Hello,

I have a Mac Mini G4 which is in a room far away from my modem/router. I have bought a WiFi repeater with a LAN port so I can connect the Mac Mini G4 with the WiFi repeater. This works great.

But there is a little problem which drives me crazy. Sometimes, when I forget to turn the WiFi repeater on and MorphOS has already started I have no internet connection. It doesn't work even when I have turned the WiFi repeater on after MorphOS has started. I'm not sure what the problem is but I can imagine the TCP stack is not loaded in this case.

Is there anything I can do to fix this or to start something so I don't have to reboot?

If the ethernet port is set to obtain an IP address using dhcp, then this is most likely what is failing (since there is no dhcp server active to provide an address). Chances are netstack has started, just the interface is failing to set up corrrectly.

You can see if netstack has started using taskmanager (located in sys:utilities) - it will show up as "netstack kernel".
You can get detailed info on what state the network is in using netstat (located in sys:tools).

From the command line, you can attempt to reconnect and obtain an IP address using:

offline eth0
online eth0

(assuming your interface is called eth0)

A script attempting reconnection periodically (eg every 2 minutes) in the case dhcp fails would certainly be possible, but if you have to go turn on the wireless bridge anyway, I guess using the command line is just as easy.

Alternatively, if you set up a static IP address, it should just start working once the bridge is switched on with no intervention needed on the MorphOS machine.

To set up a static IP address see here.

[ Edited by boot_wb 18.06.2016 - 13:55 ]

"netconfig autoconfig" from the shell is worth to try too.

@jPV

that led to crashes sometimes or instability here. Isnt there a cleaner way for checking the ethernet connections?

I have the same issue - just installed 3.9 for the first time on a G5 yesterday. cant ping ip's on my lan. can ping localhost if i set a static ipadress. dhcp cant obtain ip address (netstat reports 0.0.0.0) have tried the above recommendations to no avail - please help!

[ Edited by ChrisMarsden 19.06.2016 - 11:27 ]

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Sinple things to check, not meant in a sarcastic way:

- In network settings, double check the radio button next to eth0 - it should be checked. Easy to miss.
- have you tried a different cable? I've fallen foul of that old chestnut before.
- Can you connect using a different machine at the same location/cable?

If even the router won't ping back, that suggests no network connections at all. Loopback is (as you probably know) a dummy host on the same machine, so not indicative of anything beyond 'The tcp stack is running and i have an ip address'.

I would recommend testing using static ip - it cuts the possibility of dhcp failing (not uncommon) out of the troubleshooting process.

[ Edited by boot_wb 19.06.2016 - 11:55 ]

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- eth0 is checked in network interfaces
- cable is fine - i can boot into OSX 10.5.8 and networking works.

Thank you all very much. Using the online/offline command for theeth0 interface works fine and it's a really satisfying solution for me. :)

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Is the router gigabit capable?

It's possible that a cable can be tolerant of 10/100, but fail trying to negotiate 1000Mbit cx.
If possible, it may be worth trying to set the router (temporarily) to always negotiate only 100Mbit connections (It's possible that OSX may fall back more gracefully to a slower cx in this case than MorphOS).

It's a remote possibility, but easy to check.

The only other similar case i can remember involved a dying hard drive - but that's heading into chicken-sacrificing territory...

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I must admit i was dubious about this advice! I was using a cheap PoE adapter to extend the Ethernet cable. this one or very similar:

Ebay item

Once I connected the cable directly to the Lan port (on a Powerline/homeplug device) dhcp acquired an address and hey presto - networking is up....

Many thanks!

I have never seen this behavior before - whats going on??

I recommend you look at something like a Netgear WNCE3001 rather than ethernet repeaters. Turns any ethernet port into a wifi connection. I have one on a media player in my living room.

Cheap, fast, easy to set up, USB powered, supports 5GHz, and for me it's been totally problem free. Software won't ever get in the way because as far as MorphOS/Mac Mini is concerned, it's connection to an ethernet hub.

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You're welcome, glad it solved your problem.

On a physical level, it's the wonderful world of physics increased frequency means increased impedence, reducing the signal to noise ratio to a point where errors occur more frequently.

On a software level, i couldn't say, but I would guess they get so far negotiating a gb connection before crapping out due to too many errors, dropping the link, then beginning the dance over again. Maybe OSX stops trying to negotiate a higher speed altogether after so many attempts or something.

Incidentally, Windows is pretty bad in this regard also. If you see your network connection continually dropping/reconnecting it's worth trying (autonegotiation settings can usually be set in the network adapter advanced settings).

[ Edited by boot_wb 19.06.2016 - 23:13 ]

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\o/