hosed mac network settings (dns dead)

this is all very strange, so please bear with me while i try to relate what happened.

installed parallels build 1970 over an older build (not sure which one) without uninstalling first. everything was fine until about a day later when i took the macbook to a library, got on wireless there, then got back home. dns lookup in os x was completely dead, but still worked in the vm (xp).

tried the en3 advice but it did nothing. tried uninstalling parallels and reinstalling and that fixed it until the next reboot when it died again. tried deleting just about every preference file i can think of (even network prefs under /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration) and still no dice. have a wired and wireless connection and they both behave identically--"not connected to internet" message in safari comes back instantly trying to get anywhere. i can ping any wan ip fine, just can't look up dns. tried putting in isp's dns servers manually and no help there either.

really need to know how to fix this as this is my only mac.

output of ifconfig:

Code:

lo0: flags=8049<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING,MULTICAST> mtu 16384
	inet6 ::1 prefixlen 128 
	inet6 fe80::1%lo0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x1 
	inet 127.0.0.1 netmask 0xff000000 
gif0: flags=8010<POINTOPOINT,MULTICAST> mtu 1280
stf0: flags=0<> mtu 1280
en0: flags=8863<UP,BROADCAST,SMART,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
	inet6 fe80::216:cbff:fe8f:e633%en0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x4 
	inet 192.168.1.2 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.1.255
	ether 00:16:cb:8f:e6:33 
	media: autoselect (100baseTX <full-duplex,flow-control>) status: active
	supported media: autoselect 10baseT/UTP <half-duplex> 10baseT/UTP <full-duplex> 10baseT/UTP <full-duplex,hw-loopback> 10baseT/UTP <full-duplex,flow-control> 100baseTX <half-duplex> 100baseTX <full-duplex> 100baseTX <full-duplex,hw-loopback> 100baseTX <full-duplex,flow-control> 1000baseT <full-duplex> 1000baseT <full-duplex,hw-loopback> 1000baseT <full-duplex,flow-control> none
en1: flags=8863<UP,BROADCAST,SMART,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
	inet6 fe80::216:cbff:feba:d8b8%en1 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x5 
	inet 192.168.1.1 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.1.255
	ether 00:16:cb:ba:d8:b8 
	media: autoselect status: active
	supported media: autoselect
wlt1: flags=41<UP,RUNNING> mtu 1500
fw0: flags=8863<UP,BROADCAST,SMART,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 2030
	lladdr 00:16:cb:ff:fe:d6:09:7c 
	media: autoselect <full-duplex> status: inactive
	supported media: autoselect <full-duplex>

 

I am having a similar problem. Hopefully extra details will help get it solved. I've updated to 1970, but haven't actually run it. When I am at home, I can connect to my wireless network and everything works fine. I can also connect to the VPN server at my work.

When I am at work, however, I cannot get on the wireless network. My machine reports it is connected to the wireness network, but when I open my browser, I get the "not connected to the internet". I _should_ get a "QuickConnect" page offering to give me limited access or directing me to connect to the VPN server.

Looking at the networking preference, I see to Parallels related network adapters are present and active, even though Parallels itself is not, and has not been since reboot.

Truly stumped. Fortunately, I have wired access in my office also (albeit inconveniently) or I would be truly stuck.

Running a MacBook with fully patched Tiger.

 

i don't quite have it all figured out yet, but i was able to restore dns access on my macbook at home by specifying a manual configuration. i put in my router's ip and an ip for my macbook as well as the ip of my router for the dns server. it sometimes takes a few minutes for the macbook to look up the first address, but after that it's fine.

the reason i tried this was i saw that my macbook was for some reason seeing my wireless router as its router and not the wired one (which is closer to my cable modem). in addition, the wired router had assigned four ip addresses to the same mac address (my macbook), even though the macbook was using none of them. so my hypothesis was that the lower (wireless) router was not capable of getting the dns info from the upper (wired) router and giving it to my macbook, so i had to manually specify that the macbook was to use the upper router as its internet gateway.

now, why the parallels install caused the macbook to suddenly want to associate itself with the wireless router i do not know. all i know is whether parallels is installed or not, the macbook wants to associate with the wireless router now, so i have to use manual settings. pretty annoying/strange. when i have some free time over xmas break (assuming parallels doesn't come in and fix this before that) i'll look at my routers' settings and see if i can't get around the problem that way.

good luck.

edit: i wanted to specify that this same behavior occurs even when plugged into the wired router over an ethernet cable. this is significant because the wireless router is again further away from my cable modem than the wired router. that means that parallels did something that caused my macbook to want to specify the wireless router as its gateway even when it must go through the wired router first to get to it. there is definitely a strong preference for the wireless router, and it has nothing to do with the fact that it's wireless or wired.