Hi Everyone.

First off, apologies for the long post, i thought it best to get everything in. OK

I network a PC and a Powerbook G4 10.4.3 (w/ Airport) to a Netgear DG834G Wireless Router. A few nights ago, my mac decided to disconnect from the internet, and i was able to get on like 2 websites i use. I decided to leave it for the day, and hope it was my isp. I came home that night, booted the PC and found that to be working fine.

Confused i went into the router settings and played around a little in there, i also played around with the settings in the network panel and sharing panel in system preferences. No joy.

So now im pretty stuck. The powerbook says its connected to my network (called NETGEAR), yet if i try to connect to ichat it wont, and any sites i go on instantly say problem with your internet.

If i go into the whole network config crap, it says my isp and server failed and sometimes the airport settings. Yet if i restart it seems to be working again.

The only thing i can think of possibly being involved, was that i was trying to set up an ftp to my webspace on that night, and due to problems, i gave up. But im kinda stuck

If anyone can help, id be massively grateful.

Thanks

What settings are showing in System Preferences > Network > Show: Airport > TCP/IP tab? Please detail everything that you can see in that window--a screenshot would be nice. As you are behind NAT, there's no need to obscure your IP address.

Trevor

sorry no screen shot as i cant get it online, or able to network with the pc. but ive got

Configure IPv4: Using DHCP
IP Address: 169.254.109.116
Subnet: 255.255.255.0
DHCP: Blank
Router: Blank
DNS Servers 212.158.248.5
212.158.248.6
Search Domains: Blank
IPv6 Address: fe80:0000:0000:0000:0211:24ff:fe8d:65e1

It wont let me connect with that ip, but if i change toDHCP with manual addy, itll take a 192.168.0... but i still get the same error

Sometimes when i restart it says ip 192.168.0.4 which is the configured address. but when i let it auto select it chooses that. Im considering picking up a firewire drive and formatting since its almost full anyhow, would that cure anything? or is it more likely a router problem?
thanks

Have you simply restarted both the computer and the router? To restart the router could can probably use its web-based configuration page, but if you're not sure how just unplug it. You usually don't lose any settings when you do that.

yeah ive updated the router firmware, restart it and restarted the powerbook a fair few times. The PC seems to work fine, although thats wired over ethernet.

thanks

Try going into Network and creating a new location. Assuming your router is set up to allow DHCP, just use the new default settings and see what happens.

no luck giskard. same errors as with my original connection. its the proxies tab that confuses me. i cant remember ever putting in proxy info for anything. Should there be info there and if so can anyone point me in the direction of what?

Thanks

You'd know if you needed any proxies.

Two more things to try:
1. Set IPv6 to Off.
2. Open Sys Prefs/Sharing and take a look at the computer name at the top. Remove any spaces or characters that aren't letters and numbers. Maybe even shorten the whole thing to 8 characters or less.

Also, do you have any firewall software installed? Or the firewall turned on in Sharing? If you've installed something extra, completely remove it (not just turn it off).

ill try the computer name stuff, i know mine has a few spaces in i think, And about the firewall stuff, i get a weird error message whenever i click the firewall tab, saying something along the lines of, error, please restart to use firewall. and even when i restart it just does the same thing all over again.

so on the proxies tab do i just leave them all blank? set to manually? or leave it on pac file.

Please try that again, and this time write down (or preferably, copy & paste) the exact error message and show it to us.

When trying to help someone else, it helps enormously to know the exact wording of the error message. Note too that googling for the words used in the error message will often turn up other people who have had (and solved) your problem.

apologies hayne, i didnt have the powerbook with me at the time. Sometimes when i click the firewall tab it makes the box gray and ends up crashing the system prefs, and i have to crtl click the icon and close it. Right now ive just tried it to get that error message and its given me the whol you need to restart your computer stuff

now it needs a restart everytime i click the firewall button :(

I assume that you mean that you are getting a "kernel panic" (with the multilingual screen).

You should try the standard troubleshooting suggestions:
http://www.apple.com/support/mac101/ (see the "My Mac needs help" section)
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.p...04011205473937
http://forums.osxfaq.com/viewtopic.php?t=7269
http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/faqs.html

In particular, be sure to disconnect all peripherals and try uninstalling 3rd-party system extensions.

thanks hayne, i read through those, deleted application enhancer (not even sure where that came from) and now im running disk utility too see if that can pick up why prefs is crashing. im thinking of getting a firewire drive, taking to 60 gig of stuff sticking it on there and formatting. I dont want to repair this then get another problem because of this again. so is a clean format and install the best bet?

i got the error message from firewall it reads

You cannot change the firewall settings because there was an error reading them from your system
If the problem persists, restart your computer and try again. which i have done...multiple times lol.

in the window, everythings grayed out and it says firewall unavailable, its showing the wall as off with windows sharing and personal web sharing ticked, yet i dont know if thats making any difference

I haven't seen this before and I'm not sure what would cause it.
Try moving the file "com.apple.sharing.firewall.plist" from the /Library/Preferences folder (the Library folder at the top level of your drive) to the Desktop and then restarting your Mac.

ok.

now this error.

Other firewall software is running on your computer.

to change the apple firewall settings, turn off the other firewall software.

Try restarting in Safe Mode to see if suddenly things start working. Safe Mode tells the OS not to load any third-party extensions and whatnot. The computer seems to think that you've installed another firewall.

Restart and hold shift until you get to the login screen to activate Safe Mode.

Other firewalls are typically installed under /Library/StartupItems

well i tried that giskard, it lets me use the firewall now, but i cant use airport to connect. says no airport hardware found?

Weird. I wouldn't think Airport would be disabled in Safe Mode. Maybe you just need to open Sys Prefs/Network and click Apply.

Regardless, the point of the Safe Mode test was to determine if there's something else installed that's interfering. The likely answer is "yes". I'd follow Hayne's advice to check /Library/StartupItems and see if there's a clue as to what it is. You also might look through your Applications folder to see if you recognize anything network-related that didn't come from Apple.

To get back to normal mode, just restart.

that seems to have sorted the firewall issue. i had a lot of crap in there lol.

AMAZING!!! TY guys! its no back online lol. thanks so much to everyone for their help the last twp days, im not the easiest to work with since im relatively new to macs. so thanks a lot for all the help! :)

lifesavers lol