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...