FIXED: Major MacPro problems after restoring internet svc
Posted: Sun Sep 25, 2016 10:37 am
Stressed beyond belief as networking is not my domain -- though I could learn it easily if there were manuals for this sort of thing vs. mere folklore.
After my housemates moved out unexpectedly and took the internet with them, I was extremely inconvenienced but unable to do anything about it for a week due to being at a tech conference.
I wanted to go with Sonic as they get the highest recs, but they have a two week wait time and that is unacceptable (especially after having no internet for most of the past month). So I went again with Wave (formerly Astound), as they could come on a day's notice and as it's already their wiring.
Nothing worked, and they weren't willing to help as they "don't really support Macs" (not on their website). So they're blaming it on me, even though my computer was turned off during the conference and since the previous Wave service was disrupted.
I had to resort to WiFi, which sucks. Can't stream classical radio while working, and many other tasks are impossible (including remote login to work). But at least I am "sort of" functional now, after many hours of my former housemate, bandleader, and others trying to help.
As far as the internet problem is concerned, my computer sees the Ethernet (if I plug it in), but the browser doesn't even try to load new tabs, so I get no failure message, no search results, etc. Also Apple Mail fails to connect. My bandleader (a former AT&T installer) says this likely means they have me locked out at the Wave end, which is likely as they still had the address associated with my ex-housemate even though he is now set up at a new address. So I suspect Wave screwed up.
Anyway, that isn't my biggest concern anymore as the Mac itself is doing weird things. For instance, I just had to turn it off and back on again as I couldn't reboot due to non-running apps that it thought were running. No OS-level app would launch (Sys Prefs, Disk Util, Activity Monitor, etc.) yet none showed as running and none could be Force Quit nor launched from the Applications Folder vs. the main menu or the dock. THAT problem went away after a reboot (hard reboot via power switch).
The little info I have found on-line so far indicates that starting a Mac with WiFi on, can cause a lot of weird stuff to happen at startup, which may be why general computer behaviour is also now slow. Nothing was installed. Updates were already performed earlier, with no problems (late AUG to early SEP).
I am out of my depth here and distraught as I actually need to log in to work today due to a MAJOR concert that my support is needed for. I at least need to find out whether my late night office work FRI was enough. But I can't get a remote session at this point, and have a gig of my own at 430pm.
It's pretty hard to debug these problems when you have an unresponsive internet and can't do web searches. That aspect is finally starting to clear up a bit at least, in that I can do a search term and get some results a minute or three later vs. a freeze-up. I even hit "Renew DHCP Lease" as it's a different modem from before, to no avail, so really don't understand why Ethernet isn't working (in full) even if I also add the two additional DNS Servers (8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4) which I think are for Google.
Although this didn't help Ethernet, to even get WiFi working, I had to switch the default setting of IPV6 to Link-Local Only from Automatic. Nothing is set below that; one can no longer directly set IPV4 but I guess it is now done implicitly by configuring IPV4 and setting its values then leaving IPV6 blank. Several people said I must not have selected IPV4, but there is no place to directly select that in El Capitan (at least as of the latest security updates).
Oh, wait, this is weird: now that it's been running awhile, the IPV6 address line for the WiFi has an actual value (in hex, as far as I can tell -- I'm not printing it here in case that would open me up to hackers). The other lines are blank and the configuration drop-list is selected to Link-local only. But I hope this doesn't mean that I need some IPV6 address set up for the Ethernet to work.
After my housemates moved out unexpectedly and took the internet with them, I was extremely inconvenienced but unable to do anything about it for a week due to being at a tech conference.
I wanted to go with Sonic as they get the highest recs, but they have a two week wait time and that is unacceptable (especially after having no internet for most of the past month). So I went again with Wave (formerly Astound), as they could come on a day's notice and as it's already their wiring.
Nothing worked, and they weren't willing to help as they "don't really support Macs" (not on their website). So they're blaming it on me, even though my computer was turned off during the conference and since the previous Wave service was disrupted.
I had to resort to WiFi, which sucks. Can't stream classical radio while working, and many other tasks are impossible (including remote login to work). But at least I am "sort of" functional now, after many hours of my former housemate, bandleader, and others trying to help.
As far as the internet problem is concerned, my computer sees the Ethernet (if I plug it in), but the browser doesn't even try to load new tabs, so I get no failure message, no search results, etc. Also Apple Mail fails to connect. My bandleader (a former AT&T installer) says this likely means they have me locked out at the Wave end, which is likely as they still had the address associated with my ex-housemate even though he is now set up at a new address. So I suspect Wave screwed up.
Anyway, that isn't my biggest concern anymore as the Mac itself is doing weird things. For instance, I just had to turn it off and back on again as I couldn't reboot due to non-running apps that it thought were running. No OS-level app would launch (Sys Prefs, Disk Util, Activity Monitor, etc.) yet none showed as running and none could be Force Quit nor launched from the Applications Folder vs. the main menu or the dock. THAT problem went away after a reboot (hard reboot via power switch).
The little info I have found on-line so far indicates that starting a Mac with WiFi on, can cause a lot of weird stuff to happen at startup, which may be why general computer behaviour is also now slow. Nothing was installed. Updates were already performed earlier, with no problems (late AUG to early SEP).
I am out of my depth here and distraught as I actually need to log in to work today due to a MAJOR concert that my support is needed for. I at least need to find out whether my late night office work FRI was enough. But I can't get a remote session at this point, and have a gig of my own at 430pm.
It's pretty hard to debug these problems when you have an unresponsive internet and can't do web searches. That aspect is finally starting to clear up a bit at least, in that I can do a search term and get some results a minute or three later vs. a freeze-up. I even hit "Renew DHCP Lease" as it's a different modem from before, to no avail, so really don't understand why Ethernet isn't working (in full) even if I also add the two additional DNS Servers (8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4) which I think are for Google.
Although this didn't help Ethernet, to even get WiFi working, I had to switch the default setting of IPV6 to Link-Local Only from Automatic. Nothing is set below that; one can no longer directly set IPV4 but I guess it is now done implicitly by configuring IPV4 and setting its values then leaving IPV6 blank. Several people said I must not have selected IPV4, but there is no place to directly select that in El Capitan (at least as of the latest security updates).
Oh, wait, this is weird: now that it's been running awhile, the IPV6 address line for the WiFi has an actual value (in hex, as far as I can tell -- I'm not printing it here in case that would open me up to hackers). The other lines are blank and the configuration drop-list is selected to Link-local only. But I hope this doesn't mean that I need some IPV6 address set up for the Ethernet to work.