T-Mobile USB stick 120 (ZTE MF626) on Snow Leopard

Posted on September 10, 2009 by David

Important: If you’ve just bought a USB stick 120 (also known as the ZTE MF626) and you have a Mac running Snow Leopard (Mac OS X 10.6), make sure that it has a “10.6 compliant” sticker on the box. If it does not, do not install the stick. Take it back to your provider and demand a different model that works with Snow Leopard. This one does not – and will actually damage your Mac.

(Update September 2011: I have no idea if any of these sticks are compatible with Lion, but I’d guess not. I definitely wouldn’t install the file linked below on Lion, it will almost certainly make things worse.)

Problem: If you install the software supplied with this stick on Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard), your Mac will hang when it is next rebooted.

Cause: The installer replaces libcurl.4.dylib with it’s own version, which doesn’t have a 64-bit version available. Pretty much everything uses libcurl, including the LoginWindow, so you can’t get into your Mac.

Solution: Replace libcurl.4.dylib with the version originally supplied with Snow Leopard. If you’ve lost yours, you can download mine. Unzip it and put it in /usr/lib – replacing the version already there. If you can’t boot your Mac, you can do this in target disk mode from another Mac, or use single-user mode.

After replacing the file, your Mac will boot, and yes, the stick will work.

Note: This is a complicated procedure, so if you don’t understand it, please ask someone else to help you. I cannot.

P.S.: Did I save your computer? Here’s my wish list. ;)

Update 17/10/09: A friendly commenter told me that T-Mobile UK, unbelievably haven’t heard of the problem. It’s bad enough that they didn’t bother to test any of the pre-release versions of Snow Leopard which were available for months before it was actually released – but it’s utterly inexcusable that they haven’t even bothered to try it after it was available in the shops. T-Mobile: If you’re reading this, this page has had over 2,000 views this month alone. I offer you the chance to respond publicly, here. Email me, my address is in the sidebar.

Update 20/10/09: Paco Hope has done a very good summary of how poor the ZTE software is. I agree with him.

Update 21/10/09: I contacted T-Mobile UK and asked for an official response. No response was ever received.

Update 27/10/09: Commenter Rafal Grabczewski has very kindly provided updated drivers that work with Snow Leopard, direct from ZTE! You can download them here. I haven’t tried these yet – so let me know if they work for you! – Maybe not, see comments below.

Update 27/11/09: T-Mobile have now posted a tiny warning at the bottom of this hard to find page – but still haven’t done anything about actually fixing the problem. Amusingly they say the stick causes “serious system instability”. Well yes, I suppose “not working at all” is a kind of instability. Sort of.

Update 23/3/10: Sticks bought recently have stickers on that say “Now 10.6 compliant”. I haven’t actually tested one, so I don’t know what has changed, or whether it’s possible to update an existing stick.

71 thoughts on “T-Mobile USB stick 120 (ZTE MF626) on Snow Leopard”

Alex on September 11, 2009 at 10:28 pm said:

Hey, Thanks! You saved my day =)

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- Flummi on October 21, 2009 at 6:43 pm said:
  
  Thanks a lot, you saved my day, too! :-)
  
  Reply ↓
Almir on September 24, 2009 at 1:42 pm said:

Hi there!
If I understood it correctly, your ZTE MF626 is working on SL in 64-bit mode?
I use the same USB stick down here in Brazil (provided by Vivo) and the connection manager does not work in 64-bit mode, maybe your version is newer, do you know where can I download it? The ZTE site is of little help…
Thanks

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- David on September 24, 2009 at 10:50 pm said:
  
  As far as I know, I’m not running it in 64-bit mode.
  
  Reply ↓
Almir on September 26, 2009 at 12:53 am said:

Got it. OK David, lets wait for a solution from Apple or from ZTE…Thanks

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Rich on October 4, 2009 at 5:35 pm said:

Spotlight for me doesn’t find my current libcurl.4.dylib file for me to replace it.

Also, because of the T-Mobile install I cannot unzip files!

Reply ↓
- David on October 5, 2009 at 10:16 am said:
  
  I told you where it is, it’s in /usr/lib. Spotlight doesn’t find system files.
  
  You’ll need another working Mac to unzip it.
  
  Reply ↓
Ben Vallack on October 7, 2009 at 11:47 am said:

LEGEND! Just rebooted after installing the software for the ZTE MF637 and it hung. Can’t tell you how thankful I am for this info and that it worked!

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Markus on October 7, 2009 at 7:39 pm said:

David, thank you so much! You saved me!

This also works for ZTE MF110 sticks.

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Bence on October 10, 2009 at 7:01 pm said:

Hi!

Do you think, it will work: after i installed the modem’s software, BEFORE the reboot i replace the installed file with the original?

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- David on October 11, 2009 at 10:59 am said:
  
  Yes, that works fine.
  
  Reply ↓
Matt on October 11, 2009 at 7:23 pm said:

Could someone kindly a procedure with this? I have copied the file to my USB key and booted in to Single User Mode, now I am at the CL line and a bit lost!!! :-/

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Matthias on October 16, 2009 at 8:02 pm said:

thank you so much, actually found this post before i rebooted, but everything was already acting weird – first time i’m really glad to have a dual boot winxp setup with macdrive on my macbook.

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Phil Harman on October 17, 2009 at 4:57 pm said:

Thanks David, you made my day. T-mobile in the UK say they haven’t heard of the problem, so I’ve pointed them to your blog.

Just a quick look in /usr/lib reveals a few other files with the same date …

mbp-wifi$ ls -ltr | grep Feb
-rwxr-xr-x 1 pgdh pgdh 25464 27 Feb 2009 libmd5.dylib*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 pgdh pgdh 522284 27 Feb 2009 libcurl.4.dylib*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 pgdh pgdh 208640 27 Feb 2009 libTinyXml.dylib*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 pgdh pgdh 179412 27 Feb 2009 libAgent.dylib*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 pgdh pgdh 163616 27 Feb 2009 bkLib.dylib*
mbp-wifi$

I wonder if any of those are going to prove a problem too, or others elsewhere in the filesystem?

Reply ↓
- David on October 17, 2009 at 5:19 pm said:
  
  It’s possible. My laptop has been running for a while, though, and I haven’t seen any obvious problems.
  
  Reply ↓
- David on October 23, 2009 at 4:40 pm said:
  
  I’ve done a bit of research and discovered that none of those other files exist on a clean Snow Leopard install.
  
  So libcurl is the only one modified.
  
  Reply ↓
Pingback: Multiple Threads » Blog Archive » Snow Leopard users, beware T-Mobile USB sticks!
Phil Harman on October 17, 2009 at 6:25 pm said:

Blogged my experience here http://harpeople.com/mt/?p=81

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Rhodri Marsden on October 21, 2009 at 12:14 am said:

Ha. Wish I’d seen this before reformatting and restoring from Time Machine! Oh well.

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Pingback: How to fix Snow Leopard after T-Mobile mobile broadband has killed it :: Aaron Russell
Matt Gumbley on October 24, 2009 at 10:19 pm said:

Thanks for this David. Just checked with T-Mobile’s website, and eventually found this:
http://tm.feedbacklab.com/display/support/Snow+Leopard+compatibility

“Apple’s latest operating system update Mac OS X 10.6 – Snow Leopard – has now been released and we’re currently testing compatibility of our Mobile Broadband products against it.

If software updates are required we’ll post them to this site as soon as they’re ready.

In the meantime, if you need to continue to use your Mobile Broadband we’d recommend you stick with your current operating system, just in case there are any compatibility issues with Snow Leopard.”

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Rafal Grabczewski on October 26, 2009 at 10:15 am said:

Hi,

If you are interested I have the latest drivers for ZTE USB Modems which are compatible with Snow Leopard.
You can find them at http://w93.wrzuta.pl/plik/1ZqKnpzcEoY/ztedatacarddriverinstallerv1-3-0.pkg.

I tested these drivers on SL with ZTE MF100, MF668, MF636, MF637 and they all worked fine.

Reply ↓
- David on October 27, 2009 at 3:17 pm said:
  
  So I’ve had a look at this driver – and it won’t actually solve the problem. It doesn’t contain a new version of libcurl, or indeed any version of libcurl, or even the dial-up application itself.
  
  In fact, all it seems to contain are replacement kernel extensions and a modem script – but these were never the problem in the first place.
  
  Reply ↓
- mazlan abd razak on May 15, 2010 at 5:48 pm said:
  
  what a driver for firmware or internet monitoring
  
  Reply ↓
Hates_ on October 30, 2009 at 12:39 am said:

With I had found this site before installing the dongle. Ended up doing a fresh install of SL :(

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Mike on November 23, 2009 at 7:45 pm said:

Thanks David for posting this thread, it prevented me from a reinstall!
Telering (Austrian provider) sell the same dongle and they didn’t mention any know problems with Mac OS X. I’m gonna tell them now…

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Phil on December 3, 2009 at 10:37 pm said:

This saved my ass while on business in London. T-Mobile is such a shit firm! I used fire wire disk mode and connected to another Mac. From there, I copied the correct version of libcurl to my Mac and restarted it. All fixed! Thanks very much for posting this.

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ira on December 4, 2009 at 5:51 pm said:

T-mobile SUX BIG TIME… it totally fucked up my day…

BIG THANX… to DAVE

1. Mounted with APPLE-T in Target mode
2. Ran “defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE”
in terminal to see hidden files
3. Replaced the file
4. Rebooted – All good

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Mathias on December 8, 2009 at 10:51 am said:

This just happened to me with the German internet provider 1&1 and a MF110, I will try your fix tonight. Thank you for posting.

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Ryan on December 10, 2009 at 12:55 am said:

Thanks, life saver!

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Greg on December 15, 2009 at 8:44 pm said:

Same thing with Arnet in Argentina. After reinstalling SL I found your solution, which also works with the ZFE110 stick. My provider couldn’t even understand what I was talking about.
Thanks!

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Chris on December 17, 2009 at 5:09 pm said:

The stick is now support by nowamedias launch2net v1.8.8.9.

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- Percy on December 22, 2009 at 3:32 pm said:
  
  it’s not supported in launch2net.
  
  Reply ↓
  - Chris on December 28, 2009 at 11:06 am said:
    
    It is definitily supported. I bought the new version just befor x-mas and used it with the T-Mobile Fusion Stick.
    
    Reply ↓
    - Percy on January 27, 2010 at 2:26 am said:
      
      The ZTE MF626 is not supported… I contacted novamedia and they confirmed this.
      http://www.novamedia.de/devices/devices-launch2net-mac.html
      If it does work for you, how did you set it up?
      
      Reply ↓
Prober on December 18, 2009 at 4:18 am said:

Thank you David , I brought my MF110 at China which after I install the connection manager ,My MBP can’t restart ! I have to recover my MBP from Time machine. Then I search from Web and find your page ,IT WORKS! I really want to say Thanks to you. And ZTE is suck!I can’t find any update or support page at their web site.I won’t buy any product from ZTE at the furture!

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joe on December 22, 2009 at 11:59 pm said:

Hi all!

I do have the exact same problem with the stick ZTE mf 110. But even after replacing the file my computers (it crasehd 2 of them) don’t boot up anymore!

Anyone any clue what I can do???? Any help greatly appreciated!!!!

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Manuel on December 23, 2009 at 1:33 pm said:

Hey guys!

Just received the MF626 from Telekom Austria and they didn’t bother to include ANY Mac software! Can someone help me out here? THANK YOU SOOOO MUCH!

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Mike Hughes on December 23, 2009 at 11:12 pm said:

For those having trouble getting the replacement file across (Probably, those like me without another mac or firewire cable), I’ve incorporated the information here with how I managed to get the file across (SCP in Single User mode).

http://www.mike-hughes.net/it/mac/t-mobile-3g-dongle-and-osx-snow-leopard/

David, Feel free to pull the extra bits into your article if you like.

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Martin Cleaver on January 5, 2010 at 8:28 am said:

Is it possible to replace the firmware stored in the USB stick when it’s in storage mode? This way we could change the offending file.

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Raul P on January 13, 2010 at 5:59 am said:

You saved my day! (or, well, my *second* day, I backed up and reinstalled SL, but you saved me from doing that crap again).

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Ollie Wells on January 13, 2010 at 4:54 pm said:

I’ve got to the stage where I tried a reboot.. and as such cannot get past the grey screen.

Will running the Repair tool with the original OS disc work? If not, will an “Archive and Install” re-install fix it and keep all personal files?

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Marc on January 25, 2010 at 4:10 pm said:

Thanks for this site. Although was far too late for me and yes it screwed my brand new Macbook Pro which I first ressucitated with a OS reinstall from the disk after backing up the drive (this info can be useful to some, connect with firewire to another mac, power on holding ‘T’ key and it becomes an external HD even if it doesn’t boot!). But then had to have the whole MacBook Pro replaced at Apple as it kept freaking out totally.

Hey I don’t know who should be blamed between Apple or T-Mobile really but yes that’s a dead serious problem that might touch a lot of people!

Anyone tried the other T-Mobile dongles with SL?

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Marc on January 25, 2010 at 7:14 pm said:

After using a code to show hidden files I still can’t find any file called libcurl.4.dylib on my macbookpro.

As T-Mobile refused to exchange or refund the dongle I was hoping to install it anyway using your trick. Anyone actually using it? Is there a way to install the dongle while preventing the damage as opposed to fixing it afterwards? cheers..

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Jon Moore on January 26, 2010 at 10:14 am said:

Does this fix also work for the USB Stick 620?

I have just had a totally miserable weekend after suffering from this. Gutted.

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Will on February 20, 2010 at 3:23 pm said:

I have a unibody MacBook 13”, but not the pro, so I haven’t firewire, but i have the same problem!

Any solution for me? Can I replace the libcurl file in Single User Mode or maybe with a Snow Leo CD? I don’t wanna rebuild my whole system:S
thx

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- Michele on February 21, 2010 at 11:47 pm said:
  
  I have the same issue and same hardware.
  
  I cannot boot into single user mode or target disk mode because macbook unibody doesn’t have firewire port.
  
  I tried to replace file using Mac OS installation disk but cannot replace read only file.
  Anyone know how to remove readonly attribute because chmod isn’t working?!?!?
  
  Reply ↓
FleetfootMike on March 17, 2010 at 8:07 pm said:

You lifesaver :D

Found this while checking for firmware upgrades and solutions to the fact that my network control panel only works in 32-bit mode. … fortunately before I’d rebooted!

Many many thanks.

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Neil on March 30, 2010 at 8:17 pm said:

Just purchased this stick with the 10.6 compliant sticker and working fine on OS X 10.6.2.

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- Andy on April 7, 2010 at 9:45 pm said:
  
  Just purchased the ZTE modem. It does say MAC OS 10.6 compliant on the box but caused the same problem on my computer running 10.6.2…
  
  Reply ↓
Hoda on April 8, 2010 at 12:19 pm said:

This article is useless!
Why? Because packed file is not possible to unpack (single mode Osx, Linux, tar z/j, gunzip) no one works.
Why isn’t here unpacked version of file? Imagine when s.b.(like me) has only one Mac & install DVD is miles away?
So, that’s the reason why is useless…

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- David on April 13, 2010 at 8:13 pm said:
  
  Please contact someone familiar with the command line who will be able to help you. The file is fine.
  
  Reply ↓
Steve on April 27, 2010 at 3:30 pm said:

I was told to buy a new stick modem (due to length of contract) and this worked but cost £8.99nfor new USB stick 120 modem plus £10 for PAYG usage, to become SL compliant. They didn’t treat Windows 7 the same way! T-mobile are Mac unfriendly, and I will leave and never use them again when my contract is over. Shame on T-mobile, they knew of the problems but wouldn’t help at phone level. Turns out that if I had bought in a shop they would have solved the problem by exchanging for a SL compliant stick modem

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Rhodri Marsden on May 14, 2010 at 7:23 am said:

So, now T-Mobile have a page up which links to software which will upgrade your stick to be usable with Snow Leopard. Hooray!

http://goo.gl/qg0k

Except the software only runs on Windows. And I have a Mac. Words fail me.

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Andy on May 21, 2010 at 7:27 pm said:

READ!!!

http://support.t-mobile.co.uk/discussions/index?page=answeropen&type=open&searchid=1274469917915&answerid=16777219&iqaction=5&url=http%3A%2F%2Fsupport.t-mobile.co.uk%2Fhelp-and-support%2Findex%3Fpage%3Dcontent%26id%3DFA1247%26actp%3Dsearch%26viewlocale%3Den_GB&highlightinfo=6292441,16,31#

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Percy on June 25, 2010 at 2:30 am said:

With the help of the fine folks at Novamedia, I got my ZTE MF626 to work flawlessly in Snow Leopard (both 32bit and 64bit kernels).

Just follow these simple steps:

1) Download and install launch2net Premium (http://www.novamedia.de/en/mac-launch2net-premium.html)
2) Delete USBDeviceSwitch.kext and NM_MultiModemDriver.kext from /System/Library/Extensions/
3) Install ZTE 1.3.1 drivers (http://rapidshare.com/files/402474110/ZTE_1.3.1_drivers.zip.html)
4) Restart
5) Plug the modem into your Mac. launch2net Premium will detect it and load your carrier’s settings automatically.
6) Connect and enjoy your mobile broadband

OPTIONAL: If you notice the connection is slow, go to System Preferences, click on Network, then on the ZTEUSBModem, then click Advanced…, click the Modem tab, in Vendor choose Other, in Model choose ZTE USB MODEM.
Repeat the same steps for all other ZTE devices listed in the Network preference pane.

Consider purchasing a launch2net Premium license! The demo lasts only 30 minutes!

Reply ↓
- David on June 25, 2010 at 9:17 am said:
  
  This is all very well, but it does require you to buy an additional product.
  
  Reply ↓
  - Percy on June 30, 2010 at 5:39 pm said:
    
    Here’s a ZTE provided patch for the Mac UI: http://rapidshare.com/files/404097085/ZTE_Patch.zip.html
    
    But I prefer launch2net: no APN hunting, integration with Address Book for SMS, MobileHub, powerful statistics, works with other modems, etc.
    
    Reply ↓
Pingback: ZTE MF637 on Snow Leopard == 地雷 | Leaf Duo
Percy on November 5, 2010 at 10:17 pm said:

launch2net Premium (version 2.1.0) works out of the box with the MF626.

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Dinesh on January 16, 2011 at 4:21 pm said:

I bought T-mobile usb stick 120. after connecting it in computer at first time it detects automatically and installed in my computer. after 3,4 month my computer formatted and lost the installed software of t- mobile usb stick after that i connected it in computer it didn’t detect the software automatically and could not be installed in my computer. If it can install manually, what is the driver name to search. if anyone help me pls give me the idea to install this usb stick 120.

Reply ↓
Charles on January 21, 2011 at 8:05 am said:

Thank you for this. I got caught out the other day and used a friends t-mobile USB stick in an emergency. Needless to say my MacBook pro acted up during the day and hung on re-boot. I keep a cline drive and got working again with you help. Fantastic.

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Arnas on January 24, 2011 at 12:26 pm said:

Thank you so much. This work for me and save my time. Before i use this way, i tried to reinstall but it take long time. But now i can’t hear “guitar sound” when booting if i use your way.

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Manuel on April 3, 2011 at 5:28 pm said:

Hello,

Could one you send me the ZTE 1.3.1 driver, please. The praidshare links is no longer working. Using launch2net and I can’t establish a connection :-(

Thanks!

Reply ↓
dave on April 20, 2011 at 10:31 pm said:

Very helpful post. Just wanted to add that I fixed this on my air (no firewire) by booting into single user mode, putting the crucial file on a usb stick, mounting the usb stick
see e.g.
http://macsage.com/mounting-usb-drive-in-single-user-mode/
and then just copy it from stick to /usr/lib

Reply ↓

David Glover

A plastic daffodil in a Grecian urn

T-Mobile USB stick 120 (ZTE MF626) on Snow Leopard

71 thoughts on “T-Mobile USB stick 120 (ZTE MF626) on Snow Leopard”

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