AppleTalk reset problems

[blackbird]

I'm having problems with AppleTalk. Every time I restart my laptop it turns off. I can't get LocalTalk Bridge to work unless AppleTalk stays on. I know it's not my PRAM battery because my date and time information all stays intact. I tried disableing all unecessary extensions in case it was an extension issue but it didn't work. Does anybody have any ideas of what it could be?

 

[equill]

You didn't say which PB in your list, but if you are writing about your 68K PBs, I have found that the commonest reason for AppleTalk/filesharing to play FBs is that the driver for an add-on NIC has gone missing because of a configuration change. No such problem occurs in OS X, but having set up my OS X Macs I rarely play about with their hardware. No such continuity exists in my G2/G3 and 68Ks however, and those are the machines in which AppleTalk spends its time reverting to printer port. These same Macs are also likely to have a faster add-on NIC atttached to the LAN than the on-board (if any) ethernet. System updates/upgrades usually have the same effect. Perhaps Installers turn AppleTalk off as a matter of course?

I also find the message 'File sharing could not be enabled' amongst the most frustrating because it contains no clue as to why file sharing could not ... &c. It usually needs that the whole set of Sharing setup, AppleTalk, TCP/IP, Users and Groups and so on be interrogated before the missing component is identified and fixed. And a missing/invisible/disabled NIC driver is the commonest cause.

 

[blackbird]

It's my PB 540c. It sounds like it's a wild goose chase. I'll keep trying. Thanks.

 

[katmac]

Not many things are fixed by zapping the PRAM, but this could be one of them. Since removing extensions didn't work, you should put them back; it's not obvious which ones are required for networking.

 

[equill]

Depending on your System version, one of the potentially most troublesome CPs/extensions is the invisible Network CP, a predecessor of the very visible AppleTalk CP. In System 7.5 and above the suspects are all clear: Sharing or Sharing Setup, AppleTalk, Users and Groups, TCP/IP and FileSharing. Network CP can variously play up, refusing to be replaced, shifted, or to give up and go away. Its function is selection between Classic Networking and AppleTalk/Ethernet, ie between serial and ethernet sharing, just as AppleTalk CP does. As you already know, whenever a (later) System has a difficulty with ethernet it defaults to Printer Port (serial) in the AppleTalk CP.

The various possibilities with System version are given by Matthew Glidden in, eg About This Particular Mac. He also has a site about networking.

de