[gphillipk]

Our office LAN is configured such that each computer has a manual (IP) address using DHCP. Yesterday, I could not open any webpage at all. E-mail worked (I use an external POP server) and I could connect to a remote server using a custom tool to check another mailbox and chat. Neither Safari nor Netscape worked; both timed out. Yet other people in the office could connect without a problem. I'd not changed my network settings from the previous day, so the following is what I did in a bid to repair the malfunction:

1. Repaired permissions
2. Deleted safari's plist and Netscape's plist

I restarted the machine after each of the steps above, but no success. I searched for 'network' and in the results, I noticed there're 2 lists as listed below:
'com.apple.PrefPane.Network.00112475b200.plist' and 'com.apple.PrefPane.Network.00112475beb6.plist'
Both have 'By Host' in the parent column. I do believe this refers to 2 different ethernet ID's? This might have happened when the HD was moved from one PB to another, therefore creating a plist for the new network card. I've not noticed this before and hasn't caused a problem in the past. Could this be the problem? The correct Ethernet ID of my network card is the first one. If I delete the second plist would it solve the problem or would the second list be 'established' every time I plug in the network cable?

[ibook_steve]

Hold on there. Before messing with plist files, check your Network preferences. Under Network Port Configurations, is your ethernet properly enabled? Under Built-in Ethernet, is your IP address set correctly? Verify that it, the router address, and the subnet mask are correct. Make sure you haven't done something like accidentally enabling PPPoE. Check the Ethernet "tab" to verify the hardware MAC address. Moving the hard drive should not make a difference. Try setting it to be truly manual instead of "Using DHCP with manual address." There's a lot you can check before mucking around with preference files that could cause more problems than solutions. One final thing to try is try using the machine on another network such as a DHCP one like you may have at home with broadband and a router.

Oh, one more thing. Try pinging the router. That's your first best test. If that works and you can't get to web pages, you may not be getting the DNS servers through the DHCP correctly, preventing a proper name lookup.

Steve

[gphillipk]

Thanks for the reply Steve. I've checked every possible setting and nothing has changed. I put the PB to sleep last Thursday evening and Friday morning the problem started. I've pinged the proxy server and there're no packets lost. PPPoE is disabled. All appropriate proxies are selected. Therefore, I do not think its any of the settings on my PB. Of the 2 plists I found thru my search, the first one is correct for the PB I'm using now (please see first message). I've tried using the Network Utility Traceroute and it only gets to the proxy server and no further. How would I correct the name lookup problem?