Stupid Jaguar Modem Tricks

Some of you might have had the same misfortune that I had when upgrading to Jaguar: the internal modem decided to stop paying attention to modem scripts. Here is a hack which seems to have worked for me. It is given in an order which might reduce the number of needed steps.

Alter your favorite modem script to be sure that the modem is hung up before it starts dialling.

Open the Network Preferences, click on the Modem tab, and see the name of the modem script you use.
Depending on your constitution...

If you are faint of heart, and your modem script name matches one of those below, you can download the script.

If you are not faint of heart, or you don't find your modem script above, you can alter your modem script by hand. Using a text editor, such as BBEdit Lite, open the modem script. It will be found in /Library/Modem Scripts. Note:If you'd rather, and you are using one of the following scripts, you can

Find the line which starts .
Insert the following 2 lines after the @LABEL 2 line:
write "ath\13" pause 30
Save the script back into the Modem Scripts folder, using some file name full of invectives.

Try dialling up. If you still have problems, try changing the pause to a longer time (it is in units of 1/10ths of seconds).
If you still have trouble, read on.

Be sure your modem's firmware is up to date.

If your machine is old enough, be sure that you have used the modem updater 2.0 to fix up the firmware. (I'm not sure if this is necessary, but I suppose that it cannot hurt.)

Knowledge Base article 85018 has the updater itself, along with instructions for who might need it.
Knowledge Base article 58175 talks about checking to see if you need the update.

To install the updater, you need to boot up under Classic (Mac OS 9.2.x or 9.1.x).
If the installer starts crashing your machine (as it did mine), rather than spend 2 hours rebooting and crashing, just dial out from Classic once. This seems to reset things and make Mr Updater much happier.
Go back to Mac OS X, and try to dial out with your altered modem script.
If things don't work, then my hack doesn't work.

If the firmware is fine, try

Boot up under Classic (MacOS 9.2 or maybe 9.1)
Dial out once from Classic.
Go back to Mac OS X
Now you're on your own!

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Last Updated Wednesday, May 10, 2006, 13:54