Extremely Slow Internet with Leopard
 

We are experiencing extremely slow and inconsistent web page loading over Airport since upgrading to Leopard. This behavior is identical across several sites and machines and occurs in both Safari and Firefox. Prior to Leopard our downstream ranged between 2.3 and 2.7 Mbps. Now, it fluctuates between 0.3 Mbps to 1.7 Mbps. Additionally, sending email moves at a snail’s pace.

All computers are running OS X 10.5.1 (problems started with 10.5.0) and have the latest firmware. One site uses 2 Airport Extreme base stations (802.11n) configured as WDS; one site using a single Airport Express, and; one using 2 Airport Express configured as WDS. The computers range from a MacBook Core Duo 2.0 GHz with 2 Gb RAM to an iMac Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz with 4 Gb RAM. We have no extensions installed.

We have repaired permissions, tweaked tcp, udp, maxsockbuff, etc., changed channels, wireless security, multicast rate, toggled interference robustness, IPv6, even reverted to older airport firmware versions and zapped PRAM.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Have you tried new DNS Servers?

What happens to computers connected to an Airport Extreme Base Station using a wired ethernet connection? Are they showing slow networking as well? (If you don't have computers connected this way, try connecting them this way as a test.)

What messages appear in your logs during these slow networking times? You can easily view logs on a computer using the Console app, in /Applications/Utilities. Note that log entries are time and date stamped to match up entries with events in the real world.

Trevor

Thank you Trevor for your reply.

Am unable to try new DNS servers as I can't locate the addresses for Verizon DSL or Time Warner Road Runner (the ISPs we use).

When using a wired connection, there is a dramatic increase in speed, although still slower than pre-Leopard wireless connections.

The log files reveal no clues as to what may be causing "slow internet times" which are pretty much all the time.

instead of locating your ISP's DNS server, try opendns.org instead.

If cpragman's excellent advice above doesn't fixt the problem, please attach your most recent system.log file in .txt format to this thread.

Trevor

It's fixed!
 

Just bought an MBP with Leopard 5.1 and transferred everything via firewire from my PB, getting the same problem of slow internet connect via airport. Took the new laptop into the Genius Bar where the guy deleted a bunch (50) of
of old network addresses and did a few other things also. My speed over the internet is now > 25mb/s.

Don't ask me for more specifics. All I can say is that I had the problem and the guy at the Apple store fixed it.

Tom

Leopard + Sarfi = major problems
 

Safari and Firefox are glacial or don't work at all. If I press the issue then safari freezes and states it can't the server.

Problem: Loading any site with Safari or Firefox is like AOL with a dial-up connection.

Sites that I cannot get to in one minute or more: Google, Yahoo, nytimes, CNN, Amazon, ebay, and many more.

The more sites I visit, the worse the problem becomes.

The URL always exhibits a stall at http://w.........
- then another quarter of the URL bar,
- then later, perhaps, more of the URL, and so on.....
- Firefox tells me that it is "loading" forever.

STATS:
Mac G5 PPC/ 1.85 GHZ/ 2mg ram/
security update 2007-009 installed

HD1= 300mb 7200rpm w/Leopard 10.5.1
HD2=500mb 7200rpm w/tiger 10.4.11

Router is D-lynk with the latest firmware
Modem is new Motorola Surfboard 5101
Internet Provider is Cox Cable

(Mac G4 powerbook. OS 10.4.11 same problems)

1. Cox cable says I have good upload download speed and no packet loss when we ping yahoo.

2. Safari and Firefox perform poorly on either hard drive.

3. Safari and Firefox both perform poorly with the G5 connected directly to the modem.

4. All caches and histories etc. are cleaned using Reset and/or Onyx and/or MacPilot, as well as Repair Permissions and more. I run a clean ship.

It might be useful to cut the visual parts of the browser out of the equation by using a text-only browser as a test to see what part of the HTTP transaction is causing a problem.
Try the 'debug_http' script that I outlined in this old thread:
http://forums.macosxhints.com/showpo...91&postcount=7
Show us the results and we can help interpret.

I am having the same problem
 

Same thing - once I installed leopard, Safari and Firefox alike are at best at a crawl. Google.com is especially slow.

I went into Terminal and entered the curl www.apple.com -o /dev/null command and subsequent commands as noted above, and here is what mine says:

--------
------

I am connected to the internet, as I got to this forum, but it is PAINFULLY slow now that I upgraded to Leopard. I have a Sony PC in the house as well, running on the same wireless internet connection, and it is running fine.

I did a clean install of Leopard, I thought that would eliminate any problems like this, but alas no.

ssibayan, have you tried new DNS servers?

Trevor

Trevor,

Yes, I read the posts about DNS servers. I must admit, I don't actually know what those are, but I followed the instructions to add them; I went to System Preferences, Network, Airport, Advanced, DNS-

I already have two DNS servers listed; but they are greyed out. 80.58.61.250, 80.58.61.254. I tried adding a few combinations of DNS servers as listed on this forum and others that talked about DNS servers. Most recently I have tried adding:
208.67.220.220 and 208.67.222.222

No improvement.

This is on my Powerbook G4, which is almost 3 years old. Just an hour ago, we installed Leopard on another Mac in the house, a brand new MacBook - and similarly, as soon as leopard was installed, that computer went from having a fine internet connection to this bogged down dial-up speed. We just did an update to install Leopard on the Macbook, on my Powerbook I did a clean install.

Both 80.58.61.250 and 80.58.61.254 are valid DNS Servers. 80.58.61.254 had noticeable packet loss when I pinged it, though. Can we see the results you get from
ping -c 3 80.58.61.250
ping -c 3 80.58.61.254

Also, assuming that you're not using IPv6 (and if you don't know, then you're not using it), try turning it off in System Preferences > Network > click "Advanced" > Configure IPv6 > set it to "Off".

Trevor

Okay, I turned off IPv6, because nope, I don't know what it is.

Here are results from pinging:

-----

Last login: Sat Jan 12 21:40:13 on console
powerbook-g4-12-de-shannon-sibayan:~ shannonsibayan$
powerbook-g4-12-de-shannon-sibayan:~ shannonsibayan$ ping -c 3 80.58.61.250
PING 80.58.61.250 (80.58.61.250): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 80.58.61.250: icmp_seq=0 ttl=125 time=57.045 ms
64 bytes from 80.58.61.250: icmp_seq=1 ttl=125 time=57.602 ms
64 bytes from 80.58.61.250: icmp_seq=2 ttl=125 time=55.933 ms

--- 80.58.61.250 ping statistics ---
3 packets transmitted, 3 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 55.933/56.860/57.602/0.694 ms
powerbook-g4-12-de-shannon-sibayan:~ shannonsibayan$ ping -c 3 80.58.61.254
PING 80.58.61.254 (80.58.61.254): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 80.58.61.254: icmp_seq=0 ttl=125 time=58.699 ms
64 bytes from 80.58.61.254: icmp_seq=2 ttl=125 time=57.758 ms

--- 80.58.61.254 ping statistics ---
3 packets transmitted, 2 packets received, 33% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 57.758/58.228/58.699/0.471 ms
powerbook-g4-12-de-shannon-sibayan:~ shannonsibayan$


-----

Thank you so much for your help.

Yeah, you're getting packet loss from 80.58.61.254 as well. There's something wrong with that server.

If those two DNS Servers are shown as grayed out in System Preferences > Network > Advanced > DNS tab, then it's provided by your router. Try configuring your router and removing that IP address from it's configuration page.

Trevor

Oh no - I just did that and now the internet won't connect at all on the PC (before I did that, internet was running smoothly on the PC, no problems.) Still the slow dial-up pace on both Macs.

We have an Airport Extreme - I went into Airport Utility, took out the second DNS server ending in 254. Do I need to put another DNS server there in it's place?

1 step forward, two steps back.

I did a hard reboot of everything - all computers, routers (we are in Europe, we have a Telefonica ADSL router, and I plugged the Airport Extreme into that to broadcast the signal). No luck getting the internet back on the PC, and Macs were still at their slow pace.

I tried entering DNS servers into Airport Utility from a post mentioned above, opendns.org. Still no internet (but full wireless signal) on the Windows PC (that is now my most imminent problem, I need the PC to dial into work). I also added those DNS numbers to my System Preferences, Network, Airport, DNS tab.

I went back into Airport Utility and entered in the 80.58.61.250 and 80.58.61.254 again... still no response from the PC. But at this point, I tested the Macs... the internet is a little bit faster! Previously, trying to go to sites like google.com would fail half the time, the other half of the time take 2 minutes or more to load. Now, google is coming up, albeit slowly.

But something strange, I just went back into System Preferences, Network, DNS, and now it shows this:

10.0.1.1 (greyed out)
208.67.220.220
208.67.222.222

??? Where did the 10... come from?

Everything was working fine before I installed Leopard. I should have left one Mac on Tiger, but I was too curious to see if it was my computer or the OS... so I installed Leopard on the second Mac, and now of course they are both having the same problem. :( Hindsight.

I'd guess that 10.0.1.1 (grayed out) is your Airport Extreme Base Station. If the PCs aren't seeming to connect, then there's something wrong in the settings for the Airport Extreme Base Station.

Trevor

nathan56b says "Slow as AOL dial up" - I'm seeing the same thing. Was browsing quicktly using OSX 10.3, then went to 10.5 as an early adopter. Wow, I regret that so much now. The web browsers (trying both Firefox, Safari) on this new OSX are indeed glacial. I'm using a PowerPC G5 dual, 1.5 GB ram. Some discussion of the problem at apple forums:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread....26220&tstart=0

They suggest:
https://www.opendns.com/start?device=apple-osx-leopard

Unfortunately, this did not fix the problem for me. I'm just hoping 10.5.2 will help.... somehow.... This thing is a boat anchor w/o decent internet.

I don't think you will need to wait for a fix from Apple. You need to first diagnose the problem - e.g. by using the 'debug_http' script I suggested above.

If the problem is with DNS (name lookup), then we can help you can deal with that. But first verify what the precise problem is.

Internet Still Slow
 

I've spent the past two days straight trying everything I could on this forum and other forums - I am really surprised to see posts going back to October of people having this problem, with no fixes yet?

I have changed the DNS servers to all different suggestions: opendns.org, plus other random DNS servers posted on this forum and others- the speed has improved, but is still in no way as fast as this internet is on other, non-leopard computers in my house (I finally figured out the router configuration to get the PC back up). It's a shame to watch the internet fly on the PC and watch it lag on my Macs.

Also, Safari crashed twice yesterday - spinning wheel and then unexpectedly quit. This is new for me - I have never seen any Mac program crash before.

Here is my most recent debug_http results, after taking out the bad DNS server as Trevor advised.

Any more ideas?
Thanks so much for all the help. So just curious - those of you (wonderful people) advising, you have installed Leopard, and don't have this problem? I wonder how many people this has affected - after I saw Leopard installed on two different machines, one old, one new; one clean install, one updated; still both with the same internet problem - I thought it must be universal. It sure seems to be after reading so many different forums going back for 3 months! But apparently there are some machines that are not, and of course, if everyone had the same problem, Apple would have been FORCED to fix, no?

I have no network problems with Leopard. Other than Stacks, which I strongly dislike and therefore don't use, Leopard has been a wonderful upgrade.

Trevor

The above shows that the DNS name lookup took 18.872 seconds - which is enormous. So you definitely have a DNS problem.

Maybe try creating a new "location" in Network Preferences and then fill in all your network info in the new location.

Using the OpenDNS solved my problem. FYI, for anyone having trouble. Amazing really, I've been living like this for 2 weeks and then 45 seconds of setup with that site and bingo, fast as can be again.
Thanks to all who posted.
JB

Better, but still working on it
 

I have changed so many settings now, I am unsure where I started and with each change it's hard to tell whether I'm moving forward or back.

Here's my most recent debug results: is 11 seconds good? Browsing is certainly much faster, but still not as fast as it is on the PC. I guess I just need some reassurance as to whether I should keep working on it, or if it's as good as it's going to get.

powerbook-g4-12-de-shannon-sibayan:~ shannonsibayan$ debug_http www.apple.com
% Total % Received % Xferd Average Speed Time Time Time Current
Dload Upload Total Spent Left Speed
100 9824 100 9824 0 0 887 0 0:00:11 0:00:11 --:--:-- 34825
name lookup: 10,252 connect: 10,580 pretransfer: 10,581 starttransfer: 10,821 total: 11,069

I attached screenshots of my internet settings, under my Network Settings and in the Airport Utility for my base station. Any thoughts, suggestions?

After I installed Leopard yesterday my Internet connection went to dial up speeds as well. My other Mac with Tiger and Windows laptop continued to work normal. So I began to do a search on the net to see if this was a general issue for Leopard users or just my problem. I discovered this discussion board and others.

Then tonight I went into System Preferences and opened Network. I clicked on the "Assist me..." button on the bottom, ran through the Diagnostics that appeared on top and started surfing and I could not believe the difference.

The problem was solved! My speed is faster than it's ever been on any other computer or Mac OS before! Hope it works for the rest of you having problems.

Safari fixed for me!!!
 

Called apple support and they had me do a couple of things and it fixed my Safari freezing problem...

1) They had me drag the file "com.apple.Safari.plist" file to the desktop (for safekeeping). This file resides in ~/Library/Preferences. The file is recreated when you start Safari the next time. At this point I restarted the system, and the startup seemed to take significantly less time, but Safari was still not up to snuff (a couple of minutes to load the apple page, etc). Soo....
2) With Safari open he had me go to Safari.Reset Safari on the menu. Once I reset he had me restart Safari, and all was back to normal!

Hope this is helpful!

http://www.ruby-forum.com/topic/138634 lists some small fixes. Anybody know what the real problem is, though?

hey Ssibayan,

did you find a solution for this yet? I have the same problem and I go kind of crazy. i guess I tried every possible setting now.

I have this problem since a week, I lived in Belgium and there I had no problems. Now I moved to Spain and took the same computer here and here I have the problems. It's a Macbook pro with Leopard, I also upgraded, no clean install.

thanks a lot

eightmedia:

Your post inspired me to continue working on this issue. So I broke down and called AppleCare support; since I bought the warranty, might as well use it.

I just got off the phone with them after about 45 minutes because I'm now installing the new software updates, and they didn't want to wait for me to do it on the phone, so they gave me a case number and told me to call back when it's done if my problem wasn't fixed.

I am bored just sitting here waiting in anticipation, so I'm going to write what Tech Support told me to do so that some of you may attempt if you like.

The person I spoke with had never heard of this issue before. They had me reboot my computer in Safe Mode, which I had never done before.

To reboot your computer in Safe Mode, hit restart, and as soon as the screen goes black, hold down the Shift key. Keep holding Shift until you see the spinning gear appear, and then let go of the Shift key. Tech support said I would see a menu to choose Safe Mode from... but no menu popped up. It just brought me to my log-in screen, but there were red letters at the top that said Safe Mode.
Tech support told me NOT to log in, just restart my computer normally from there. Apparently booting up in safe mode, even if you don't log in and go all the way to the desktop, may repair some issues.

And FYI, it took my computer about 10 minutes to start up in Safe Mode, meaning it showed the spinning gear for 10 solid minutes. Tech support said that was normal.

Then they asked me if I had updated my software recently. I had updated last week, but to my surprise the new operating system update 10.5.2 just came out today, February 11, so I am in the middle of downloading and installing it, as I said above.

I thought all new significant updates popped up as soon as they were ready to be downloaded, but that is not the case. Manually go up to the Apple logo and click Software Update to check. And, according to Apple's site, "Also, some updates must be installed prior to others, so you should run Software Update more than once to make sure you have all available updates." I learn something new every day.

I am reading Apple's informational release about this upate: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=307109 , and it is apparently significant and specifically includes:

-----

AirPort

* Improves connection reliability and stability
* Includes 802.1X improvements.
* Resolves certain kernel panics.

-----

I don't know what a kernel panic is, but again, I'm hopeful.

So I'm still waiting for update to install, when it finishes hopefully problem will be fixed, otherwise I will be calling Applecare back. Either way, I will post my results.

False hope
 

After a cumulative 2.5 hours on phone with Apple Care tonight, my internet loading problem has actually become worse. The last thing they had me do was do a hardware reset. It reset all of my saved passwords and "Accept certificate" things in Firefox... but I guess it also reset anything I had previously accomplished DNS-server wise, so now I am back to where I started a month ago, when I installed Leopard. I just tried to go to Youtube.com and it failed completely. Other pages like apple.com and nytimes.com take more than 10 seconds to load.

This is happening with both an ethernet cable connected directly through my Telefonica router, and wirelessly through the Airport Extreme Base Station I have plugged into the Telefonica router.

Other things AppleCare people recommended in the past few hours, all of which I did but nothing helped: install System Update 10.5.2.; do a safe reboot (see post above for instructions to do that); clear my Firerfox and Safari histories, caches, cookies, etc.; create a new administrator account on my mac and log in as the test user; verify disk in disk utility (no problems found).

Against my better judgment, I told one of the Applecare people that I read on a forum that it might be a problem with my DNS servers, and the Applecare person said he wasn't really sure what I was talking about. :(

And just a reminder, there is a Windows PC on this network as well, wired with the same ethernet cord to the same router that I am testing my mac with, and internet on the PC is perfect and fast.

This is so annoying.

-----

For anyone curious, Applecare walked me through the hardware reset, and if you are interested it is done by shutting down your computer, and while your computer is completely off, hold down Shift+Ctrl+Alt+Power button (all four buttons) for 5 seconds. Then let go of all buttons and wait for 5 seconds, then turn the computer back on. But again, this didn't solve my problem, it just brought me back to where I started.

I tried everything you said here already .. nothing helps!

I am so desperate I will try to format my hard disc and reinstall leopard. And if that doesn't do the trick, I will try OSX Tiger again. I am in Spain for a 6 months and I really need my computer and internet for my work as a graphic designer. If eventually this all won't work I will take another provider but then again I really look up to it because it's so much hassle.

I now have telefonica here in barcelona, that uses a standard router inalambrico from xavi. Their service really sucks because when I tell them I am a mac user they hang up on me or say they van not help me!

I will keep you posted about this, hope you can do the same.

Good luck man!

Okay, I've spent a few more hours fiddling around this morning, I am back to a little bit better speed, but again nowhere near pre-Leopard speeds.

As much as I enjoy the other features of Leopard, if I had my Tiger install CD with me, I would definitely downgrade back to it, but it's packed away in a box somewhere halfway around the world.

I have the Telefonica inalambrico router, but my Spanish vocabulary in terms of computer networking is not great, so I gave up trying to configure it. I just plugged the Telefonica router in, ran a cable from it to my Airport Extreme Base Station, and have been configuring the Airport Extreme and my computers from System Preferences only.

This is what I did, which is really a mixture of everything I have been doing above, but maybe in this order and restarting stuff helped:

Shut down everything for at least 5 seconds - Telefonica router, Airport Extreme, computer.

After both routers were back on, I turned the computer back on and went directly into Airport Utility to configure my base station. I changed the DNS servers within Airport Utility to the opendns.org DNS servers: those are 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220.

I then went into System Preferences > Network, and deleted the Airport profile (hit the minus sign) over on the left-hand side. I kept Airport activated while I deleted the profile. I waited a few seconds, then added a new profile (hit the plus sign). It came on in a few seconds, but said there was no IP address. I hit "Turn off Airport" over on the right, waited a few seconds, then hit "Turn on Airport" again. It found an IP address, and it was online.

Then I hit Advanced to configure the profile, went to TCP/IP and turned off IPv6. Then went to DNS tab and entered the two Telefonica DNS servers (which I found on this web site: http://www.tekarno.com/adsl_telefonica_setup_spain.htm , if you don't have the DNS servers for xavi, maybe you can find a similar site? I just googled it) underneath the greyed out DNS server that it was pulling from my Telefonica router.

I hit 'Ok' then 'Apply'. Then I turned off airport completely, waited a few seconds, then turned it back on.

I don't know why, but it gave me better results to use OpenDNS servers in the router, and Telefonica DNS servers in my System Prefs (and I tried every combination - Telefonica servers on the router only, or on both, or OpensDNS on System Prefs, or both).

It takes a good 10 seconds or more to get to apple.com, but once I get there for the first time, I can click around the page and surf at almost normal speeds. Gmail.com fluctuates between 4 seconds-15 seconds to get there initially, but again, once I'm there surfing is fine.

Not ideal.

I will post if I progress any further.

So my macBook is even worse then?




Last login: Thu Feb 14 16:02:27 on console
Gavins-Computer:~ gavin$ curl www.apple.com -o /dev/null
% Total % Received % Xferd Average Speed Time Time Time Current
Dload Upload Total Spent Left Speed
100 9926 100 9926 0 0 162 0 0:01:01 0:01:01 --:--:-- 24342
Gavins-Computer:~ gavin$ debug_http () { /usr/bin/curl $@ -o /dev/null -w "name lookup: %{time_namelookup} connect: %{time_connect} pretransfer: %{time_pretransfer} starttransfer: %{time_starttransfer} total: %{time_total}\n" ; }
Gavins-Computer:~ gavin$ debug_http www.apple.com
% Total % Received % Xferd Average Speed Time Time Time Current
Dload Upload Total Spent Left Speed
100 9926 100 9926 0 0 162 0 0:01:01 0:01:00 0:00:01 26462
name lookup: 60.002 connect: 60.317 pretransfer: 60.317 starttransfer: 60.640 total: 60.974
Gavins-Computer:~ gavin$





What could be causing this? Hey, I'll swap for your 18 seconds anytime!:D

Sadly, my 18 seconds fluctuates now from 11 seconds to 70 seconds with every change I attempt!

I just thought of something - I checked my Network properties on the PC, which is on the same network as my macs, and the DNS servers listed on the PC are:

80.58.61.250
80.58.61.254

Anyone who has been following this saga from the beginning, will read that those were the very first DNS numbers my Mac also generated (makes sense). One user replied and said there was significant packet loss on one of those, so I have been trying to find replacement DNS numbers ever since.

But if those DNS numbers are the ones my PC is pulling... and the PC is working flawlessly (in terms of internet... in terms of anything else, well, that's why I have macs :P), then it seems like I am going down the wrong path.

Any thoughts?

yeah man! I think the dns servers is not the right way to look after. I replaced them and I don't really see a big change. The pc is even slower with the new ones.

I tried to update my router firmware but can't seem to get the right file to do that. Also it gives me errors when I try to setup the Mac filter. I'm gonna call telefonica monday and ask them for a new router, and I don't want that Xavi 7868r again :)

I also took my laptop to a hotel near my place and logged in to their wireless network and I had no problems. My MBP was as fast as it was in Belgium. After that, I took the Macbook Pro to a friends house here who also uses telefonica and has the same router we have at our place and it was slow again. So i'm starting to think it's all the routers fault.

I'm really going crazy here, lost a lot of my precious time and can't get my work done properly. And I'm really out of options .. don't knwo what to do next

What did you replace your DNS servers with? On my systems I manually added the DNS servers my IP uses into the TCP/IP settings. By doing so, I never have a problem with them. If your router doesn't list them in the Status section, contact your ISP. They will be glad to give you the server addresses (likely 3). Put them in the DNS field of your Network preference pane's TCP/IP settings separated by commas.

ssibayan, wow, I am having the exact problems you are having. Different hardware though - i have the dual G5 tower. I'm only on ethernet. I have a PC connected to the same router, and the PC is as fast as always, so I believe that eliminates my ISP, etc.

Changing DNS, and add/removing profiles did not work when I was on 10.5.1. 10.5.2 didn't improve this the sluggishness (though I haven't tried add/remove profile nor openDNS "fixes" yet). Also, tried updating firmware of router, and that did not fix the problem.

Interesting finding. On speedtest.net, I get the following result:
10.5.2, Firefox: 1534 kbps down, 34 up, 342 ms ping! (upload takes a long time to start)
10.5.2, Safari: 1529 kbps down, 46 kbps up, 258 ms ping.
WinXP, Firefox: 1522 kbps down, 347 kbps up! , 184 ms ping.

debug_http results:

Then I try again, to yahoo:
The name lookup is erratic. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

Hi.

I've got the exact same problem.
Under network->dns I have my airport extreme's ip listed as the first dns service ip. Because the router is listed first, requests will be made to the router before any other dns service manually entered.
I simply altered both of the DNS ip's in the airport setup to my own wan ip's so that dns requested performed via the router would be denied immidiatly. Prior to this I entered the dns ip's from the airport in to my dns settings under systempref.->network->dns.
Voila! It works. FAST.

Hope it works out just as easy for you guys.

Why the dns lookup via airport express is rubbish i don't know but it sure is sad...

Did we really need that response twice in a row?

I'm not sure if that reply was meant for me.

But if it was then yes, you do need my reply.

The thing that screws it up with an airport extreme and a osx machine is that osx will list the airport as the first DNS server. The airports lan IP is also greyed out, so that it can not be removed. This in effect means that entering more dns servers will not help you unless you make sure that the airport isn't able to process any dns requests, because osx will make dns requests to servers in the order they appear on the list found under systempref.->network->advanced->dns.
The dns requests to the airport can be made faulty by altering the DNS IP's listed under the Internet tab in the airport extreme, the IP addresses are greyed out but just click on them and enter the airport wan IP in both primary and secondary DNS.
When this is done osx will, when looking up a web address, first contact the airport router, the airport router will relay the request to the IP entered in its DNS config. This will however make it contact itself and the request will be denied at once, osx will then move on to the DNS server listed as the next one, this then does not involve the airport router because request are made directly to dns server. Speeding things up drastically.

Haven't seen this solution offered before, but i sure works for me... I even entered the same DNS IP addresses in osx as the airport was using as default.

Something happened with Mac OS X's low-level DNS resolving functions during the development of Leopard and now a variety of applications are screwed up. I'm also seeing this problem, as well as the "slow SSH problem." I think we're just going to need to wait till Apple does something about it. Since the problem appears to be somewhat dependent on what kind of servers are running on your network, this was probably not something they could figure out during the Q/A phase of finalizing Leopard, tho I'm surprised the Beta seeds didn't reveal this issue...

Related to "slow SSH connect" issue with leopard:
see http://discussions.apple.com/thread....55437&#6655437

See this page

http://blog.jungledisk.com/2007/10/3...d-work-around/

I've put together a simple and hopefully easy to read guide for this over on mac-forums - http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/sho...d.php?p=607373 but basically all that you've gotta do to fix the problem is bypass any automatically assigned dns servers on any routers or modems on your network, then specify your own ones (eg opendns, or your isp's ones).

My wireless on my MacBook Pro is so slow it is doing my head in.....Apple are ignoring the problem.....IMHO!!!!!!

I am currently sitting 2 metres away from router. I use WPA2 security but it exhibits the same behaviour with any type of security to no security.

It takes 15 second to load macosxhints on wireless and 2 seconds on ethernet of course i clean the browser cache to do the test and flush DNS. This is also reflected in DNS lookups so it is not a DNS issue.

This PROBLEM is going on on many Intel Macs i support as well as my own....on 10.4.11 and 10.5.2. I have done extensive testing on many systems and routers and i can confirm that the Atheros driver is CRAP and/or apples implementation of IO with kext.

If it was just my machine i would think hardware problem but nay.....it is at least 20 to date out of 100 machines i support. All the older broadcom based machines/PPC are perfect no problems on the same network.

The problem is also compounded by moving from battery to power adapter which can in fact lead to the wireless just not working at all for a while.

Apple once again pull your iphones out of your arse and sort out core issues out !

And yes i have posted on apple forums but had my posts deleted very promptly even when just explaining what was going on, and not using any derogatory comments....so a big THANKS to Apple for listening to their consumers.

Ah the wireless age.....better hope the Macbook Air has a good wireless chip/driver or you are right in the crap.

You aren't being clear enough. Is DNS slower over Airport than over Ethernet? If so, is the slowness of DNS enough to explain the slowness of web-apge loading?
(It's be better to remove DNS from the equation by loading web pages via IP addresses instead of names.)

Please post your evidence, not just your conclusions.
In particular, I'm interested to see how you have identified this as a driver problem rather than the other (much higher-level) software.

Every time i am on wireless DNS lookups are slowwww and when on ethernet very fast. I use openDNS on our network and it has been working very well with all other machines.

On another network/site i support i have managed to nearly remove wireless from the equation on all intel machines as they ALL were exhibiting the same issues......slow WIFI, lack of comms to router, slow DNS, not being able to connect to network with authentication failing and just not connecting to the network.....the dreaded "try again". One thing that helped the authentication was changing the wireless channel from 10 to 9 then back again.....just weird. This is mainly with Macbooks/Macbook Pros but some iMacs as well. The fact that NONE of PPC machines have any wireless issues does point to something with driver IMHO. Most machien sare on 10.4.11 and a few on 10.5.2. All machines that are wired are fine anything(intel based) on wireless appears to be alright but they throw up one or more of the symptoms every other day...

In answer to evidence.....
I have no real evidence apart from the fact there have been 5-7 revisions of the driver/IO80211.kext in 18 months which shows something is up IMHO. This coupled with the fact the same machines while using bootcamp (XP) have no issues at all. So its not hardware !

Try turning on the UNIX Name Service BIND (Berkeley Internet Name Domain) via root terminal. It's built into OSX (as OSX is UNIX based) but off by default (not sure about Leopard) for some odd reason, but it's the UNIX native DNS. Well it's actually a suite of UNIX based utilities including nslookup and dig but contains a very good DNS server that may fix your problem if it's DNS related.

F21 if you are referring to my comments....it is not practical to have the 20 client machines running a local DNS server and having a main DNS server on network as well.....so it will not help.

As far as running on my own local machine, i have reasonable experience with DNS setup so may have a go, but something is up with the WIFI.....full stop.

Since rolling back Airport/IO80211.kext drivers to the 10.4.9 version things have been better coupled with my laptop pinging router every 2 seconds....not ideal but it is keeping things mildly in order.

Found solution to slow internet; haven't seen it listed here yet
 

I was experiencing what a lot of folks have experienced: very slow internet as soon as I upgrated my Mac (mini) to Leopard. All the speed tests I ran off of the web showed good speed, but it did appear that the problem was not in the downloading but in sending the request to the site.

I ran all of the suggestions above to see if they made a difference. No difference.

So I went into my DSL modem settings and looked for settings that would affect look up. I found that it was *not* the particular sites it was looking for, but *how* it was looking: "Dynamic DNS". I changed the DSL model settings from Dynamic to Static DNS, and kept the two IP addresses listed the same. So instead of dynamically trying one and if not working, try the other, it was doing it as a static list (which, parenthetically, is similar to creating the static list in unix for lookups).

Once I restarted the modem, my total internet speed (DNS lookup + download) is back to fast.

My interpretation is that the Mac is asking the DSL modem and is somehow lagging poorly when the model does the dynamic lookup.

Hope this helps.

Mark

routers gone wild... on SRV DNS requests
 

ssibayan & eightmedia:

You're likely right with regards to routers being at fault with respect to slow internet access under Leopard. Many routers don't respond to SRV DNS requests. And this is the type of DNS record Leopard asks for first, before retrying with A record requests after multiple failures/timeouts on SRV record requests.

Switching to a different router that does handle these requests, can make a large difference in browsing speed, which is exactly what you're seeing.

Same goes with IPv6 DNS requests (if you're using Firefox).

opendns' misleading instructions
 

drsmartz

I just took a look at those instructions from opendns on changing DNS servers and ... that's not going to help anyone having slow dns lookup issues on Leopard.

Simply adding DNS servers onto the bottom of the list will still have Leopard asking the first DNS server to perform the domain name lookups. Only after the first server has failed the lookup or timed out will Leopard try the second and third.

To add to the misinformation, those instructions are for Ethernet only. AirPort, and every network device for that matter, has its own set of service settings. Thus, if you're on AirPort wireless, adding DNS servers to your Ethernet interface is like changing tires on your bike and hoping your car drives better. Don't think that'll be very helpful :rolleyes:.

If you look closely at those screenshots, the guy who made them is using AirPort wireless, yet he wrote instructions on how to change DNS servers for the Ethernet device. He and everyone else on wireless using those instructions will see zero effect from those changes.

To add OpenDNS' servers to your DNS lookups on wireless (or Ethernet) and to actually make it useful, create a new Network Location and edit the device settings there.

I started to write instructions on how to do that here, but it's turning into a monster post. Here is a walkthrough with screenshots on adding DNS servers in Leopard to get around slow name lookup/Internet problems.

Just for info the first DNS servers inquired are those at the bottom of the list (normally added manually, as OpenDNS). This for sure if those at the top are grayed. Seen with Wireshark packet trace and Camino.

tcpdump says otherwise (I think)
 

I not sure if I can confirm what you say, arbushell, although I'll confirm tomorrow.

According to tcpdump, this is not true. The order that DNS servers appear in the list, from top down, is the order that the servers are used.

The greying out of servers simply means they are not removable from the list, not that they are "unused".

Another way to tell is by looking at service order using ncutil or scutil.

Again, will write more later.

For arbushell - order of dns is as you see it
 

Setup tcpdump as follows: sudo tcpdump -i en1 -s 128 port 53

(use en0 if you're on ethernet).

Open up another terminal window and enter this:
curl http://wiifit.com

This will load the web page using "curl".

The following is a printout from tcpdump showing resolver1.opendns.com as the DNS server.

tcpdump: verbose output suppressed, use -v or -vv for full protocol decode
listening on en1, link-type EN10MB (Ethernet), capture size 128 bytes
21:09:25.347972 IP 192.168.1.132.52104 > resolver1.opendns.com.domain: 8973+ SRV? _http._tcp.wiifit.com. (39)
21:09:25.413867 IP 192.168.1.132.52105 > resolver1.opendns.com.domain: 51611+ PTR? 222.222.67.208.in-addr.arpa. (45)
21:09:25.468237 IP resolver1.opendns.com.domain > 192.168.1.132.52105: 51611 1/0/0 PTR resolver1.opendns.com. (80)
21:09:25.471433 IP 192.168.1.132.52106 > resolver1.opendns.com.domain: 51254+ PTR? 132.1.168.192.in-addr.arpa. (44)
21:09:25.522641 IP resolver1.opendns.com.domain > 192.168.1.132.52106: 51254 NXDomain 0/0/0 (44)
21:09:25.644452 IP resolver1.opendns.com.domain > 192.168.1.132.52104: 8973 NXDomain 0/0/0 (39)
21:09:25.644965 IP 192.168.1.132.52107 > resolver1.opendns.com.domain: 49725+ SRV? _http._tcp.wiifit.com. (39)
21:09:25.698514 IP resolver1.opendns.com.domain > 192.168.1.132.52107: 49725 NXDomain 0/0/0 (39)
21:09:25.699892 IP 192.168.1.132.52108 > resolver1.opendns.com.domain: 38658+ A? wiifit.com. (28)
21:09:25.832046 IP resolver1.opendns.com.domain > 192.168.1.132.52108: 38658 1/0/0 A 205.166.76.53 (44)
21:09:26.526985 IP 192.168.1.132.52109 > resolver1.opendns.com.domain: 18132+ PTR? 53.76.166.205.in-addr.arpa. (44)
21:09:26.881751 IP resolver1.opendns.com.domain > 192.168.1.132.52109: 18132 NXDomain 0/0/0 (44)

And finally, attached is a screenshot of my DNS servers listed. Notice how 192.168.1.1 is listed after the opendns server, yet it's never even tried by Directory Services' DNS resolver?

I can't say everyone's Mac behaves exactly the same as mine, but, this is my evidence that DNS servers are used in order that they are displayed within Network Preferences pane / Advanced / DNS screen.

Camino and Wireshark are, in my opinion, far removed from the actual action of DNS lookup and thus are not good tools for diagnostics. Remember that Camino has a dns cache that it tries before asking Directory Services (DS), and if you've visited a site within the last minute, it won't ask DS to do a lookup and may make Wireshark produce ... misleading results.

What do you think?

Regards,
Ben

This link may explain part of the problem:
http://hunter.pairsite.com/blogs/blog20080603.html

cwtnospam
Wireshark (ex Ethereal) simply records and shows TCP and other kind of packets flowing on the connection and likely is layered over tcpdump, I don't think it messes the order of messages (I'm using WS on MAC just for continuity with Windows).
In any case I repeated the test with Safari and tcpdump, results are been the same: Leopard 10.5.3 (former test was with 10.5.2) sends the first A Query to the first non-router assigned DNS (that is the first non-grayed, in my case OpenDNS 208.67.222.222, set manually with networksetup -setdnsservers ... ....). The same happens with the terminal command 'dig' instead of Safari.
Very interesting the hunter.pairsite blog, probably most DNS issues are due to this comprised mine that in the past addressed me to try OpenDNS and other name servers available on the internet

Ah, 10.5.3 vs. 10.5.2
 

Arbushell, I think we may have just discovered something...

I believe Apple has reversed the order of the DNS server priority in Leopard 10.5.3.

I'm only speculating here as I have 10.5.2 installed and you have 10.5.3 installed, we're running roughly the same tests, yet you're seeing the opposite of what I'm seeing. Easiest explanation of that: Apple changed DNS server order with Leopard 10.5.3.

There is logic behind this from my perspective: If a user spends the time to add a DNS server manually to their TCP/IP setup, wouldn't they want it to actually be used?

The way Apple had it setup before (10.5.2 and prior), any DNS server you added would have no effect until the ones listed above it were tried/failed. Adding a preferred DNS server in Leopard 10.5.2 required creating a new Network Location, vastly more complicated then simply opening up the DNS tab and adding an IP address.

Anyone else able to confirm what order their DNS servers are used and under which version of Leopard? (Using tcpdump and curl as shown in post 56)
http://installingcats.com/wp-content...ns_servers.gif

Looking into the file /etc/resolv.conf (supposedly where DNS resolvers are stored) the manually added addresses are inserted at the top. Likely they will be later used top-down.
Maybe that the general rule is that the last added are used first. Such order in resolv.conf is surely true in my installation where the USB HSDPA modem control application creates a new Location every time a new connection is made ( this is a behavior causing unfortunately other issues!) and so the OpenDNS addresses can be added only when the provider-assigned are already in place. Perhaps when is used an existing Location the sequence with which addresses are written in /etc/resolv.conf is reversed. Or not?

Ok, my thought that 10.5.3 changed the order of DNS server priority is wrong.

When a Network Location is setup through DHCP (everything assigned by your router/ISP) and you add DNS servers to this location, the servers are used in reverse order, such as you are seeing arbushell. Last server entered is the first to be used.

When you create a new Network Location and/or manually set TCP/IP configuration (i.e. you specify your IP address, your gateway, your subnet, your DNS servers), the DNS servers are used in the order entered, top down.

Thanks for helping me clear up the confusion.

This behavior has not changed since 10.5.0.

I had this problem but never found this thread until now...

I found a blog which gives a pretty basic walkthrough on how to fix this problem, they seem to use OpenDNS, but obviously if you have your own ISP DNS server it would be better.

http://blog.tando.com.au/mac-osx/sol...ac-osx-leopard

This Worked For Me
 

This may seem like total newbietardation, but here goes. My email (especially sending) and browser started to slow down significantly today, for no apparent reason. I tried plugging in directly with the ethernet cable and then everything worked fine again, so obviously an Aiport issue (I have a 2 week old MPB, fully loaded - 4GB RAM, 2.6 Proc., 300GB HD).

Anyway, I did nothing with my Airport settings - powered off the MPB, and turned off and disconnected all wires from my modem and the Airport base station. Then first plugged in the power on the Airport base until the flashing lights stopped and the signal lights kicked on. Then screwed my cable connector into the modem, and finally the modem power plug, waited for all the lights to come on and stabilize and then powered up the MPB and voila, Airport found my network followed by superfast internet and email once again.

same prob here
 

I'm having the same problem. Except that im in Tiger and my download speeds are crap. I've done everything I can think of. So I finally ran an archive install. It solved the problem. But as soon as I migrated some files, I was back to crap internet again. So this may or may not be the problem but some files that you have installed may be affecting your network. I know this is a computer problem because I have 2 other macs in my house that work perfectly. I still have not found a solution to this terrible problem.

Thanks
 

Thanks to the good tips here, I realize that if you add a dns server at the END of the dns server list, that server is used first. So adding an opendns server to your DNS preferences [for me, that meant network preferences->airport->advanced->DNS->add 208.67.222.222 to the BOTTOM of that list worked! Thank you!]

I personally would add both open DNS servers to the list :
208.67.220.220
208.67.222.222

Unlikely that it is that the first server will be down then the secondary one will be in list to do name resolution. Personally i find distinct advantages using OpenDNS especially on laptops when roaming between many networks so you are not relying on crappy router DNS lookup or ISP DNS.

I had issues on my wife's iMac. Changing the DNS servers didn't do anything, even when I ran a DNS server *on her machine*, which returned queries in 0mS once it had resolved a name.

Here is my documentation of the solution. The summary is that once I started running all her traffic through a SOCKS proxy to my firewall, using ssh for the proxy, the problems are completely gone.

http://www.grubinski.com/hints/leopard.networking.html

Mike

Soooooo frustrated, this may be the last Apple computer I buy
 

I am having the exact same problem being described in this thread.

My Safari browser now basically won't even launch, and my Firefox browser is excruciatingly slow, to the point that I want to throw my Apple computer out the window.

I have an iMac G5; (Power PC G5) that I installed Leopard on.

I have tried the suggestion of changing the DNS server number as others have done in this forum, but, like the others, that made no difference.

I am angry that after spending so much money on a Mac (and I have been a lifelong Mac devotee) I am now zipping around the Internet and posting this with a cheap Dell laptop.

I know it is a problem with my Apple, and not my internet connection, because I am hooked to the same internet connection on the laptop and do not have a problem with the laptop

Can anyone help me (I'm not a tech person, so I don't want to have to remove the back of iMac)??

If I can't fix the problem, that may be the last Mac I buy.

It might be useful to cut the visual parts of the browser out of the equation by using a text-only browser as a test to see what part of the HTTP transaction is causing a problem.
Try the 'debug_http' script that I outlined in this old thread:
http://forums.macosxhints.com/showpo...91&postcount=7
Show us the results and we can help interpret.

Same problem
 

I'm having the same problem, and this is what I got through that debug script...

Any thoughts?

That indicates a quite reasonably fast download of the HTML for that Apple site. Do you have a problem (slowness) with that site?

My mistake
 

I think I was still connected to the ethernet when I did that test.. I'm an idiot. Here's the results using airport.

That is still relatively ok for speed.
Your name lookup (DNS) is a bit slow (taking 0.4 seconds), so maybe look at what DNS servers you have configured for Airport.

On the off chance that this helps anyone. I've experienced "the problem" when using these Comcast DNS servers and DHCP:

68.87.73.242
68.87.71.226
68.87.64.196

On a hunch I just reset my router/modem gateway. When things were up and running again, DHCP acquired the following Comcast DNS servers:

68.87.73.246
68.87.71.230

Now everything is working fine.

Cured
 

OK.. My problem was not a DNS issue. This happened to me before - suddenly slow internet after a leopard patch. I should get 9.8Mbps. I was getting 1.9 tops. Last time the problem went away when I got a time capsule (I was getting one anyway, so I figured, give it a go..). That was after reinstalling 10.5 from my DVD and upgrading. Reinstalling never helped (though I did preserve all files and settings). This time I cured it by running the setup assistant in netwoerk settings and allowing it to set up a new location for my built in airport extreme. I also deleted all previous locations. That worked perfectly. Still have no idea what was wrong, but I wish I had tried this last time I hit this problem.

Slow internet speed....
 

Macbook 10.6.2 - just fine.

iMac 10.6.2 - not so much. I have tried reinstalling snow, countless DNS servers, updates, name it and ive probably done it.

Set up:

router --> 4-port linksys --> 1. airport 2. Samsung TV --> xbox 360 --> Lacie NAS

Macbook can connect to airport with full bars and, from speedtest.net, can get 3.82 dl and .6 ul and ping 15 ms. I can cruise sites at normal speed with hardly any lag. Youtube, most video sites, and websites load just fine.

I also have a wii and xbox 360 that connects to the airport. Both work just fine and download updates pretty quick. Online playing is fine with hardly any lag.

Samsung TV connects to the 4 port via ethernet and that loads online news/weather/and online content a.o.k.

Lacie NAS is connected to the 4 port, but connect from the macbook and imac through the airport and they transport files via wireless to the 4-port at normal speeds. I have not exprienced problems.

...now the imac. same issues as other people here have exprienced. slow speeds, slow downloads, and even though i always get full bars, internet speed is sporadic most of the time.

I did 'curl url_of_web_page -o /dev/null' and here is what i got

Last login: Tue Feb 2 18:13:08 on ttys000
Madrigals-Computer:~ salinamadrigal$ curl youtube.com -o /dev/null
% Total % Received % Xferd Average Speed Time Time Time Current
Dload Upload Total Spent Left Speed
148 296 148 296 0 0 756 0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:-- 1487
Madrigals-Computer:~ salinamadrigal$ debug_http () { /usr/bin/curl $@ -o /dev/null -w "name lookup: %{time_namelookup} connect: %{time_connect} pretransfer: %{time_pretransfer} starttransfer: %{time_starttransfer} total: %{time_total}\n" ; }
Madrigals-Computer:~ salinamadrigal$ debug_http youtube.com
% Total % Received % Xferd Average Speed Time Time Time Current
Dload Upload Total Spent Left Speed
148 296 148 296 0 0 859 0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:-- 1566
name lookup: 0.052 connect: 0.155 pretransfer: 0.155 starttransfer: 0.344 total: 0.344
Madrigals-Computer:~ salinamadrigal$



I tried youtube, since i cant ever depend on the imac for any internet use, especially downloading any type of media content. the imac works for everything else but internet.

any help would be appreciated.

As a lifelong Windows guy I just bought my first Mac. An iMac Core2Duo with 4 gigs of RAM and I'd say my online speed is about 1/3rd of what I was getting two days ago on my same equipment with Windows XP. I am SHOCKED how slow this thing is running online.

Ohh and hello everyone, first post, only had a Mac for 2 days.

Hi, I followed all suggestions on this thread, used open DNS, reset modem and router, upgraded firmware, updated software, etc, etc. None of that worked.

Spent about 4 hours working on this.

This finally worked --

Open System Preferences - Network. Go into the properties for your connection and click on the TCP/IP tab. Then click the Configure IPv6 button and set the menu to Off. Click OK and then Apply Now.

Good luck!

To give credit, I found that solution at this site --
http://hints.macworld.com/article.ph...50504161223778

To be clear, suddenly with no changes so far as I can tell, anything using a search site worked VERY slowly (2 mins to time out). Google, gmail, yahoo, bing, etc. Mac to Modem worked fine. Mac to router did not (direct or wireless). Windows PCs worked fine, even wireless, this was only a problem with macs on google, etc. As I said, turning ovver IPv6 as described above fixed this problem for me.