Fixing 3 Mobile Broadband E168G on Snow Leopard
After upgrading my Macbook Pro to Snow Leopard I found that my 3 Mobile Broadband USB (Huawei Mobile Connect E169G) stick no longer functioned. The quite frankly rubbish MobileConnect software that they have on the stick refused to start on Snow Leopard and promptly crashed every time.
So after some fiddling and searching around the interwebs I finally got it working again, all without that horrible MobileConnect stuff.
Firstly you need to remove all of the software and drivers that might be on your machine, delete the following if they are there:
/Applications/MobileConnect
/System/Library/Extensions/HuaweiDataCardDriver.kext
/Library/Modem Scripts/HUAWEI Mobile Connect
Don’t worry if none of the above are there, it’s worth checking before you go any further.
Now reboot your Mac. When restarted pop in your USB Modem stick it should appear in the finder as a CD. Open it up and you will see the Mobile Connect app. Right click and select “Show Package Contents”.
Then navigate to Contents/Resources/Mobile_Connect_Drv_App.pkg. Double click this to run the driver only installation.
After this has installed head over to Network Preferences window. If there is an existing HUAWEI Mobile listed in the left menu, select it and hit the minus button to delete it.
Now go and add a new one choosing HUAWEI Mobile from the Interface dropdown, giving it a name if you wish. Now in the telephone Number enter *99#, leaving the remaining fields blank. Keep the “Show modem status in menubar” checked because you then get quick instant access for dialling up with your new HUAWEI Mobile connection.
Hit Advanced entering the following details for 3 Mobile Boradband UK. APN: 3internet. Your APN might be different if your not in the UK.
You should be all set, go and connect. Working 3 Mobile Broadband (UK) with the HUAWEI E169G on Snow Leopard.
Please leave any comments or suggestions.
Posted in: journal
1 hour, 50 minutes ago via
Leave a response, or a trackback from your website
21 Comments so far (rss)
Paul said:
Awesome – thanks for this! Had no idea how to get it working!
on September 26th, 2009 at 5:47 pm
Darren said:
I had the same problem and ended up booting up windows to get around it.
I decided it was a good excuse to buy a Mifi. I got a payg Mifi from three for £99 and swapped the payg sim for my contract one (gave the dongle to my mum with the 3 months free access that came with the Mifi). I am now a walking wifi hotspot.
I think Apple should give people their money back for Snow Leopard, if MS ever released this as a paid update there would be a world war.
on September 26th, 2009 at 7:17 pm
Brian Lee said:
Hi, have just upgraded to Snow Leopard 10.6.1 and have the same problems with my Huawei E169G mobile broadband dongle from 3. I have followed all of the steps you give which were okay until I rebooted and inserted the dongle which then produced another mobile connect window. I right clicked on the Mobile Connect icon and installed the driver only application. I deleted the existing HUAWEI mobile from the left pane but on trying to add a new one, found that there wasn’t one listed in the interface dropdown. All that’s showing is Airport (which is ticked but turned off), Firewire, Ethernet, Bluetooth DUN then a blank line and then VPN, PPoE and 6 to 4. I took the dongle out and reinserted it but that obviously isn’t right even though I went through the process of changing the settings on the Modem tab. So, I am back to square one with the same message. All 3 would say is there is a compatibility issue which the installation of Rosetta would remove. I thought Rosetta was an integral part of the Snow Leopard installation so I haven’t got a clue now. Any ideas?
on October 2nd, 2009 at 7:31 pm
jmwhittaker said:
Brian, hmm not sure on this one. I have just re run the steps and I have it working. It sound like your machine does not recognise the modem when it’s plugged in. Try unplug it then replug it before going to the network preferences panel. It should appear in the list.
Another reason is that the driver app has not installed correctly so it does not know the driver for the USB modem. Uninstall everything reboot and recheck.
Doing it this way you don’t need to run Rosetta or that awful excuse of a piece of software by Three either. Rosetta is not installed by default on Snow Leopard, one reason why it uses less HD space than Leopard!. Good luck sorry I could not be of more specific help.
on October 2nd, 2009 at 9:28 pm
Brian Lee said:
Thanks James, I’ll try again
on October 3rd, 2009 at 8:02 am
Aoife said:
Hi,
I searched the computer for any drivers or software but I didn’t find any of the ones you suggested. I deleted any software relating to three, I then rebooted my computer but it still keeps crashing. Hope you may have an idea because I have run out!
Thanks.
on October 9th, 2009 at 8:44 pm
jmwhittaker said:
Hi Aoife, don’t worry if you don’t have any installed. Just follow the other steps to install just the driver ignoring any of that rubbish that Three provides. I’m aware that there are different revisions of this modem in circulation depending upon when you got it, so things might differ slightly but the principle will be the same.
on October 10th, 2009 at 12:17 am
Robert said:
Hi there, the manual did not helped me at all, I’ve tried several other solution too but there was only one.
http://www.huaweidevice.com/resource/mini/200909258376/testmobile/index.html
Does work and running faster than before. The starting bit slower.
Thanks all
on October 11th, 2009 at 9:16 pm
Jono said:
very helpful, thanks. trick is never to go back to three software shite and continue to connect through network preferences. in australia, it appears APN is 3netaccess, that seems to get me online no probs. cheers mate!
on October 13th, 2009 at 12:25 am
SBR said:
James: thank you for your instructions – they have added at least 6 months to my life expectancy
Brian Lee: I had a similar lack of HUAWEI in my interface dropdown after installing the drivers as per James’ instructions. I simply rebooted, reattached the dongle, and HUAWEI then appeared in the dropdown menu
on October 24th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
Saif said:
Thank you very much James. I am a new Mac user. Recently bought Macbook pro Snow Leopard. My 3 mobile Huawaei E169G was not working on my Mac and I was thinking about returning my Macbook (being within 14 days of purchase) as it was very disruptive for me being unable to use mobile broadband. I tried various other advices on different forums, nothing worked.
Following your tips step by step, my mobile broadband is working perfectly now. What a relief!
Thanks again
on October 31st, 2009 at 9:00 pm
Mobile Broadband Dongles And Snow Leopard Aren’t Getting Along | Mobile Broadband Supermarket Blog said:
[...] If you’re with 3 try the method advised in this blog post. [...]
on November 9th, 2009 at 6:50 pm
Tim Dalton said:
Perfect! Worked beautifully, thanks very much…
Comments much as before, actual device appeared as a different name, but these intructions plus a couple of logical guesses sorted me out.
Tim
on November 10th, 2009 at 6:18 pm
shahab said:
thx for ur post, u nailed it and it works…after 4 hr surfing on int….the most usefull one
on November 30th, 2009 at 2:39 pm
Dan Goldsmith said:
Do you know how to do this with my Huawei USB Mobile Broadband. Model. E1550. I am on Pay as you go mobile broadband. The 3 Connect worked fine before I went to Snow Leopard. Now the installer wants me to install Rosetta which I don’t want to do. Especially as it would just be for this devise.
I am on a Mac Book Pro. OS X.6.2
Thanks Dan.
on December 5th, 2009 at 2:22 pm
jmwhittaker said:
Dan, I’m guessing but the process should be exactly the same as outlined above.
You need to find the driver and just install that rather than the boat load of crap that it ships with. OS X is fine at managing the connections.
Try following the steps above to find the driver and then install.
on December 6th, 2009 at 4:43 pm
Maxim said:
Thanks a lot god bless you I fixed the problem with snow leopard:)
on December 11th, 2009 at 11:56 am
Mykee said:
Hi James,
Awesome worked just as you said.
Many Thanks,
Kind regards,
Mykee
on December 21st, 2009 at 11:34 pm
andrew Lancaster said:
Hi, thanks so much for this. I was shattered when I got to my narrow boat for Christmas and found that I couldn’t get my emails! The marina network allowed me to find your wonderful instructions for fixing the problem with 3 mobile Huawei dongle. I can now receive emails – but for some strange reason I can’t send any? Any further ideas on that front??!!
Many thanks,
Andrew
on December 26th, 2009 at 1:51 pm
randeep said:
Thanks very much. I took your advice with my MacBook Pro, OS X 10.6.2 and my O2 dongle and it worked fine. Your fix was a lot easier than dealing with Huawei’s Mandarin website or O2’s voicemail jail telephone (un)help line.
on January 5th, 2010 at 9:29 pm
jonathan cox said:
Thanks for info it worked a treat. Jon
on February 2nd, 2010 at 7:48 pm
Leave a response