Dunno if youve tried http://www.versiontracker.
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unpredictable cable modem problem
hi all; i'm at my wits end with my cable modem situation and hope to find some help.
i'm using a 9600/350; 192 meg RAM; built in ethernet; motorola 'surfboard' digital modem hooked up through cable. the mac is running under OS 9.0.4
about every two days, when starting up the mac, the activity light on the modem shows activity like it always should. but after the mac completes it's bootup, i run a brower or any other internet program and find i can't access the net. TCP/IP shows that i've established a "169.xxx.xxx.x" IP address which from my understanding means the mac asked for a new IP address and got back the same one it had when it was last fired up, but my cable modem company issues me a dynamic IP address, not static. I've done tons of research on this and have found out that macs have 'issues' with leases from digital companies. my cable company re-issues the lease every 7 days.
for solutions, i've tried reinitializing the cable modem, then restarting about a bazillion times until i get lucky and establish a valid IP address. i've also tried changing the TCP/IP control panel to "ppp" etc, then saved, restarted, changed back to "ethernet/dhcp", saved, restarted about a bazillion times until i get lucky. i've switched ethernet connect cables, regular coaxial cables to the wall outlet, scrapped the TCP/IP preferences, reinstalled OS 9.0 then updated to 9.0.4.
at this point i'm running out of things to try, but one thing's for sure: it DOES eventually get a valid IP address after 4 to 40 resarts of the mac. my question is this: "who knows what i may possibely do to get a consistantly valid (non 169.xxx.xxx.x) IP address when booting the mac. i've talked to the kind tech folks at my particular cable company and a few days ago they indicated that there is a patch on the apple site that supposedly resolves this particular lease aquisition issue i'm having, but of course they have no URL to give me or any clue as to where on the apple site i may find this 'mystery patch.'
sorry for being so long-winded, but hopefully i've explained enough to give someone out there enough clues as to what i've done at this end to give me a solution to this problem. i've been using macs for 10 years now and i must say this one has REALLY got me stumped. (don't you just hate intermittency? :)
thanks in advance...
oh and by the way, i AM using open transport 2.6 (which is what i believe my cable company is going to say is the 'fix' for this problem.
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Answers
i'm sorry if it appeared as if i'd abandoned this question, but i had to wait approx. every 4-5 days for the feces to hit the fan as it were with my dhcp problem. each time i tried my usual batch of useless fixes. thanks weed for the versiontracker URL, but i've tried both open transport 2.6 and the OS 9.0.4 update open transport 2.6.1. neither seems to make much difference, but 2.6.1 seems to 'last' longer than 2.6
for bhardt i was wondering if you meant to say to throw out the tcp/ip prefs instead of open transport prefs. (there are no open transport prefs). but you did say something that gave me an off-the-wall idea, and as unorthodox as it might seem, it has seemed to work in 2 situations now after all others have failed. everything i've read in the modem manual and other articles i've found on the net tell me i should ALWAYS have the modem on when starting or restarting the mac for obtaining a new ip address. i took this as gospel all this time, except out of frustration 2 times ago i pulled the power cord on the modem and immediately after plugging it back in i restarted the mac. lo and behold i got my ip address faithfully both times. it must be the fact that as the modem is initializing, the mac is not finding it's previously held ip address and since it's figuratively 'staring into the void' it asks for and accepts a new ip address just as the modem has finished it's initialization. maybe it's just dumb luck or unusually good timing, but as i've mentioned...the last two times i've tried this i've been successful. kind of a shame though that i've got to resort to dirty tricks; maybe someday apple with get the issue resolved for all of us.
bhardt...something you said inspired me to try messing with the start timing of both the mac and modem, so by default the points are yours.
again, thanks to both you and weed for your patience. take care
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by: bhardtPosted on 2000-08-18 at 13:30:44ID: 3985903
The mac will get a 169.xxx... address if it is set to DHCP but does not see a dhcp server. Here are my suggestions. First, check the cable modems' firmware. It may be an issue there. Second, ( and probably a good idea anyway) throw out the Open Transport prefs in your preferences folder. This will force you to reenter all your network info, so make sure you have it written down. When your mac starts up, it attempts to use the last ip address it was issued. It will continue this way until 1: It gets that same ip address, 2: no dhcp server is found (see above) or 3: that ip address is deemed unavailable and it requests a new one. (not necessarily in that order, I'm sure there is a good til out there, but I don't have it.)
Try those two things and keep us updated.
'Luck