane-does-imac-2 kernel[0]: AirPort:  Link DOWN (AP deAuth 0)
Nov 13 17:09:43 jane-does-imac-2 kernel[0]: AirPort:  Link DOWN (out-of-range 0)
...
Nov 13 19:33:47 jane-does-imac-2 kernel[0]: AirPort:  Link DOWN (Client disAssoc 0)
Nov 13 19:33:50 jane-does-imac-2 launchd: Server 0 in bootstrap 1103 uid 0: "/usr/sbin/lookupd"[106]: exited abnormally: Hangup
Nov 13 19:33:50 jane-does-imac-2 configd[37]: posting notification com.apple.system.config.network_change
Nov 13 19:33:51 jane-does-imac-2 lookupd[255]: lookupd (version 369.5) starting - Mon Nov 13 19:33:51 2006
...
Nov 13 19:38:32 localhost kernel[0]: AirPortPCI_MM: Ethernet address 00:11:24:a5:e8:e7
Nov 13 19:38:32 localhost launchd: Server 330b in bootstrap 1103 uid 0: "/usr/sbin/lookupd"[44]: exited abnormally: Hangup
...
Nov 13 19:38:32 localhost configd[37]: WirelessConfigure: 88001003
Nov 13 19:38:32 localhost configd[37]: initCardWithStoredPrefs failed.
Nov 13 19:38:32 localhost configd[37]: WirelessConfigure: 88001003
...
Nov 13 19:38:35 localhost mDNSResponder: Adding browse domain local.
Nov 13 19:38:42 jane-does-imac-2 configd[37]: setting hostname to "jane-does-imac-2.local"
Nov 13 19:38:46 jane-does-imac-2 kernel[0]: AirPort:  Link Active:  "Dirty Seniors" - 001839b37e02 - chan 11
...
Nov 13 19:56:42 jane-does-imac-2 configd[37]: executing /System/Library/SystemConfiguration/Kicker.bundle/Contents/Resources/enable-network
Nov 13 19:56:42 jane-does-imac-2 configd[37]: posting notification com.apple.system.config.network_change
Nov 13 19:56:42 jane-does-imac-2 lookupd[256]: lookupd (version 369.5) starting - Mon Nov 13 19:56:42 2006
Nov 13 19:56:42 jane-does-imac-2 ntpdate[268]: getnetnum: "time.apple.com" invalid host number, line ignored
Nov 13 19:56:42 jane-does-imac-2 ntpdate[268]: no servers can be used, exiting
Nov 13 19:56:43 jane-does-imac-2 configd[37]:   target=enable-network: disabled
Nov 13 19:56:44 jane-does-imac-2 ntpd_initres[277]: couldn't resolve `time.apple.com', giving up on it

any kind of help would be greatly greatly appreciated.

TIA

P.S. - I have to use WEP because one of the roommates wifi cards don't support WPA (and there's no firmware/driver update for it)

 

[mad jew]

Did it ever work, and does your roommate get weird behaviour on their end?

 

[Westside guy]

Does whomever set up the Linksys have it set to filter by MAC address perchance?

Most of those error messages are just stating that your iMac couldn't reach the timeserver to set the system clock - no suprise given that you can't get a DHCP address.

I assume under your Network -> Airport - TCP/IP you've got "Configure IPv4" set to "Using DHCP" - any possibility of a screenshot of that window?

BTW you missed one place in your initial post - it's still showing your real machine name (if you care).

 

[DiGiTY]

yes it use to work. but it started doing this so i bought this airport extreme and when that didn't resolve it, so i bought the linksys router, but that didn't resolve it either. the roomies all have pc laptops and they connect without any problems to the router and this mac is the only one which has problems, but yet it can connect to neighbor's routers without problems.

dhcp, manual ip, nothing works for this mac. hardwired in, works obviously, just not wireless.

i'm thinking it may be something's up with the OS' core network components or files, but i don't know how to troubleshoot this

any ideas?

BTW you missed one place in your initial post - it's still showing your real machine name (if you care).

thanks

 

[Westside guy]

yes it use to work. but it started doing this so i bought this airport extreme and when that didn't resolve it, so i bought the linksys router, but that didn't resolve it either. the roomies all have pc laptops and they connect without any problems to the router and this mac is the only one which has problems, but yet it can connect to neighbor's routers without problems.

dhcp, manual ip, nothing works for this mac. hardwired in, works obviously, just not wireless.

i'm thinking it may be something's up with the OS' core network components or files, but i don't know how to troubleshoot this

Oh... so this happened with more than one router then. That's likely important.

I wouldn't think it's your networking components because, if it was, wired networking wouldn't work either.

- When you say you can connect to your neighbor's routers (more than one?) can you get to the internet that way? And are they encrypted at all?

- Have you tried creating a new user on your iMac and seeing if you see the same issues?

- Are any of your roommates using Macs, or is it just you?

FYI on a tangential note - McAfee offers (for Windows) a free WPA supplicant that should work for your roommate that doesn't have WPA access from her vendor. Unless her computer is very very old, her wireless chipset shouldn't be an issue. It's more likely that her vendor just doesn't want to spend the money to develop WPA drivers for an older product.

 

[DiGiTY]

thanks for the help so far

- yes i could connect to the internet via nearby open wifi networks. but now they're encrypted

- i'll try the new user thing tonight

- this is the only Mac, all others are PC laptops

 

[DiGiTY]

i turned off security and simply went with the access list feature. it works okay for now. can't understand why it works with no security and for WPA but not WEP. friggin' sucks

thanks for ya'll help

 

[Westside guy]

Hey one really obvious question - when you were entering the WEP password on your Mac, were you remembering to precede it with a dollar sign ("$")? Or more exactly, to precede the Linksys' generated key (not the passphrase) with a $?

I still think it might be worth asking your roomie to try out the McAfee WPA supplicant simply because WEP is so broken.

Addendum: The only other thing I could recall off the bat is to be sure to set the Linksys to use "long preamble". I don't think this should matter with Airport Extreme cards; but the older Airport cards couldn't handle "short preamble" (which was not technically part of the WEP spec).

 

[babbler]

i turned off security and simply went with the access list feature. it works okay for now. can't understand why it works with no security and for WPA but not WEP. friggin' sucks

thanks for ya'll help

It may be worth setting a 64-bit WEP encryption, see if that works.

I have found some router-mac combinations that should work with WEP, don't with 128bit and do with 64 bit. No idea why.