Sunday 31 July 2011

Vodafone 3G Dongle and OSX 10.7 Lion - They Not Be Best Friends Forever ...

One apparent casualty of moving to Lion is that my Vodafone 3G "dongle" no longer works, with: -

Mobile Connection Error

Could not create network settings.

Try re-starting the application or your Mac.
If the problem persists, try deleting the preferences, or re-installing the application.


and: -

The "NetManager" service could not be used because the application could not be found.

Try reinstalling the application.


This looks to be a known problem, as per this: -

<snip>
Preview Edition of Vodafone Mobile Broadband for Mac

If you have a brand new Apple Mac with OS X 10.7 Lion, or have just upgraded your Mac to this system, older releases of the Vodafone Mobile Broadband for Mac application may not run correctly. Vodafone is currently verifying the application on OS X Lion, and will release it as soon as possible. In the meantime, if you have OS X 10.7 Lion and would like to manage mobile and AirPort connections, and SMS text messaging on your Mac, you can download this special Preview Edition of Vodafone Mobile Broadband.

Full Lion-ready Release of Vodafone Mobile Broadband for Mac

The Preview Edition will only be available until the full OS X 10.7 Lion-ready version of the Vodafone Mobile Broadband for Mac application is released. After 9th September 2011, the Preview Edition will advise you to download the latest release, which will have full support for OS X 10.7 Lion. The full release will completely replace the Preview Edition, and remove the advisory message.
</snip>

and there is a "beta" version of software that *MAY* just work here: -

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3193326?start=0&tstart=0

Am downloading it now ….

… and it appears to work e.g. I don't get any errors when I try and connect, but I do live in a no-3G area so will not know for sure until I get to my client's offices tomorrow ….

6 comments:

Dave Hay said...

Hmmm, so that version of Vodafone Mobile Connect: -

Vodafone Mobile Broadband Software for Mac v4.06.01.00

http://www.business.vodafone.com/site/bus/public/enuk/support/10_productsupport/laptop_connectivity/40_software/software/p_mac_osx_lion_vmb_preview.jsp

didn't work in the end.

I tried, and failed ( repeatedly in both cases !! ) but to no avail.

As a temporary solution, I went out and bought a 3 Mi-Fi for £57 less £10 discount, including 3 GB of data.

When I got back to the hotel tonight, I Google'd around, and found this: -

Vodafone Mobile Broadband 4.01.08.00.dmg

available from here; -

http://db.tt/hoeNDwl

which *appears* to have done the trick.

Put it this way, I can now connect to 3G via the 4.01.08 version whereas I was unable to do so, via the *new* version: -

Vodafone Mobile Broadband 4.06.01.00.dmg

So far, so interesting.

And the Mi-Fi rocks :-)

PE SA said...

I recommending not wasting time with various alternative sites for the temporary dmg file. Go right to the Vodafone source at: http://www.business.vodafone.com/site/bus/public/enuk/support/10_productsupport/laptop_connectivity/40_software/software/10_latest/p_software.jsp

I downloaded it and it worked like a charm first time. I had tried these other links and none of them had SW that worked.

Dave Hay said...

@Peter

Thanks for the update - for me, the official code didn't work; I'll try it again when I have some free time, but the old code mostly works ( although it locks up from time to time ), and the Mi-Fi is awesome :-)

twildley said...

There's a new version 4.07.04.00 of Vodafone Mobile Connect Software for Mac available on

http://www.business.vodafone.com/site/bus/public/enuk/support/10_productsupport/laptop_connectivity/40_software/software/10_latest/p_software.jsp

Cheers, Ted

Dave Hay said...

@Ted, cheers for this, have moved on to using the Vodafone SIM in a MiFi instead, so no longer need to use VMC. However, the information will be of use to others, regards, Dave

The Geeks said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

Visual Studio Code - Wow 🙀

Why did I not know that I can merely hit [cmd] [p]  to bring up a search box allowing me to search my project e.g. a repo cloned from GitHub...