I MUD on a MacBook laptop (note: not a MacBook Pro, just the regular MacBook) with a wireless internet connection.

For the past few months, I've had no trouble at all with playing a MUD on my laptop, however over the past five days I've started having trouble. The MUD basically hangs up on me, so that if something happens and I haven't entered a command in the last four minutes or so, it doesn't show me what's happened till I enter a command, at which point there's a lag burst of about 5-20 seconds and then it shows me all of the events that have happened.

Then if I don't do anything for about 7-10 minutes, it disconnects me from the MUD, which I also don't see untill I attempt to enter another command.

I was using the Cantrip client, so I just tried it with Atlantis and it had the same problem. I'm not having any trouble whatsoever with any other program like AIM or visiting sites.

The MUD works fine on my Windows machine down stairs, using ZMud, so it's not the internet connection itself, and the fact that everything else still works on my laptop suggests to me that it's probably not the wireless connection either.

I haven't changed anything within the last few days on my MacBook, although I updated the software about a week and a half ago. As far as I know, no one has even touched the wireless router or the PC's settings in a month or two.

Does anyone have any idea what might be going on?

Is it only on one MUD, or is it on any MUD you try? If it's on just one, then ask them if they did any updates to code about that time that could be the cause. If it is on any of them, try it on a wired connection (if you have an Ethernet port out on your wireless router). You might also try going to someplace else that has wireless service and connecting from there. If that fails, try making a new user and connecting logged in as that user. I'm going to bet it works under one of those conditions, and whichever one works should point you more towards the source of the problem.

Check your firewall settings and, if you are using LilSnitch, make sure it is active and you've permissioned the right IP addresses.