Q: OSX Yosemite Wifi issues

If I upgraded from Snow Leopard, how can I get Mavericks? I'm kind of stuck here.

Hello spottiecottie. You have posed the dilemma most are faced with. At this time Apple has linked to Yosemite only at the App Store. Those of us that bought our Mac pre-shipped with Mavericks can download it in Purchases or use Internet Recovery to revert back to Mavericks.

Short answer, try an appointment at the Apple Store to have them load Mavericks

-or-

Revert back to Snow Leopard if you have the install media. Apple Store sells Snow Leopard 10.6.3 retail $19.99 and media can be sent to you or your nearest Apple Store.

Please note that this is what I know, thus far. Someone may have a better solution for you than I. Refer to "Can I Still Download Mavericks" thread in Support Community.

I understand completely. The procedure I outlined will not cause you to lose data or render your machine useless. You can always revert your router SSID's and Passphrases back. I just put the procedure out so someone other than myself can try. I know it worked well for me on my MBP and Mac Mini. Thanks for your reply. I do not wish anyone anything worse than what has already been done by upgrading. Take care.

Interestingly I've been testing non-stop since I installed 10.10.2 and I can no longer reproduce the issue at all. I have some unexplained performance drops, but it's usually a drop to 90mbps, so it's not like it's the end of the world.

Whereas it used to be that my laptop would wake up from sleep with no internet, that never happens anymore. I have a suspicion that signal strength matters a lot more in Yosemite than in Mavericks for some reason. Certainly moving my AP around to improve the signal and 10.10.2 might have contributed to improve things for me.

I've also tried to understand the impact of AWDL0, but as far as I can tell, it's not making any noticeable difference anymore although I'm still testing that part.

I noticed in Mavericks that when My Wi-Fi TX Rate reaches 450 Mbps in pretty much stays (hangs) there. 10.10.2 seems more sensitive with the Tx Rate, not sure of accuracy. Ookla's on line Speed Test seems to show what I need to know. My Router's built in Speed Test seems flaky at times. Placement of my Router helped as well, using Ethernet only if needed, otherwise, I use my 5 GHz all the way on the Mac.

Opened up a brand new rMBP 13" last night, I believe I experienced the intermittenent unexplained wifi inconsistencies while transferring files and downloading software/updates over wifi. Really annoying. Speeds can be 1MBps and drop to 5-10KBps for the transfers and downloads while surfing is largely unaffected.

Migration Assistant was totally unusable as it would just hang there. Had to hard reboot. What a joke.

Downloading Xcode was another pain.

Given that it was a current edition brand new system that just shipped from Shanghai plant to my home, fresh out of DHL delivery - not a very pleasant experience for a company with so much spare cash lying around. I would hope they put more engineers and QA onto this problem and some heads should roll.

I'll prob try out some of the tricks recommended here and grab 10.10.2. But just wanted to let you guys know that a brand new mac aint gonna solve your problems.

My workaround (after going through everything relevant here in Apple Support Communities and finally ending up with the Broadcom BCM1360 design documentation ) for the Wi-Fi performance drop while Bluetooth is on (I won't scan through the whole thread, but someone did the same with some other range-extender):

I got a D-Link DAP-1660 Wireless AC Range Extender (My MBA had a relatively weak signal strength on the first place from the AP in my usual location, so either a second AP or a range-extender was needed anyhow)...Uplink is set to 2.4GHz 802.11n between the AP and the range-extender... Connection to the range-extender is 5GHz 802.11ac ...

I'd finished thorough testing testing and I can confirm that the effect of the bluetooth connections are negligible (within the measurement tolerance limits of the test . Connection is rock-solid (no speed-drops, no connection drops, automatic re-join on wake-up and reboot...so overall ZERO problems) with or without bluetooth devices connected with or without anything else hooked up to the range-extender.

Switching over to 5GHz 802.11ac resolves all the Wi-Fi issues with bluetooth coexistence in my case.

Overall it might easily be an implementation problem/issue by Apple (AWDL or some other "non-public" new functionality in Yosemite) that just gets the wi-fi cards close to their operational limits which results in connection/speed-drops with bluetooth on connecting on the 2.4GHz range in some cases. That's why earlier OS X versions don't have this issue with the same hardware in those cases.

This is of course not a solution. This is just a workaround...

Akos G. Garai wrote:

 

 

 

Switching over to 5GHz 802.11ac resolves all the Wi-Fi issues with bluetooth coexistence in my case.

 

 

 

This is of course not a solution. This is just a workaround...

thanks for your solution provided !

i also discovered yesterday, that my wifi is 100% stable, when i turn off "bluetooth" on my mbair.

with active bluethooth, i got random wifi drops and disconnects, the whole night and day.

beginners question please: switching over to 5Ghz is done in the router software (non-apple router) , yes?

i am afraid, i cannot switch over to "5GHz 802.11ac" as i am working in a co-workers office, where i cannot access our router and change anything inside.

so my current solution would be to turn off bluetooth, but then i cannot use my apple wireless mouse.

Hey Peppermint,

I was cheeky...So plugged in the range extender next to my desk in the office and connected that to the AP (WPA2 PSK Personal w. AES on 2.4GHz) instead of connecting to the AP directly. I'd then set-up the extender for the 5GHz range and connect to that instead of the AP...

Of corse you can not do this if your company uses Radius or MAC authentication or anything else other than WPA2 PSK...

delete message

You are right !

My SSID hidden

So i try with SSID no hidden and everything back immediatly to normal at start up, fast wifi autentification and the same after wake up from sleep !

how is it possible ??

I alway have use hidden SSID ...

Another update - my issues have sort of returned after updating to 10.10.2.

I updated my Yosemite Mac's (iMac, MBA11", MBA 13") and the iMac and MBA11" were fine with no issues.

However when updating the brand new MBA 13" (which had it's severe wi-fi issues solved with a replacement wireless card), the issues have sort of returned.

After rebooting after the update, 2 error messages came up which said that Garageband & iMovie weren't compatiblle with Yosemite and I should contact the developer .

The only way I could solve this was to delete the 2 apps, restart and redownload them. Any work I had in them (not much) is gone.

And the wireless issues have returned, albeit not as severely. Upon waking from sleep the wireless is either switched off, takes 5-10 seconds to connect or isn't connected at all, there's no issues connecting, it's just not 'instantly connected' like the other Mac's, so at least the MBA isn't a brick like before.

Does Apple really know what they are doing? It seems not - how can an update completely balk 2 of their apps, and make the wireless issues return?

Same here. So much for a high-end laptop!!

Turning off the Bluetooth doesn't actually solve the problem. It may or may not connect for a few minutes before the WiFi connection freezes.

It feels like Apple did not do any sort of QA on these WiFi "fixes". It's extremely disappointing.

There is a lot of techi talk going on here ......

I've today received an e-mail from people claiming to be Apple engineering support, asking me to do things with my Mac which I'm simply not wanting to do, or indeed capable of. Could be a hoax for all I know.

I paid top dollar for a high-end machine so as not to have any problems that most people experience with Windows based PCs. As explained before, I'm not into finding out how things work. I just want to switch on and use. I feel strongly that at £999 spent, it's the least I should expect.

My machine is currently sitting idle. I can't use it without internet connectivity. It's pointless. I'm out of my return period and I have a trip scheduled to the shop where I made the purchase this weekend where I know things won't go well.

Disappointed is a mild description of how I'm feeling.

The machine I have is not working as advertised. I do not want something that is not fit for purpose. Will be interesting to see how all this pans out.

I got one of those also, and was unsure if it was real. I think they might get better response if the request came in thru a person's Apple ID account as a secure message.