Q: Update to Mountain Lion 10.8.5 has killed my wifi access. Help needed.

That definitely seems to be the answer.  Would love to hear from anyone else who went to Mavericks from pre 10.8.5 version to see if the trend is consistent. I am understandably gun shy about upgrading again, but see benefits to being on Mavericks.  Both my rollbacks were at the Genius Bar, and the techs had not clue about this.  I finally showed them all the posts, and they were surprised.  They basically try all the typical stuff to no avail and then reccommend wiping the drive and reinstalling.

Thanks

The saddest statement in your last post is that no techs at the Genius Bar know anything about it! We all tried the typical stuff long ago to no avail, but maybe you have begun the education process at the Genius Bar that can help more users. Of course it doesn't really seem to need a drive wipe and reinstall ... just a jump back and a bigger jump forward.

I upgraded to mavericks lately and I can say that the problem is still there... :/

My problem does match the descriptions of others despite my mac being a later model. However a restore from time machine to 10.8.4 did not restore my wifi connection for my mac beyound a system sleep. I have been too busy to get back to try and work on the issue but my next move is to try a reinstall from the original systems disk when I have some down time.

When I went back to 10.8.3, it was after a hard drive wipe and OS reinstall at the Genius Bar.  Your experience seems to suggest that just rolling back from Time Machine doesn't resolve the problem.  My 10.8.3 clean install got everything back to normal working order.

A clean install would make much more sense if it is, as has been suggested a firmware issue. Thanks AndrewCSH I will set this up for the weekend and report back.

Experienced the same issue recently with my 2012 MBP. Intermittent issues with internet especially all the browsers hang up, especially youtube. Other apple devices work just fine. Went over the replies to this thread and tried removing the wifi service from network option, ran the repair disk utility and restarted the system. After its up added back the wifi service. Everything worked just fine as before! Voila!. So glad to have wifi access once again. Tried to restart the system once again so as to see if there's a s/w glitch, nothing looks shaky for now. Thanks for all the support this forum provides.

Thanks,

advitha

Agreed. Thanks to the all great community members for all the input. Let's hope everyone has found one way or another to become wifi functional again (and we see no more updates the likes of 10.8.5 again)!

Having the problem again after a while. First time connected to ethernet cable everything worked seamlessly fine. Now again having a glitch in wifi. Looks like the fix is just temporary. I don't want to keep restarting the system. Tried Maverick download but it keeps giving me the status of "downloading...". Anyone having success with maverick install solving this issue? Apple please come for  help!!!

Just a quick update on this. Yesterday I deleted all the network configuration files from /Library/SystemPreference/Configuration (the plist and network identification) and let the OS create a new one. Initially it looked all OK no wifi hicups again it started being shaky this morning. Finally got the new OSX Mavericks to see if it can do any gimmicks on wifi problem. No, the new OSX update has not changed anything except look and feel (same old wifi issue keep going on). Looks like this particular wifi s/w or driver update is not friendly with the router. I have 10.8.3 in my MB air its absolutely fine, so are the iphones. One more thing pending is to change the security setting to WPA2 Personal (AES) as recommended by apple and booting the OS in safe mode. Mines is a netgear N series router. Any improvement on this issue??

advitha

So you updated to Mavericks from 10.8.5 on your 2012 MBP and the problem still persists, correct? I don't know that anyone has found a solution for that one yet. That is why many of us went back to an OS X increment before 10.8.5 before jumping to Mavericks. Some went from 10.8.5 to Mavericks and got restored wifi, but some were afraid to go through the process with the problem code in 10.8.5, so they returned to an earlier version of 10.8 before the jump. I can't answer your router question, but I'm disappointed one is forced to go through all of that to fix the issue! Do you have any way of getting back to an earlier version of 10.8?

I  have to check the recovery drive or time machine. We are new users of Mac since 2012 so hands are not dirtied yet with the system details. Does it have to be a new install or does it need the HD wipeoff?

Thanks for your help

Hello everyone  who is having this problem and continuing to have it,

Here is  a link that might help with this problem and let me know if there are any other issues

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjbKXYOGW3c

I hope that helps!!!

Thanks,

techguy3347

What seems to have worked for most was a reinstall of an earlier version via a full OS X installer. I believe Time Machine worked as well, but I'm not sure and I don't know what else might be changed by that method. So using the OS X full installer over what is existing would work, a HD wipe is not required in my experience. Was Mountain Lion on the machine when you bought it?