Leopard's wireless woes

 Mac users are becoming frustrated at a strange bug in Leopard that’s causing problems with wireless connections.

These bugs are sufficiently serious to have driven the New York City Department of Education to have temporarily suspended receiving shipments of new Macs. 

Recent reports have suggested Apple is working to repair the issue within its upcoming Mac OS X 10.5.3 release, but user anxiety continues to grow, with its discussion forum full of complaints from aggrieved users.

"The WiFi connection is working for hours in a row, but once in a while it suddenly disconnects. It then tries to reconnect, and it looks like it succeeds, but disconnects again after a few seconds," one post from December 2007 explains.

Users report loss of wireless network access after shutting their Macs down, and have resorted to rebooting routers and AirPort Extreme Base Stations along with all manner of software attempts (including attempts using Terminal in some cases). The problem seems frequently to reappear.

The situation has existed for months, first afflicting some Mac users who migrated their perfectly serviceable machines from Tiger to the Leopard OS. What makes the solution a challenge to achieve is that not all Macs are affected, meaning most users continue to enjoy acceptable wireless performance, but the problem is still thought to affect many users.

News of the problem in NYC has raised the profile of the long-standing matter, but multiple extended discussion threads on Apple’s website confirms the nature of the problem and the extent to which some Mac users have been waiting for a fix, with some posts dating back to November 2007.

Some users have resorted to reinstalling Mac OS X 10.4 while a fix is put in place, but some reporting their frustration within the company’s discussion forums are beginning to wonder why Apple has failed to issue a statement or full repair of the flaw so far.

Apple’s next Mac OS X 10.5 update is expected to appear within 2-3 weeks.