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bstone · Apr 20, 2004, 01:52 PM

In my Sawtooth 400, 10.3.3 I have a Sonnet Aria PCI Extreme wireless card. My router is a Linksys WRT54G. Since applying the most recent Airport update (ver 3.4) my signal stregnth has gone from 4 out of 5 bars to 2 (sometimes 1) out of 5. I noticed this right after applying the update and I have also had the connection drop mysteriously, requiring a restart of the system before I could get it back (which killed my uptime). WEP is not on (essentially an open network), serving DHCP. Apple really screwed this one.

John Strung · Apr 20, 2004, 02:23 PM

A lot of people are having problems with this update and there is a full story in todays MacFixit, together with removal instructions. There are also removal instructions here http://homepage.mac.com/fishsun/arti..._airport34.htm

Kevin Moon · Apr 20, 2004, 02:51 PM

Thank you very much for posting a link to the instructions on removing the update. My airport was one of the many that was killed. Apple seems to be having problems lately with the updates to it software or I'm just the unlucky one.

Kevin

Socially Awkward Solo · Apr 21, 2004, 01:08 PM

Is your connection actually lower or is it just reporting that it is?

bstone · Apr 22, 2004, 01:33 AM

certainly seems slower

Monkeymike · Apr 22, 2004, 11:28 AM

My connection was much lower. In fact I could not connect to the internet anymore. I removed the update and went back to version 3.3 and now I have no issues again!!

macross · Apr 22, 2004, 05:16 PM

Alright I tried removing 3.4, but i can't seem to find these two particular files:
AppleAirportFWAP, supposedly located at Location: Location: /System/Library/Extensions/AppleAirPort.kext/Contents/PlugIns/AppleAirPortFWAP.kext

AppleAirportFW supposedly located at Location: /System/Library/Extensions/AppleAirPort.kext/Contents/PlugIns/AppleAirPortFW.kext

Basically suppose to be located at hte same area where AppleAirport and AppleAirPort2 is located at. What gives? I can only find 2 out of the 4 files that needs to be deleted for the Extensions area.

El Mago · Apr 22, 2004, 08:50 PM

Man, this is crap. I am having similar troubles tonight. I have 3.3 installed...all of version 3.4 out of my computer...prefs, etc...still no wireless.

Kevin Moon · Apr 22, 2004, 09:15 PM

The airport showed decent signal strength it just wasn't working. Now that I'm back down to version 3.3 all is well again. I called apple and they tried to sell me an airport extreme base station because my asante router was the problem.

macross two of the files are in the applications folder under utilities. The airport setup assistant and airport admin utility are in the utilities folder. Also delete the airportsw.pkg file in the library>receipts folder.

Thanks again for the info John Strung

macross · Apr 23, 2004, 12:18 AM

Originally posted by Kevin Moon:

macross two of the files are in the applications folder under utilities. The airport setup assistant and airport admin utility are in the utilities folder. Also delete the airportsw.pkg file in the library>receipts folder.

Yeah, i know. I can find those two files under the applications folder. I'm just having trouble finding all 4 of these files:
AppleAirPort", "AppleAirport2", "AppleAirportFWAP" and "AppleAirPortFW" are the 4 files need to be deleted
I can only find AppleAirPort and AppleAirport2, i can't find the other, evne though all 4 of these files are suppose to be in the same location.

John Strung · Apr 23, 2004, 08:20 AM

I think the missing two files are invisible. Try doing a custom sherlock search for Invisible files by that name, and delete them directly from the Sherlock window.

macross · Apr 23, 2004, 12:31 PM

How would i go about doing a custom sherlock search? I tried normal search and "clicked visibility" name starts with "AppleAirportFWAP" and no such luck.

John Strung · Apr 23, 2004, 01:08 PM

Set Visibility to "all". Then click on "more" to open a second window and set the second window to "name includes" "AppleAiportFW".

Kevin Moon · 01:19 PM

I see what your getting at now. duh. I didn't have those two files in my library folder either and the downgrade worked. Maybe it was just a few files that were specific to the system in the screenshot. I guess just try the downgrade and see if it works. Only files I had were appleairport.kext and appleairport2.kext.

fakeplasticspence · Apr 23, 2004, 02:36 PM

I actually think my connection is better after 3.4 is anyone experiencing this?

macross · 04:44 PM

Originally posted by John Strung:
I think the missing two files are invisible. Try doing a custom sherlock search for Invisible files by that name, and delete them directly from the Sherlock window.

many thanks. Found the remaining files. Now i'm having trouble updating to 3.3.1. should i be concerned about using 3.3 and not having hte update?

fr0d · Apr 25, 2004, 08:47 AM

I was having some real gyp with 3.4 last night and I was tinkering with the new client monitor to watch the noise level, which seemed as high as the signal level. I turned on interference robustness on the clients and AP and no joy; when I turned this off again on the clients the noise level instantly jumped down, as if it had somehow been set on during the install but was not registering on the options screen. I turned it off on the AEBS too and now my wireless is performing very nicely. I even lowered the output to 22W from 32W because I don't really want it going too much further than my house.

himself · 05:34 AM

The update is a mixed bag for me. Overall, performance is improved, but, every now and then my signal drops 1 or 2 bars (and on occasion, 3) from a full 4 bars, without any identifiable explanation. But only for a moment or two. There! You see? It just did it again! Range seems improved, but, once again, stability seems low. The worst of it is, after being connected to the network for hours (sometimes close to a full day or more), the connection is lost completely. And this is not more than 15 ft. from the base station (Netgear WGR614v4), my typical distance. At first I thought it was the router, but restarting it solved nothing, only restarting my TiBook resolves it. Sometimes, the connection will drop, with no bars in the menu meter. Other times, it drops and still indicates the signal strength, when I am obviously disconnected. WTF? Manually reconnecting to the base station (WEP enabled) indicate no available networks. This update is obviously buggy. I could downgrade (and I may), but it doesn't seem worth the trouble, yet. But, if it gets any worse...

tomacwhite · Apr 26, 2004, 07:03 PM

3.4.1 is out now...