[Andy8]

I am trying to solve a problem for a friend who is running 10.4.11 on a G4 iBook.

When opening the network preference pane a pop-up dialogue box appears at the top of the pane "Your network settings have been changed by another application".

I can not seem to find what is causing this to happen, and it keeps appearing nonstop, each time you click "Ok" it reappears again.

PPPoE is in use via ethernet and the modem was configured to dial a landline.

Any suggestions?

[ibook_steve]

I actually had this problem on a 12" Powerbook G4 that was at 10.4.11, but I never found a solution. Normally, that message appears if you change the location from the Apple menu at the same time that you make a change in the Network preferences. The repeating message was *really* annoying, so I know what you mean.

I ended up just updating the machine to Leopard.

Steve

[AKcrab]

Go to the security pref pane and enable "Require password to unlock each System Preferences Pane"

That should stop the loop and allow you to get into the network prefs and try and figure out what has happened.

[reader50]

This problem was introduced by a security update. It appears to be an issue between a network pref and the keychain. It gets fixed if the appropriate entry gets resaved in the keychain. I fixed it on my system a year ago. Two possible solutions most commonly fix it (the first one did it for me).

Solution #1: go to System Preferences -> Date & Time -> the "Set Date and Time Automatically" checkbox. Whatever it is set to, click it. After a moment, click again to return it to whatever you normally have it on.

Solution #2: use the Require Password item as AKcrab suggests. Then, go to System Preferences -> Network -> Configure -> PPPoE tab. Uncheck box to "Save Password". Retype in the password. Recheck "Save Password" box. If you have a PPPoE password specified on more than one network port, repeat the above steps for each port. When done, return to the Security prefpane and uncheck the Require Password option.

Once I fixed it on each of my systems, the problem never returned.

The solutions I found turned up in this Apple Support thread. They discuss other options, such as checking / unchecking the Network Time option in Sharing as well.

[imitchellg5]

OMG! Both my iMac and PowerBook do this... but now it's fixed. Thanks for the find, reader50.