cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

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

Plucker
Member

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.

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Accepted Solutions

Plucker
Member

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.

 

 

 

View solution in original post

12 REPLIES 12

Naishy
Power User

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

Plucker
Member

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.

 

 

 

Naishy
Power User

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

Plucker
Member
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.

SeanB
Member

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 

Naishy
Power User

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

alchemy
Member

hi

 

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

 

K

idk
Member

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 ???

 

234i0AB66BD6747CD5F5

 

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)

 

236i9F56D97AEB3E692D

 

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

idk
Member

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:

  1. either there is a BT connection manager that works with snow leopard, than let me know where to get it from
  2. 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 !