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bill672
join:2004-09-02
Cambridge, NY

bill672

Member

Gen 4 problems with OSX Mountain Lion

HN is saying that computers with Apple's newest operating system, OS X Mountain Lion, (in particular 10.8.2,) aren't able to get download speeds greater than about 1 Mbps with Gen 4. They have apparently been working on a fix for that problem for a week or more, without any success, so far. I have delayed my installation due to this.

Has anyone had any experience with Gen 4 and Mountain Lion?

james1979
Premium Member
join:2012-10-09
Quinault, WA

1 edit

james1979

Premium Member

I'm guessing that you are the person who asked a similar question on the HughesNet forum: »community.myhughesnet.co ··· ain_lion

Given that HughesNet has admitted that Gen 4 currently doesn't work very well on Mountain Lion, well, I would trust them.

I found the official, defensive response to the problem ("...this is not Hughes related.") to be interesting. Hmm, so everyone running OSX Mountain Lion can't get over 1Mbps with their ISP? Surely HughesNet tested Gen 4 with OSX Mountain Lion ... and they went ahead with their Gen 4 launch anyway?

Certainly any reports of success with Gen 4 and Mountain Lion would be helpful in debugging this. Now that I can download Mountain Lion (~8 GB), it seems that I don't want to.
bill672
join:2004-09-02
Cambridge, NY

bill672

Member

I do think they are making a sincere effort to solve this problem.

Any new Mac computer sold since Mountain Lion's release this summer has been running it. Any current Mac user who replaces his/her computer in the future will be on ML. So will any current Windows user who buys a Mac. There could be a lot of dissatisfied Hughes customers in the future if there isn't some resolution.

I'm assuming they don't want to be a "Windows only" ISP.

I raised the issue on this board, too, because I wondered how universal the problem is. Also, because I think ML users should be warned about the problem.

I'm currently reasonably satisfied with my HN9000 setup, so I'll just hold off on upgrading until I hear that this is resolved.

The Geezer
Premium Member
join:2004-12-28
43.3Á

The Geezer

Premium Member

Have you tried tweaking your Network settings with Cocktail, MacPilot, TinkerTool System or the like? You might experiment with different settings to see if it might make a difference.

If you do find a solution, please let us know. I am holding off getting the Xplornet 4G Satellite service (using the Hughesnet system) because of this issue myself.

smoline
@myvzw.com

smoline

Anon

I was the original poster on the HN forum on this issue. We didn't figure out it was a Mountain Lion problem until several weeks of troubleshooting. I suggested that HN put a disclaimer on their main website letting people know that although Gen4 might be Mac-compatible, it is NOT compatible with Mountain Lion. I also suggested that they not charge me the monthly fee for a service that is not compatible with my OS. You can guess the answer.

james1979
Premium Member
join:2012-10-09
Quinault, WA

james1979 to bill672

Premium Member

to bill672
said by bill672:

I do think they are making a sincere effort to solve this problem.

I didn't mean to suggest that HughesNet wasn't working on the problem. When I commented that I found HughesNet's official response to be "interesting", I meant that the wording being used suggested to me that attorneys have been consulted on the matter. ("Admit that Gen4 doesn't work as advertised on Mountain Lion, but put all of the blame on Apple.")
james1979

james1979 to smoline

Premium Member

to smoline
said by smoline :

I was the original poster on the HN forum on this issue. We didn't figure out it was a Mountain Lion problem until several weeks of troubleshooting. ... I also suggested that they not charge me the monthly fee for a service that is not compatible with my OS.

You helped a lot of customers, potential customers, and HughesNet by debugging a system which shouldn't have been released out of beta testing. Thanks!

You do have 30 days after the installation to cancel your service with Hughes without an early termination fee. It's difficult to recommend an alternative to Gen4 at this time however.

C0RR0SIVE88
@direcway.com

C0RR0SIVE88

Anon

I would say, no matter what, unless the satellite was a total failure, that corporate would have pushed it through no matter what showed up during testing unless it was something that could have caused serious issues across the board. It was up for 2 months, during that time the system wasn't bringing in any money, so it was costing serious cash just to keep it on stand-by. So it does make sense that they pushed it out in a rush to help fund the satellite. Yes, there are bugs, but, the bugs aren't exactly the worst kind IMO, and they are working towards a fix for these types of issues.

I am surprised this particular issue wasn't noticed during tests though, maybe they just didn't have enough users, or, users with several apple products to test with. Still strange that Apple products are having such issues.
bill672
join:2004-09-02
Cambridge, NY

bill672

Member

The more I think about this, the less I understand it.

If I had Gen 4 connected first to a WiFi router (as it would be in my house) all the computers in my house would connect to HughesNet through WiFi.

Suppose a visitor then dropped in to use my internet with his Windows laptop. Are they saying that if the Windows computer clicked on the same url as the Mountain Lion computer, that the downstream speed would be faster for the Windows computer than for the Mountain Lion computer sitting right next to it? Over the same WiFi network? I wonder if anyone with Gen 4 and Mountain Lion has tried a test like that.

How would that work? I know that websites can identify the OS of a computer requesting their url. But why would the stream to one be slower than to another? They both use the same internet protocols, don't they? I've taken my ML laptop to coffee shops and libraries, etc, and see no slowdown with any other ISP.
bill672

bill672 to smoline

Member

to smoline
Smoline,
Have you tried connecting a non-Mountain Lion computer to your Gen 4 network to see if it gets higher speeds? It could be an older Mac or a Windows computer. Maybe a friend or neighbor with a laptop could try it.

smoline
@myvzw.com

smoline

Anon

Bill: Yes, we did that. It was one of the things we did to isolate the problem to Mountain Lion. A Windows machine on the same modem got the advertised speed. In fact, even a Mac with OS X Lion (10.7) received the advertised speed. The issue is limited to Mountain Lion, and any devise running iOS 6, like an iPad or iPhone.
Hughes Net
join:2008-04-22
Gaithersburg, MD

Hughes Net to bill672

Member

to bill672
I posted a brief update on one of the community threads on this topic. We're still investigating potential workarounds for Apple's TCP stack's new behavior.

Chemprof
@direcpc.com

Chemprof

Anon

I have a Gen 4 upgrade scheduled for next week, 10/8. Looks like I will need to cancel. My wife and I have two MacBook Pros with ML and two iPads with iOS 6.
bill672
join:2004-09-02
Cambridge, NY

bill672 to Hughes Net

Member

to Hughes Net
FYI this is the update from the HughesNet technician from the HN Community website.

»community.myhughesnet.co ··· ain_lion

They have been good about keeping viewers of that site aware of this problem. I hope they can come up with a solution.

"We are continuing to investigate Mountain Lion's behavior. From the outside looking in, it is tough to diagnose somebody else's (Apple's) software. However, what we see is that for individual TCP connections, Mountain Lion stops sending ACK packets regularly, which causes pauses in downloads and overall reduced speeds. If you have multiple connections going at the same time, each is able to get about 1Mbps, so applications (or websites or speed tests) which use multiple connections are less affected.

There are a few kernel settings which can be adjusted on Mountain Lion which improve things, but not drastically. We are hesitant to publish those since they don't seem to address the underlying behavior of Apple's TCP stack - they just mask the symptoms by increasing some of the buffers."

I'm still getting good speeds on my HN9000 using Mountain Lion 10.8.2, so I'm glad it hasn't affected Spaceway service. Today 3989 Down/234 Up.

James
@12.153.112.x

James to smoline

Anon

to smoline
Smoline, thank you for that post. It was helpful. Can you identify what troubleshooting steps you took prior to using a PC?
hughesnet123
join:2012-11-08

hughesnet123 to bill672

Member

to bill672
I am an Apple user. I also use Mountain Lion. I am having no issues. I got 18MB down this morning on Mountain Lion. IOS is the same. A lot of people are having this issue I see though.

Before I got Gen4 installed I thought it would not work with my Mountain Lion from what I had read so I actually went out and purchased Windows to use Hughes Net with on the laptop. I ended up not needing it.

I would try it, the person interested. See what happens. If you do get the slow down, there is a terminal code to correct it. Which takes like one second to do.

Other people have been saying it works with their IOS devices but only at 6MB. that's not the case with my IOS devices. But, 6MB is plenty good enough for those devices for most people. Much better than the old hughes net or using an air card in my case.
mr_rique
join:2012-11-10

mr_rique

Member

FYI - hughesnet123 describes the terminal fix here:

»Re: Review! New Gen 4 user/Mac OSX/IOS

As it pertains to my MacBook Pro, the fix seems to have helped somewhat but does not provide the speed which Hughes advertised (does not come close) and does nothing to address a different issue with wireless - connections which drop or cannot establish in the first place.
bill672
join:2004-09-02
Cambridge, NY

bill672

Member

HN recently made some patches to their Gen4 system, and they are now saying that it should work normally with OSX Mountain Lion and with iOS.

Are those users who reported poor service with Mountain Lion noticing better speeds now? Is it safe for those of us who held off to consider upgrading now?

JNB
@mycingular.net

JNB

Anon

No luck this weekend, fiddled with ACK settings on numbers MacBooks, multiple restarts of modem. IDevices would occasionally work for a few minutes then go dark. As far as I'm concerned, there has NOT been a fix. I'm calling and canceling today.

Jamie Baker
@direcway.com

Jamie Baker

Anon

Found solution. Plugged Netgear router into Time Capsule. Directed ios6 devices to Netgear, works fine. Direct to TC, doesn't work at all. THE PROBLEM IS RELATED TO TIME CAPSULE.

JNB
@direcway.com

JNB to JNB

Anon

to JNB
Found solution. iOS 6 devices work as long as you do NOT use Time Capsule. I bought a Netgear router and plugged it into TC and it works fine. If I direct iDevices back to TC, they don't work. The TC works fine via FIOS but not when using Gen 4.