OSX / Little Snitch Internet problem!
April 14, 2011 4:41 PM   Subscribe

My iMac (running Snow Leopard) suddenly stopped connecting to the Internet, and I think--but can't prove--that Little Snitch is to blame!

Yesterday I upgraded my OS X to Snow Leopard, and all went well. A few hours later I installed a few applications, including Little Snitch. Very shortly after that, my Internet connection went down. The other applications were games, so I don't think they're to blame. In the Network preferences, I confirm my ADSL line--password and login are the same, nothing has changed--but still no connection. The Network Diagnostics run me through the process of restarting my ADSL modem, which does nothing because the modem (almost certainly) isn't the problem.

AFAIK, Little Snitch just stops outgoing connections from the computer. So I created a rule that LS allow Firefox to connect with no restrictions; still no connection. So then I uninstalled Little Snitch entirely...and still no connection. So I'm confused. LS seemed to be the source of the problem, but now that it's gone, the problem persists.

Another thing I tried was to back up with Time Machine to a point a few days ago, before I even upgraded to Snow Leopard. But that didn't seem to work; there was a message (I forget what it said exactly) that wouldn't allow me to restore.

SO. I'll call my ISP and see what they say, but what else can I do? I'm a n00b when it comes to Terminal commands, but can someone point out what I can do there to find the problem? Get under the hood and all that.

Thanks for reading all this!
posted by zardoz to Computers & Internet (10 answers total)
 
Best answer: You can try turning off Little Snitch temporarily by looking here: http://www.obdev.at/products/littlesnitch/faq.html, "How to turn off Little Snitch temporarily". Then see if FF works. I don't know about Little Snitch specifically but it might be a proxy.

Then, try this: Utilities -> Network Utility; click Ping, enter 8.8.8.8 (public Google DNS) in the bos and hit the "Ping" button. If you can ping through this box you have a network connection. If "Connection timed out" it is wider in scope.
posted by jet_silver at 5:15 PM on April 14, 2011


Oops, I misread. LS is gone, yet you cannot make your connection? See if you have the HTTP box checked in System Preferences -> Network -> Advanced -> Proxies. If so, un-check it and see if that works.
posted by jet_silver at 5:18 PM on April 14, 2011


Best answer: The Little Snitch uninstall may have left something behind. I would re-install little snitch and then try disabling it as per the link above.

You may also want to create a new user and see if you have the same problem with the new user.
posted by willnot at 5:28 PM on April 14, 2011


I hope this isn't a stupid question: After you uninstalled LS, did you reboot your computer? If not, give that a try.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 6:00 PM on April 14, 2011


Response by poster: CP--yes, I did reboot, once for the install and once for the uninstall.

Thanks all for the advice; I'm away from my iMac for a while and will be able to try your tips later.
posted by zardoz at 6:03 PM on April 14, 2011


At this point I think uninstalling Little Snitch should prevent it from working.

That being said, if you need something deeper on your uninstall try AppZapper
posted by bitdamaged at 6:12 PM on April 14, 2011


I had a similar problem (including the issue with newly created rules doing nothing) a while back. Uninstalled LS without luck. Apparently I had an older version installed that wasn't checking for updates properly, as I went to the LS website noted (with wide eyes) that the current version was much newer than mine, installed the new version, and everything worked perfectly. Maybe give that a shot?
posted by socratic at 7:34 PM on April 14, 2011


If you're doing the ADSL username and password stuff on your computer, are you sure that the modem hasn't stopped being in bridged mode? I'd connect to the modem's admin page (which is another network test in itself...), and confirm that.
posted by pompomtom at 11:40 PM on April 14, 2011


If everything was working well before, call your ISP. You could be subject to some kind of mixup or local outage. Worst case scenario might be having to have them talk you through setting up the connection again.
posted by ZeusHumms at 11:46 PM on April 14, 2011


Response by poster: Thanks everyone. I fixed it. Somehow my network login name changed...don't know how that happened, but I guess I'll let LS off the hook. All's well that ends well, in any event.
posted by zardoz at 3:44 AM on April 15, 2011


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