topic Re: APPLE MAC - BT Mobile Broadband, BT Access Manager and Snow Leopard in Archive

APPLE MAC - BT Mobile Broadband, BT Access Manager and Snow Leopard

Plucker — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 13:01:46 GMT

Upgraded to Snow Leopard over the last weekend and now my mobile broadband doesn't work at all. I called the support line and they advised that the BT access Manager software isn't compatible with Snow Leopard yet. Hope this will be resolved soon as I can no longer get an internet connection away from my home broadband. If anyone has a workaround for this I will be most grateful.

Re: APPLE MAC - BT Mobile Broadband, BT Access Manager and Snow Leopard

Naishy — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 13:10:42 GMT

Hi,

I have yet to try the BT Access Manager software on Snow Leopard, as I only upgraded at the weekend. I'll look into it and see what the plan is on how to support Snow Leopard if it has indeed broken the software.

In the meantime, can I recommend you check out this thread on the BT Beta Forum. Although the thread is talking about BT Connection Manager, which currently doesn't have an OSX client, the principle is the same. However the APN you need to use is btmobile.bt.com (not btmobile2.bt.com as in the thread).

Let me know if you have trouble getting this working.

Tim

Re: APPLE MAC - BT Mobile Broadband, BT Access Manager and Snow Leopard

Plucker — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 13:30:10 GMT

Naishy,

Thanks for the rapid response. A few notes:

Everything was working fine on Friday before I upgraded to Snow Leopard and has been working for months
my settings are exactly as defined in the thread you mentioned
When I start BT Access Manager I get a prompt for the PIN code as norma and the normal Connect window appears, the screen is showing an available "BT Mobile" service
When I click on connect it prompts me for my Mac admin password as normal, I get a "dialling up" message followed almost instantly by a "Connection failed!" message, there is no update or activity in the menu bar which is what I would normally expect (usually "connecting" then "authenticating" messages).
I tried uninstalling and re-installing the BT Access Manager software but it refuses to install under Snow Leopard.

So I think it's dead and I think it's the BT Access Manager software not playing nicely with Snow Leopard. I'm quite disadvantaged with this because my customers are now out of reach when I'm not in the office (which is most of the time).

Luckily I managed to get it working by ignoring the BT Access manager software completely and just setting up a new connection in System Preferences/Network, selecting the HIUAWEI device listed, giving it all the connection details and hitting "connect". Worked first time. I guess the BT access manager software just isn't needed? Would be good to know if this works for others with this problem.

Re: APPLE MAC - BT Mobile Broadband, BT Access Manager and Snow Leopard

Naishy — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 13:40:58 GMT

Glad to hear you've got it working. I was suggesting that you ignore the BT Access Manager software and connect manually as you describe - Sorry if I didn't make this clear. BT Connection Manager users don't have a OSX client at the moment, so they all have to use the manual method.

Tim

Re: APPLE MAC - BT Mobile Broadband, BT Access Manager and Snow Leopard

Plucker — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 14:19:22 GMT

I think we'll mark it as a "solved" anyway as there is nothing stopping it working with a manual setup. Thanks very much for the nod in the right direction. Appears macs don't need client software for this sort of thing, just the right drivers.

Re: APPLE MAC - BT Mobile Broadband, BT Access Manager and Snow Leopard

SeanB — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 09:30:03 GMT

I can see that an upgrade to Snow Leopard would leave the drivers in place and therefore a manual connection can be achieved.

Can you say how people on new machines with Snow Leopard can get connected through the BT Mobile Boradband. The access manager refuses to install under Snow Leopard and my old settings are not present.

Thanks Sean

Re: APPLE MAC - BT Mobile Broadband, BT Access Manager and Snow Leopard

Naishy — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 09:43:51 GMT

Sean,

Have you tried following the instructions for the manual install on this thread? This should allow you to install the drivers and set up a manual connection.

Tim

Re: APPLE MAC - BT Mobile Broadband, BT Access Manager and Snow Leopard

alchemy — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 20:00:20 GMT

its 31 dec and BT are still issuing dongles with an install that does not work with Snow Leopard - disgraceful BT - get your fingers out and issue a patch

Re: APPLE MAC - BT Mobile Broadband, BT Access Manager and Snow Leopard

idk — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 13:36:24 GMT

we were shipped our dongle over a year ago and were told by BT customer service then that it wasn't mac compatible at all , leopard , panther or otherwise (came as part of the broadband deal so we just stuck it in a drawer and never used it).

As supposedly now it is compatible we are now trying to set it up and its NOT working.

we downloaded and installed the BT connection manager but it wont work on either one of our laptops ( mac book pros / snow leopard) and we couldn't even do the innitial activation of the mobile broadband account on MyBT because of this as it sends a 4 digit code to your BT connection manager which we can't access...

Anyways it was added to our MyBT account by BT customer service manually so is now activated ( took 1 hr on the phone !) but BT connection manager is not working regardless ( will bounce in dock once and than shut down (never opens))

The lady we spoke to on the phone was clueless and refusing to put us through to the tech support for manual set up info, saying they told her it should be working just fine and that it had to be an issue with our Macs?!? I tried getting the manual set up info from her but it proved pointless as she couldn't tell the MyBT online account log in apart from the apple dial up network settings....

Interestingly the file creation date for the BT connection manager BT offers for download (the one we are trying to get to work from www.bt.com/help/mobilebroadband/mac) is April 2009 ? does this mean there still isn't an up to date snow leopard compatible BT connection manager ???

The dongle itself shows up in the network settings ( only on one of our two laptops though) and I tried a manual set up with the info posted elswhere on this forum

using ph # *99#

username:bt

password: bt

withAPN btmobile.bt.com

but this is NOT working either ( tries dialing up than disconnects)

does anyone know how to get this to work? I am using other dongles abroad and have never had any issues installing them ( but than they also simply give you the correct info for manual set up rather than forcing you to use their own inferior software) )

thanks!

Ivonne

Re: APPLE MAC - BT Mobile Broadband, BT Access Manager and Snow Leopard

idk — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 12:10:11 GMT

three hrs on google and i found the right settings for manual set up, thanks BT for not handing these out , could have saved me 5 hrs ( 2 of which were spent with a CS assistant who was unfamiliar with computers in general )

APN I ended up using is btmobile2.bt.com, the others i found did not work for me.

still not working on hubbies laptop , as it wont recognize the dongle at all.

trying to download driver from Huaweis TERRIBLE website (where you can find a gazillion of mac related posts just like this) but they keep pointing you in the direction of an exe file which supposedly includes both the Pc software as well as Mac software but being its an exe file i can't do anything with at all ( and so do most other mac users that post there)

so here is my very simple question to you BT, if you claim (as you did for two hrs yesterday) that the E180 and the BT connection manager are compatible with Mac Snow leoprd than simply post the download link to for the BT connection manager that will work on a snow leopard based Mac.

This should really be rather simple:

either there is a BT connection manager that works with snow leopard, than let me know where to get it from
or it doesn't, than admit to it and provide the proper work around (none of the forum links above work, they all redirect to the main forum page)

BT moderators . here's your chance to prove me wrong with a one line reply !

Re: APPLE MAC - BT Mobile Broadband, BT Access Manager and Snow Leopard

dave — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 20:01:01 GMT

See http://blog.evandavey.com/2008/02/how-to-connect-huawei-e220-usb-modem.html for how to get this working.

The driver that can be downloaded from this page worked perfectly for me on Snow Leopard with my E180 supplied by O2, when I couldn't get the supplied software to work.

To be fair to BT, if they are anything like O2 they just slap their own name on Huawei's terrible connection manager software. Follow the instructions in the above link and you can set this up without the need for any software other than the drivers.

If you enable the "show modem status in menu bar" option, you can easily connect and disconnect using the icon in the menu bar like so:

The APN details you have mentioned seem to be correct.

Re: APPLE MAC - BT Mobile Broadband, BT Access Manager and Snow Leopard

idk — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 00:48:36 GMT

Thanks a ton Dave for looking into this

I actually went on to the vodafone website (Germany) a little earlier today and downloaded the driver for any old vodafone dongle as I have a German Vodafone dongle installed and it hit met that it may be a huawei dongle too and that this could be the reason why I could see and set up the BT dongle in the first place and the hubby couldn't ...wasn't a E180 driver but worked a treat regardless and allowed me to do a manual set up on my husbands computer also

shame on BT though for not providing

driver download section for their products ( we had the dongle delivered way back in 2009, without a Mac driver and before it was even considered Mac compatible by BT)
a working BT connection manager and for wasting their customers time by insisting that it does work
clear instructions / the info needed for a manual set up ( log, pw , APN)

BT:

still waiting for you to post the link to the BT connection manager your CS rep kept insist works with Snow Leopard ( "it has to be a fault with your laptop")

You wasted 2 hrs of my time on the phone on hold and with a frindly but badly trained Rep (not including the research time needed to sort it myself) so please follow up with the goods , shouldn't be that hard right, after all that elusive Snow Leopard compatible Connection Manager does exist , doesn't it ?

Re: APPLE MAC - BT Mobile Broadband, BT Access Manager and Snow Leopard

James — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 10:58:31 GMT

idk, really sorry to hear about the problems you've been having. I passed your issue to the relevant team and they have just come back with the following, hope it helps:

BT Access Manager is compatible with Snow Leopard and has been since last year. It is available for download from the Help FAQ How do I download the latest version of BT Access Manager?

If you're not on a BT Business connection but have an 'at home' connection you're probably referring to Connection Manager, if this is the case there's a Mac 10.6 Snow Leopard compatible version for this too, which can be downloaded from the Help FAQ Software and user guides for BT mobile Broadband.