Got a Mac? If so, you’re probably also running OS X Snow Leopard, which is bad news if you fancy a bit of mobile broadband. We’ve uncovered bugs that stop a range of USB dongles working with Apple’s latest OS. Read on, but be warned, it’s not pretty.
Update: Vodafone has supplied us with a link to the software download which it says will fix your dongle for Snow Leopard action. You can get it here.
It’s been just over two months since OS X Snow Leopard was released, accompanied by howls of anguish from users packing a mobile broadband dongle. It seems the majority of manufacturers neglected to update their software, leaving customers in the lurch, and without a connection.
3 Huawei E169G
We first became aware of our 3 Huawei E169G dongle not working a few days after we installed OS X Snow Leopard. We also tried a T-Mobile Web’N'Walk Stick III – a rebranded Huawei E170, but to no avail, along with our T Mobile Mobile Broadband USB Stick 530. O2’s Huawei E160 model did not work either. It’s fair to say the problem is not isolated.
Some quick searches showed a rafts of forum posts pointing towards similar compatibility issues, yet two months on plugging in a Huawei dongle to a Mac running Snow Leopard yields error messages and sad faces all round. We’ve chased down some answers from Huawei, as well as every mobile network, to ask what they are doing about the problem, but the news was as disappointing as the dongles.
T Mobile Web n Walk Stick III
T-Mobile refused to comment when we asked why a service that’s paid for, and advertised as working with Macs, simply doesn’t.
Interestingly, a page on T-Mobile’s own support site states: “If you use the Mobile Broadband USB Stick 120 or USB Stick 620, you should not use this with MAC OS X 1.6 (Snow Leopard). It is currently incompatible and can cause serious issues with system stability.”
The site goes on to advise that, “If you need to continue to use your Mobile Broadband we’d recommend you stick with your current operating system, just in case there are any compatibility issues with Snow Leopard.”
Hardly helpful advice, and unlikely to help anyone who’s bought a new Mac, since they all come running OS X Snow Leopard.
When we got in touch with 3 it claimed that all its dongles worked with Snow Leopard, although when we tested a E169G model, it refused to load when plugged it into our Snow Leopard-toting MacBook.
O2 Huawei E160
O2 gave us a better response, acknowledging Snow Leopard causes problems with its Huawei dongles, but when we asked for a solution, we were slapped with a three page PDF setting out a complicated work-around. It’s a scary document, and not for the faint hearted.
Vodafone also said it was aware of the problem and that an update was available through its support pages to get its dongles working. An insider also told us that the network, “…will be looking to get OS X Snow Leopard working when its new range launches.”
However, Orange is way out ahead, saying it knew of the problems surrounding Huawei dongles and OS X Snow Leopard. In a statement released to us, a spokesman for the network said. “We are aware of the issue, and have developed our own connection manager to solve it. This software will work with any of the dongles that Orange ranges, and supports Mac OS 10.4, 10.5, 10.6 (Snow Leopard), Win XP,Vista and 7.”
But that’s not all. Orange has gone over and above the call of duty, but packing features to let you “keep track of data usage, and even configure alerts that trigger warning messages when [you] have used specified amounts of data.”
T Mobile Stick 530
It appears Orange is the only network tackling OS X Snow Leopard head on, and while the new software is set to launch on 17 November, the network told us customers experiencing problems can get hold of it early by calling Orange customer services.
And what about Huawei? It’s the company behind this dongle debacle after all, but failed to reply to our emails and did not return our calls.
Have you had any issues with your mobile broadband dongle? Tell us in the comments section below, giving us the model name and manufacturer, as well as the network you’re using, and we’ll take your complaints straight to the top.
I have a Three E169G which works fine with Snow Leopard. You need to find and install the updated Mac software called “Mobile Partner” from Huawei.
Also, I have a Vodafone K3760 which also works with Snow Leopard, you need to find and download two things: A) the Option HS 148 drivers and B) the new Voda client software for Mac. Make sure you install the Option HS 148 drivers AFTER the Voda client, other wise the Mac Grey Screen of Death occurs.
I’ve put these on-line for you here: http://web.me.com/hodgsonb/OSX_Dongles/Vodafone.html
Bill.
Hi Bill
Cheers for your comment, it’s really useful. I think the big issue for us here is that dongles aren’t working right out of the box and the networks are being less than forthcoming about updates. In the course of our investigation, we’ve found that the suggestion is things work out of the box, when sometimes they don’t.
Thanks
Joe
My T-mobile dongle won’t install but I’m not sure its Snow Leopard’s fault. It shows up, tries to load, and then gets nowhere. I can’t tell you whether it worked before Snow Leopard, as this is a new macbook but I’m stuck using T-Mobile Wi-Fi hotspots when I go out on business now. Really annoying (especially since I realised they don’t have hotspots in starbucks anymore)
There’s a work around of sorts that involves using System Preferences>Network instead of the web’n'walk software, then putting *99# into the telephone number box. Works for some people, but I only get 2G through my E170 dongle this way.
[...] has been first out of the blocks responding to our piece this morning about mobile broadband failing on OS X Snow Leopard. The network has just dropped us a line with a [...]
Where can I get the PDF for the O2 workaround?
Hi Nilush
Here’s the link:
http://www.o2.co.uk/assets/O2HybridNav/Static-files/PDFs/Snow_Leopard_MBB_Reinstall_final.pdf
Hope that helps
Joe
Vodafone have been issuing regular updates for their Mac software, an early version worked but at only GPRS speed and had an installer error message under Snow Leopard (that did not prevent it working), the next version cured the speed problem but still had the installer error, but the v3.04.10.00 version cured all our problems and we have been using it on MacBooks and MacBook Pros under Snow Leopard with no issues.
That’s good to hear, and the latest software update is designed to solve a bundle of issues for others on Vodafone too. So far, only Vodafone and Orange seem to be making making real, visible efforts to fix the problem, even though Snow Leopard development builds have been available for months.
I’m not convinced that Orange have done anything – a working software update came out from Huawei and has been floating around for a month or so.
For the record my understanding is that the issue was with extremely poorly code written by Huawei which barely worked under Leopard and broke totally under Snow Leopard.
Thanks Trotskiii! Do you have a link for the Huawei update? They’ve refused to answer our questions so far, and we haven’t tracked down any Snow Leopard drivers for the devices above. Any links would be great – sure there are lots of people struggling with this!
[...] are more types of dongles out there than there are closet Jedward fans. But like the erstwhile singing sensations, plenty of [...]
If the makers of these dongles didn’t write absolute crap software, then maybe this wouldn’t be an issue. The software I got with the CCU-650 barely worked at all on any OS X. It was garbage.
The one for the CCU-680 (CDMA-EVDO) is a bit better, but also pretty crappy. It’s so bad I might just buy a Novatel 727 which is supported by Apple’s drivers in SL.
Thanks for the tip Nik, never used a Novatel dongle. I’m of the opinion that the networks should be choosing manufacturers with better software though. If they stopped buying their kit, they’d soon up their game. Mobile broadband’s huge in the UK, but on the whole you’re right: the software stinks.
What I find baffling is that T-Mobile/Huawei couldn’t be bothered to put the Mac software on my E170 dongle. You can plug it into any PC, install and go but if you want a new Mac to run it (this was before Snow Leopard mind) you had to install from CD or download from a website. And how does one get online without broadband, eh? It’s not like a few extra MB of files on the dongle would harm things, it’s just poor, poor planning.
[...] we reported rafts of issues Snow Leopard-packing Macs having trouble with mobile broadband, we’ve [...]
I’ve had a PAYG T-Mobile 120 for a month now, using on a 17″ Macbook Pro running 10.6.1 & 2 and it’s worked like a dream from day 1. I’ve been very impressed with it, even on the train when it’s constantly switching between GPRS, 3G & HSDPA.
[...] we reported on Monday that all the major mobile networks were struggling to get their mobile broadband dongles working [...]
[...] we revealed earlier this week, many mobile broadband dongles refuse to do the internet dance with Macs rocking Snow Leopard. So [...]
If you are a UK Three customer, give this a whirl – worked ‘out of the box’ with my Huawei E169G which had died after upgrading to Snow Leopard:
http://www.mactalk.com.au/2009/09/03/thursday-how-to-huawei-mobile-broadband-snow-leopard/
Nice tip Chris! Thanks!
Bought an o2 e160 today at carphone warehouse. I TOLD the guy i was running osx 10.6.2 and he said it would work with no problems. All I would have to do is go to the download link provided in the box for mac. LIES LIES LIES LIES!!!! I’ve tried various drivers and solutions on different forums to get it working to no avail. Well narked off! I can’t even find osx snow leopard mentioned in the o2 website and when i go to the connection manager update page again no mention of mac versions…. WTF!?! Sorry, have just spent the best part of 2 hours beating my head against the monitor of my laptop. (Posting this via my home broadband, no internet when i leave tomorrow for a week blaagh
Hey Brian. Sounds like you need to get your money back sharpish! Check the returns policy on the receipt. If you’re going away, maybe someone could return it for you?
Thank you for providing the link to O2’s pdf file on snow leopard.
By the way, if you’re installing this on to snow leopard for the first time, you can pretty much ignore the first 2 pages of the pdf file, all you need to do is:
1. Insert the USB Modem into one of the USB ports on your Mac
2. The Mobile Broadband installer folder will open automatically
3. While holding down the Ctrl key on your keyboard, click on the MobileConnect icon.
4. In the menu that appears, click Show Package Contents.
5. In the window that opens, browse to Contents > Resources and run the
Mobile_Connect_Drv_App.pkg installer.
6. Follow the on screen instructions to complete the installation
7. The MobileConnect application will now be installed in the Applications folder again. Run this
program and follow the instructions in your Mobile Broadband Quick Start Guide to connect to the
internet.
Hi Sam.. I’ve tried that so many times, I even reboot my MBP 15 a lot but its just not connecting to the internet. It says Connected but could not go to the internet..
I was using o2 E160 which seemed to be working ok, but I was connecting through mac network rather than o2’s supplied mobile connect software.
Then I switched to Vodafone using Huawei’s K3565 which worked fine using Vodafone’s supplied VMC software. Then came the problems… I switched back to o2 again (trying to get best coverage wherevere I am) which was cool but when I switched back to Vodafone it would not work. I spent about 45 mins on the phone to their tech support who had me uninstalling drivers & re-installing software and all sorts of computer wizardry I wouldn’t have been able to do by myself. Finally he was able to get me up and running again
Possibly stupidly, I then went to try a new 3 Mobile dongle which is not a Huawei but a ZTE MF627 USB modem. I was never able to connect at all, software ‘not detecting the device’. Spoke to tech support who told me it was a prob with Huawei drivers & other connection programs stopping their program from working. After removing other programs & all drivers as they instructed, 3 Mobile would still not work, displaying same error. The weird thing is that along with the ZTE drivers the 3 software also installs Huawei universal drivers as part of it’s installation package? Support were pretty much useless, told me they couldn’t help and that I should contact apple tech support?
Sticker on the box says “Supports Mac OS X 10.6″ – clearly not.
Anyone else had similar problems or able to offer advice or helpful links/articles?
Why can’t these programs just simply work out of the box? To whichever network can make this happen reliably everytime – you will aquire a large Mac customer base.
Hello,
Hopefully someone reading this can help me.
I am running OS 10.5.6 on an imac and I am using a 3 mobile dongle (Huawei E160G). However it works one day, not too slowly which is ok. But then the next my mac has completely crashed and I get a no entry sign. I therefore then need to reboot and reinstall the entire system, being a designer this is particulaly annoying!
It only seems to happen when I install the 3 mobile software off the stick.
Does anyone else have this problem? Can anyone help? What should I do?
Thank you
I called 3 today to cancel the mobile broadband as it didn’t work since i updated my mac to snow leopard since sept, it took altogether 2 hrs of wasted time as the call centre is convinced it works. When i pointed out even apple doesn’t support it, she insist I took out their latest product and have it for a trial for 14 days. hey, that’s not what i asked for but now I am able to cancel it under snow leopard does not work and no activity is shown in my account. Next step is to get compensation lets see
Well done Eve! Sounds like you’ve been ’round the houses, but at least the end is in sight!
Took out an Orange contract on 5 Dec – man in the shop had got it working on 10.6.2 with downloaded drivers from Orange site. Orange driver page has been showing “back soon: since 4 Dec – I should have had my doubts. Got URLs for box.net and taniwha.org.uk fron Orange today but haven’t found drivers anywhere there yet.
Wall is now severely head marked – and I’m new to Mac.
Hi guys had the same problem with T Mobile but discovered that T Mobile Germany have produced a download and patch that works with my UK dongle my dongle which was crashing my macbook and wouldn’t work is now working just fine. Hope this helps
Thanks for the tip Dave! Anyone else tried this yet?
I subscribed to virgin mobile broadband two weeks ago. I am still trying to connect to the internet dispite Virgin sending me a new dongle.
Apple ?? Fine car, no wheels ??
I bought one, afraid of PC crashes during my visit to UK. It worked OK in my home country, thanks to my phone operator. I bought a dongle the day I arrived in UK, and give it back the next day. Then I went to Apple themselves: all they did was to send me back to check every operator. They should have an advertisement saying:
“Buy this, you stupid”. I do not like Microsoft, but…