Fix New MacBook Pro AirPort problem

Author: Libin Pan

2 Apr

I’ve got my Shinning super cool new MacBook Pro two weeks ago. Everything works fine until recently after some automatic updates.

The MacBook Pro I have is 2.4GHz 15′ version. I am so loving it! But the AirPort problem is really annonying!

For some reason, at the end of the day, pretty much every day, MacBook Pro wireless connection just suddenly stop working with my AirPort Extreme. But at the same time my old MacBook works just fine. Turn MacBook Pro AirPort off and on, and try to connect to my wireless network again and again. Nothing helps. Rebooting AirPort Extreme again and again just helps a little. Some logs on console:

airportd Error: Apple80211Associated() failed -6

_emUIServer Error: airport MIG failed = -6 ((null) port = 45523

Did a google search and found a lot of people do have the same problem and so far there is no good solution yet. Some of them said go back to 10.5.1 actually fix the problem, and this is a suggestion from Apple Genius. Which I think is a solution but it is for away from good. I don’t really want to downgrade as I already installed too much into my Leopard and spent amount of time to make it works smothly as what my MacBook does.

This is really pain!

Spend some more time these two days and did some more tests. Finally have good progress. But couple of the tests is really risky, such as, Leopard told me no AirPort Card installed after rebooting.

Anyway, here is the simplest but working solution:

Find your original “MacBook Pro Mac OS X Install Disc 1″, please make sure it is yours, not somebody else’s!
copy /System/Library/Extensions/IO80211Family.kext from “Mac OS X Install Disc 1” overwrite to your Macintosh\ HD/System/Library/Extensions/IO80211Family.kext
After couple of seconds, Leopard will pick up your changes and your MacBook Pro will link back to wireless network again without any problem!

Yes, you don’t even need a reboot!

If you couldn’t find your original install disc 1, you still can use someone’s if them have the same model as your MacBook Pro. But make sure do a backup for IO80211Family.kext.

Enjoy!

Maxwell Rocatanski suggested Pacifist for whom aren’t as comfortable using the terminal. Thanks MaxWell!

Filed under: Apple, Mac, OS X

13 Responses for "Fix New MacBook Pro AirPort problem"

Fix New MacBook Pro AirPort problem | MacBook - News and Info April 4th, 2008 at 11:28 pm 1

[…] Youngjin Yoo wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptFor some reason, at the end of the day, pretty much every day, MacBook Pro wireless connection just suddenly stop working with my AirPort Extreme. But at the same time my old MacBook works just fine. Turn MacBook Pro AirPort off and on, … […]

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erik May 28th, 2008 at 9:47 pm 2

I cannot seem to find my IO80211family.kext in my OS Install disk 1. Please Help.

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Mark Walterfang June 15th, 2008 at 3:38 am 3

Erik - if you try and find it through the finder, you won’t have any luck. You will have to do it through a terminal; open a terminal window and type this (with the OSX Leopard Install Disc 1 in the drive):

cd “/mnt/Mac OS X Install Disc 1″
cd System/Library/Extensions
sudo cp -r IO80211Family.kext /System/Library/Extensions/

…it will ask for your password, as you are using the sudo command. I have just tried this, and it has helped fix some (but not all) of my chronic Airport problems. Great work here Libin,

Mark

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Mark Walterfang June 15th, 2008 at 4:05 am 4

Whoops, sorry, instead of:

cd “/mnt/Mac OS X Install Disc 1″

type:

cd “/Volumes/Mac OS X Install Disc 1″

..thought I was still in Linux there for a moment.

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Libin Pan June 15th, 2008 at 9:47 am 5

Thanks Mark!

I didn’t notice there was a question in my comments in such a long time. I am so sorry erik. Hope Mark’s answer could solve your problem.

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Maxwell Rocatanski June 18th, 2008 at 2:20 pm 6

Thanks for the help. I would add that, for those of us who aren’t as comfortable using the terminal, CharlesSoft Pacifist (shareware, http://www.charlessoft.com/Pacifist.dmg) does a very nice job of locating and installing individual package components from Apple System Installer volumes.

I was able to use Pacifist to locate and install the IO80211Family.kext file from the AirPort Extreme 802.11n Enabler for Mac application, replacing the existing resource on my MacBook (13″ core 2 duo) and enabling 802.11n capabilities.

Be sure to use Pacifist’s “install” feature so the file(s) get decompressed and moved to the correct default location(s). This also works to restore the default IO80211Family.kext resource (if it gets corrupted/overwritten) from your Apple System Installer DVD (I used the retail 10.5 installer that works for just about everything).

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Libin Pan June 18th, 2008 at 2:22 pm 7

Thanks Maxwell!

Pacifist is really a great tool!

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Rampa July 3rd, 2008 at 5:23 am 8

Cheers for the insight, There are some posts I found quite interesting, in this blog.

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Julio July 31st, 2008 at 7:55 am 9

Thank you!!!!! The system did not pick up right away. A reboot did the job - I can find and connect to my wi-fi router again. Even with the hordes of people with airport problems with their MacBooks I guess it would still be too much to expect Apple to seriously look into this. But their focus has never been so much on functionality as with looks.

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K September 7th, 2008 at 9:03 am 10

Ha I know the Problem. Thank you that you found a solution.

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Giacecco September 17th, 2008 at 1:58 pm 11

Thank you for finding out about this.

I have another common problem for Macbook Pros: the bad performance wifi connection, with continuous packet loss without any apparent reason.

Unfortunately I did what the original post described but could not fix the problem. Could it be that my install DVD is too recent, and includes the broken IO80211Family.kext?

I can see the version from the key CFBundleGetInfoString in the file Contents/Info.plist file within IO80211Family.kext . The DVD one is version 2.0, the one my up-to-date MacOS was running was version 2.1.2 .

Could I ask any of you who successfully managed to apply the patch, possibly with versions prior to 2.0, to zip it and send it to me? I don’t see a software copyright issue here, since we are all MacOS licensees.

Thank you in advance,
giacecco at giacec.co.uk

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Jeremy September 24th, 2008 at 2:14 pm 12

Just wanted to let everyone know that my 2.4GhZ Powerbook 15″ was having similar issues and my airport card had to be replaced. NOTHING online/ software related would fix it. It would connect, then immediately disconnect.

Just wanted to let everyone know! Thank the lord it was under warranty!

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Bob September 27th, 2008 at 3:54 am 13

Sup, Whats the chance of getting indexed in Google? They never approve!!!BTW, Nice blog, but I do not like how free blogs work. They deleted mine….~BOB

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