I'm experiencing three strange problems on OS X (Snow Leopard), which only appear while I am connected to a wireless network over Airport.
- The "Security" tab in System Preferences takes about 1 minute to load, and clicking the lock to make changes also results in a long delay. (Eventually, however, everything works.)
- I can't start Mathematica 7. The menu bar appears, but no window appears, and clicking on the menu bar results in the beach ball of death.
- I can't save certain files in Adobe Illustrator CS 4. (The application hangs, with 0% CPU usage.)
I've tried some of the "usual" fixes, e.g. repairing permissions, and deleting plist's related to Airport. I'd really like to understand what's going on, however!
I suspect that this is in some way related to the firewall, because the Security tab in System Preferences controls the firewall, and often when I used to successfully start Mathematica 7, I would get the standard firewall dialog, asking if I wanted to allow or deny access to the application. I'm not sure what's changed recently, however.
Can anyone diagnose this issue?
Unfortunately I can't try any alternate network connections; there's only one wireless network around here, and I'm on a Macbook Air and don't have the USB dongle to connect to Ethernet.
UPDATE: actually, Mathematica does start: after approximately 5 minutes the usual firewall dialog appears, and after clicking allow there's another, shorter, delay, and then a window opens.
