A fix for dropped Internet connections with a Vodafone mobile and Mac OS X

27 Feb 2006

Connecting my Mac to the Internet via a bluetooth Vodafone mobile used to work but after one of the OS X upgrades, connections would drop shortly after getting online. At the time I had already switched to using a Vodafone Connect Card so didn't devote a lot of time to finding a fix for this but since moving to a MacBook Pro with no PC card slot, again find myself needing to occasionally connect via my mobile.

Fortunately after turning on verbose logging in my PPP options I was able to identify IPv6 as the prime suspect with the dreaded SIGHUP signal always showing up directly after an IPv6 query:

Fri Feb 24 04:20:03 2006 : ipcp: up
Fri Feb 24 04:20:03 2006 : local IP address x.x.x.x
Fri Feb 24 04:20:03 2006 : remote IP address x.x.x.x
Fri Feb 24 04:20:03 2006 : primary DNS address x.x.x.x
Fri Feb 24 04:20:03 2006 : secondary DNS address x.x.x.x
Fri Feb 24 04:20:03 2006 : sent [IPV6CP ConfReq id=0x1 ]
Fri Feb 24 04:20:06 2006 : sent [IPV6CP ConfReq id=0x1 ]
Fri Feb 24 04:20:09 2006 : Hangup (SIGHUP)
Fri Feb 24 04:20:09 2006 : Modem hangup
Fri Feb 24 04:20:09 2006 : ipcp: down

Turning off IPv6 for my bluetooth connection is a fairly simple process:

In the Bluetooth TCP/IP panel, select Configure IPv6...

Change Configure IPv6 to Off

Switching IPv6 off solved the problem and I have no more dropped connections. Hurray!