tomstephens89

Q: OSX Yosemite Wifi issues

Hi there,

 

I upgraded my Macbook Pro Retina 15" (mid 2014 revision) to OS X Yosemite last night and am now having issues when using my home WiFi connection. Whilst it connects to either the 5Ghz or 2.4Ghz network, it is basically unusable. Web pages take minutes to load (if they even load at all), dropbox doesn't sync because it can't get a connection and even trying to get to the router config page is extremely slow and hit/miss.

 

Tethering to my iPhone seems to work ok, as does using my home network via wired ethernet.

 

Are any others having problems with Yosemite? Wifi was working fine on Mavericks.

 

Tom

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Yosemite (10.10)

Posted on Oct 17, 2014 12:37 AM

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Q: OSX Yosemite Wifi issues

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  • by wombat2k,

    wombat2k wombat2k Sep 30, 2015 7:10 PM in response to Koandco
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Sep 30, 2015 7:10 PM in response to Koandco

    Just edited my previous post to clarify. You actually have to enable the functionality to prevent your Mac from going to sleep when the display is off.

  • by cairoli91,

    cairoli91 cairoli91 Oct 1, 2015 7:56 AM in response to tomstephens89
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 1, 2015 7:56 AM in response to tomstephens89

    Just finished upgrading to El Capitan annnnnnnd no fix. For about a minute I thought I might finally have working wifi again but then it dropped and went back to a completely dead wifi signal just like yosemite. Guess I have to give up and take it to a Genius Bar and have them suggest all the things I've already done and see if I can get some sort of fix because its been 3 months without any wifi and a year without stable wifi.

  • by thinkSantosh,

    thinkSantosh thinkSantosh Oct 1, 2015 7:00 PM in response to steve626
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 1, 2015 7:00 PM in response to steve626

    After performing a clean install of El Capitan on both (early 2015, late 2011) my Macbook wifi connections are stable. I've observed them for over a week and the earlier symptoms are no longer present (wifi connection stays strong but no connectivity). On completing the clean install, I took a comprehensive time machine snapshot. Now I'm only restoring data back to the new machines.

     

    There's no way to be sure if this will work for others and is obviously a lossy step. Makes me think that an application install may have upset TCP parameters. Can't be sure.

  • by steve626,

    steve626 steve626 Oct 2, 2015 9:16 PM in response to thinkSantosh
    Level 4 (1,551 points)
    Oct 2, 2015 9:16 PM in response to thinkSantosh

    thinkSantosh wrote:

     

    After performing a clean install of El Capitan on both (early 2015, late 2011) my Macbook wifi connections are stable. I've observed them for over a week and the earlier symptoms are no longer present (wifi connection stays strong but no connectivity). On completing the clean install, I took a comprehensive time machine snapshot. Now I'm only restoring data back to the new machines.

     

    There's no way to be sure if this will work for others and is obviously a lossy step. Makes me think that an application install may have upset TCP parameters. Can't be sure.

    Glad to hear you figured it out! Sounds like some software that had been installed conflicted, or an inherited setting caused a conflict, since your clean install worked.

     

    Another possibility is router settings (apparently not in your case, but others in this thread reported a "fix" having to do with their router).

     

    If it's not software, or a setting, and not the router, then I would suspect a hardware defect.

     

    The Apple computers are mass produced, and they are identical (although the production line can change over time, but any one configuration of hardware is produced in quantities of ~ millions). Hence the most likely user-unique source for problems would be user settings/software, or the router setup. And these things can work under 10.9 but fail under 10.10 or 10.11, since different protocols come into play with a new OS (sometimes).

     

    Some may report a "brand new" laptop has the WiFi problem. But the first thing that is done when one turns on a new laptop is to migrate settings and software from the older computer. That can migrate over something that can conflict, as your clean install showed. If someone actually purchases a new Apple router + laptop and right out of the box WiFi does not work before anything is migrated or installed -- well that could point to defective hardware, router setting or WiFi interference. All have been reported in this lengthy thread.

     

    My personal experience was a combination of two things (some years ago with an earlier OS): a congested RF environment (neighbors' access points) plus my router setting. The default router setting was to auto-select the WiFi channel and a wide channel bandwidth. I figured out that assigning a specific channel and narrowing the bandwidth (both settings on the router) eliminated all the frequent disconnects I had been seeing. This is not to say this can solve for the problems reported in this Discussions thread, but people need to look for their unique cause(s) as thinkSantosh did.

  • by fusionmaster,

    fusionmaster fusionmaster Oct 5, 2015 2:45 AM in response to steve626
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 5, 2015 2:45 AM in response to steve626

    Dear Steve,

    I agree the first look should always be to the individual environment. This can be the router as you say or even hardware faults. Hardware can also break. Unfortunately all these things get mixed up in this thread. For me I can say it is neither the obvious hardware (e.g. Wifi card - changed by Apple free of charge) nor the user environment, since I tested clean installs of Mavericks (no issues), Yosemite (issues with 5 GHz) and El Capitan up to GM (same as Yosemite). For me the fault seems to be connected to certain low channels in the 5 GHz band and also connection can be re-established by displaying the Wifi connection details, pointing to a software fault during optimisation the connection. This of course doesn't rule out any particular hardware issue and maybe the Bluetooth Flex Cable as chexicano has posted is the issue, though his problems seemed to be more severe than mine.

     

    Anyway, I think testing a clean install is always wise to see if the problem is related to the specific environment. You can do this on a 8 GB USB stick, not to go through all the trouble for nothing.

  • by sternd,

    sternd sternd Oct 6, 2015 8:36 PM in response to thinkSantosh
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Oct 6, 2015 8:36 PM in response to thinkSantosh

    I performed also a clean install on a test drive. With El Capitan the WIFI connection works as expected. But, when I activate Bluetooth the performance drops about 40%. The same with Yosemite 10.10.5. After 10 - 20 minutes, on Yosemite it drops almost a 100% and then I have to disconnect Bluetooth to re-establish the Internet connection. It's interesting, the WIFI symbol shows always a 100% of WIFI signal, but the bandwidth slows down dramatically.

     

    I have a MacBook Pro 15"  2014 802.11/ac.

     

    Is this a WIFI driver problem?

  • by sternd,

    sternd sternd Oct 7, 2015 8:00 AM in response to tomstephens89
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Oct 7, 2015 8:00 AM in response to tomstephens89

    Update:  After 15 minutes browsing the internet the bandwidth drops to 120 kbit/s. The mouse and keyboard are connected via Bluetooth. When I deactivate bluetooth the bandwidth returns to 19 Mbits/s. This is really annoying.

  • by Koandco,

    Koandco Koandco Oct 7, 2015 8:18 AM in response to sternd
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 7, 2015 8:18 AM in response to sternd

    I was expecting so much from El Capitan. It looked like it was going to be fine but if anything, my problems have worsened.

    If I knew that by chucking my Linksys router, and buying a mac router I would solve my problem, I would do it.

    I believe downgrading to Maverick is the only worthwhile alternative. I'm too frustrated. Time to do go back to Maverick.

  • by sternd,

    sternd sternd Oct 7, 2015 8:26 AM in response to sternd
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Oct 7, 2015 8:26 AM in response to sternd

    Update:  I noticed that's enough to turn off all Bluetooth devices to re-establish the internet bandwidth. Bluetooth can be activated as long you have no device connected. If I turn on the mouse or the keyboard the drop occurs again.

  • by sternd,

    sternd sternd Oct 7, 2015 8:29 AM in response to Koandco
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Oct 7, 2015 8:29 AM in response to Koandco

    Sure, but to install a new router cannot be the solution. I'm here in a hotel and have no chance to manipulate the router. So the problem is another. Perhaps the drivers. But it's sad that Apple has no solution for this problem.

  • by ambrooo,

    ambrooo ambrooo Oct 7, 2015 8:39 AM in response to tomstephens89
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 7, 2015 8:39 AM in response to tomstephens89

    Upgrading to El Capitan solved my problem.

  • by Orith,

    Orith Orith Oct 7, 2015 9:10 AM in response to Koandco
    Level 1 (1 points)
    Wireless
    Oct 7, 2015 9:10 AM in response to Koandco

    That's exactly what I did!

  • by sternd,

    sternd sternd Oct 7, 2015 9:12 AM in response to macwifi
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Oct 7, 2015 9:12 AM in response to macwifi

    Hi,

     

    A couple of  months later we know, that El capitan doesn't change nothing for some of us. Still the same issues with Wifi and perhaps the WiFi Drivers.

     

    Now we have the Broadcom BCM43xx 1.0 (7.21.94.25.1a3) drivers and nothing changed. I made a clean install of El Capitan and made some tests.

     

    If I surf the web for about 10-20 minutes with bluetooth devices connected the internet bandwidth drops to almost 100 kbits/s. When I turn off Bluetooth or all devices the bandwidth goes up to 18 Mbits/s. This game I can repeat as often as I want. So Apple, what's the problem. You got new drivers and nothing works. And please don't offer me to change the router settings. I have no access to a router in a hotel. This simply must work, especially for the "Premium" price we pay for Apple products. By the way this happens in all environments where I accessed the WiFi in combination with Bluetooth.

  • by sternd,

    sternd sternd Oct 7, 2015 9:13 AM in response to macwifi
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Oct 7, 2015 9:13 AM in response to macwifi

    Hi,

     

    A couple of  months later we know, that El capitan doesn't change nothing for some of us. Still the same issues with Wifi and perhaps the WiFi Drivers.

     

    Now we have the Broadcom BCM43xx 1.0 (7.21.94.25.1a3) drivers and nothing changed. I made a clean install of El Capitan and made some tests.

     

    If I surf the web for about 10-20 minutes with bluetooth devices connected the internet bandwidth drops to almost 100 kbits/s. When I turn off Bluetooth or all devices the bandwidth goes up to 18 Mbits/s. This game I can repeat as often as I want. So Apple, what's the problem. You got new drivers and nothing works. And please don't offer me to change the router settings. I have no access to a router in a hotel. This simply must work, especially for the "Premium" price we pay for Apple products. By the way this happens in all environments where I accessed the WiFi in combination with Bluetooth.

  • by steve626,

    steve626 steve626 Oct 7, 2015 4:34 PM in response to sternd
    Level 4 (1,551 points)
    Oct 7, 2015 4:34 PM in response to sternd

    sternd wrote:

     

    Update:  I noticed that's enough to turn off all Bluetooth devices to re-establish the internet bandwidth. Bluetooth can be activated as long you have no device connected. If I turn on the mouse or the keyboard the drop occurs again.

    That does sound like interference, ironically coming from the mouse and/or keyboard!

     

    I did some experiments with this and my Macbook Air with OS 10.10.5. At home, turning bluetooth on or off had no impact on the 60 mbps internet downlink signal we get  through a wireless router WRT160N which seems to go up to ~ 100+ Mbps as best I can determine informally with large file copies via wireless between different computers in the house.

     

    At work, with bluetooth off I see 300 Mbps up and down (both directions). With bluetooth on, if the wireless connection is at the 5GHz signal, I see no impacts. If the wireless access is at 2.4 GHz, then using the bluetooth mouse + keyboard seems to cut the downlink from ~300 to ~ 150 Mbps, although strangely enough the uplink remains at 300 Mbps. (I don't know the exact routers in place at work but I think they are Cisco units.)

     

    So I can see some minor-ish impact from two nearby bluetooth devices (mouse + keyboard) for one direction, but it's still pretty fast. It might be device independent, my mouse and keyboard using bluetooth are Apple devices.

     

    Finally, note this discussion of bluetooth interfering with WiFi

     

    http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/153009/bluetooth-and-wifi-interfering-w ith-one-another-since-yosemite

     

    I should also point out that (a) people have also reported bluetooth and WiFi interference issues with Mavericks

     

    (see http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/120512/workaround-for-mavericks-bluetoo th-wi-fi-interference )

     

    before Yosemite even came out; and (b) the first link above claims that discoveryd was a the culprit and that is now gone and thus the problem is supposedly fixed. But reports persist about this problem under Yosemite and El Capitan, so clearly there is more to this than just that.

     

    If the bluetooth devices are interfering, one could elect to simply stop using them -- but this seems wrong as it's an advertised capability, and wireless keyboards and mouse are convenient, especially with laptops. Or try the higher WiFi frequency (5 GHz), or try a different make of wireless mouse and keyboard.

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