MacBook Pro constantly losing wireless connectivity

It is really unacceptable. I am a computer programmer who has experience writing drivers, and I'd just give anything to have the source code of the IO80211Family.kext

Doing an ifconfig en1 debug adds nothing to the console log. How in the world is that possible? Are they so afraid that people will actually know where the problem is? I mean, why isn't there a way to make it verbose? I'm not asking for 7 different debug levels, just for a way to display messages like "oh, I dropped this packet cause I couldn't send it, it failed at the XXXX step of the protocol, dumped here: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX" or "trying to authenticate using XXX, sent credentials, waiting for handshake" or "hey, I get plenty of packets for another SSID on that channel".

I mean, if you can't fix it, let the community do it, we'll be very happy to loose 20 or 100 hours fixing it instead of not being able to use our MBP at all when there isn't an ethernet socket nearby.

Apple really are control freaks, they never stopped to be. When you control exactly which hardware your OS will run on, and it doesn't run perfectly, it's just an insult to the customers who paid. I bought a mac because I bought into the "BSD that will run majors apps" buzz, but now I really regret it. Next time, it'll be an OpenBSD laptop and that's it.

I agree with you that Apple has control over the hardware and software and therefore should deliver higher performing products that work flawlessly. I have experienced just this over my year and half of using a Mac. I also understand that to get this level of performance, I give up some flexibility…especially on the hardware side. Having typed that, I have had a couple of issues that I did not expect. For example, I would love to upgrade my graphics card in my Mac Pro but since it is a Gen 1 with PCI Express 1.0, I cannot move to the new cards. I’m stuck with the ATI 1900 that introduces artifacts on my screen when it runs a bit hot…but that is another thread.
Back on tract. Why doesn’t everyone who has connectivity issues drop Apple a line? If someone could please post the link so we can provide Apple with the appropriate feedback that would be great. I have seen it posted somewhere but can’t remember where. I think this is the best course of action since this isn’t an issue for most MBP users but it doesn’t seem significant enough that Apple engineers need to work on it.

Just one more voice in the fray. I have a Powerbook G4. Never a problem with connecting wifi. A couple of months ago my wife, seeing how nice my Mac is, bought an MBP. It came with a disk for leopard which she installed. Wifi worked great at first, our place, our neighbor's, wifi spots. Then it stopped working at our neighbor's and kicks her off intermittently at home. We can (from time to time skype to each other instantaneously, even when she cannot get on to the internet through safari or firefox. Several calls to apple gave no relief. They suggested the neighbor's router needed a firmware upgrade. He is a computer professional. He worked for a couple of hours with our MBP and his router and could not make anything work. Apple, if you are listening, you really need to fix this. I remember those ads a few Christmases ago when apple was showing how easy it was to get going on a mac compared to a PC. Hey Apple, let's get back to that attitude!
jhbt

I am having the same problem as everyone else. My MBP is a new Penryn (2.4GHz) and my wireless constantly loses connection or just stops responding in the middle of surfing pages. If I wait long enough, it starts working again, but what a pain!

I have just tried sitting my MacBook Pro next to my 2Wire Router (they are about 100cm apart). All seemed to well then I thought I would try Front Row and watch a movie trailer (this seems to cause drop outs nicely). I watched the Trailer for 21 and got to the end of it this time but once again it dropped out. So proximity and Interference are not the problem.

I am almost convinced now the MBP does not like older Routers 802.11 b/g, it seems to manage with light browsing, although I still get drop outs. However, it does not like streaming anything.

Looking at Wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11 the throughput and data rate are so different between 802.11g and 802.11n

Can anybody tell me:-

1. Is the Wireless Card in the New MacBook Pros 802.11n Draft 2.0?
2. Those having problems is your Router 802.11b/g with a New MacBook Pro?

OR

3. Older MacBook Pro (perhaps with an 802.11g card) but your router is new e.g. 802.11n?

I will have to Investigate what Router my Customer is using as I can connect to his no problem! Grrrr

Hi
I just tried downloading http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/timemachineandairportupdatesv10.html on the mbp. Well the problem is not fixed. I have some limited capability. I can see google, and even get a list from a seach request, but any click on one of the items in the list results in nothing. Also we cannot get to our mail (which we read at the isp site) we can get to the site but not access any mail. frustrating.

It can't be (or at least can't only be) bad system software/upgrades/hardware. or it would not have happened to 2 2007 mac laptops that I did 'erase and install' installs of leopard. maximum connection time to Apple Airport extreme = 5 seconds. Back to Tiger after 4 months of waiting, 2 solid connections. etc etc etc it bores me just typing about it...

certainly the wireless 'n' apple interface appears to be horse-sh*t. Although after going back t Tiger my connections were sound once again. The speed of the wireless transfers was still as poor as before (to do with the firmware in the AEBS) something I gather ma have been corrected now (1 year too late). I now have a Belkin router outputting a signal at half the speed and it's still more that twice as fast as the AEBS and doesn't suddenly turn off a couple of times a week.

Bottom line we should boycott future products till the ones we have actually work. I don't want a Time capsule. I bought a 1TB network drive and plugged it into the router. I took leopard off all 5 machines. I won't be buying a mac pro as planned this year unless I can get one with Tiger. I won't be buying logic Studio 8, version 7 gave me kernel panics on a clean installed leopard system so I don't see why they should get money out of me for Logic 8 when my entire system was crippled when I needed it the most (I went into hospital for major spinal surgery in December a few weeks after I did all the leopard builds, and when I got back bed ridden nothing worked when I tried to use it beyond the superficial level) Apple TV has only worked with certain random versions of iTunes, certain versions it just refuses to connect to and dissapears. certain versions you have to disconnect, reboot, and reconnect, every time you want to watch a film etc etc etc...

So I think it is entirely justified to take a machine back with these wireless problems and wait for a version of leopard that works. or (as I will be doing when I need a mac pro) hunting around the internet for the latest tiger model I can find. The last thing to go will be my Apple TV. Then I will be free of this flaky junk apple networking products that under perform and are overpriced.

My MBP seems to be fixed with the new firmware. How about you. Finally after months of frustration Rocket Fast Internet.

I have a macbook pro 17' 2.33 ghz - approx 1.5 yrs old.

Over the last few days my wireless connectivity has been dropping constantly. I have tried MBP with airport express system and airport extreme system and same proble. I have been onto internet cable provider and ruled out their modem as a problem

Has anyone else developed this problem in last few days?

Thoughts/questions:
Is it a firmware update problem?

or could it be that my internal airport card is faulty given dropout with both Airport express and Airport extreme routers?

Many thanks for any help
Johnny

It seems to be fixed now with the new updates. Before the updates, I had to turn off N-mode on my Linksys WRT310N router to keep my wireless connection. Yesterday I installed the new EFI update and the Airport Extreme update. After completing the update, I turned the N-mode back on at the router, put the computer to sleep, waited a few minutes, then woke it up and it kept my connection to the internet. Put it to sleep last night...woke it up this morning...same thing...I was on the network and internet with no problems.

muddr,

new firmware<<</div>

What new firmware are you referring to? I just did a 'software update' check and it says I'm up to date (i.e., there is no new firmware update for my MBP)

what firmware version are you at?

Johnny,
If you look through this thread (and others like it dealing with the same connectivity issue) you will notice that it is a problem only with the MBP and, apparently, Leopard 10.5.x. (does not happen with the MacBook, with iMac, etc). Ironically, if you run Windows on the same machine using the Wi-Fi connections, it works great. Also, the hardwire Ethernet connection works great. It is just the Wi-Fi that has an issue (serious issue for most). When you connect, you make a connection but then the connection drops (just for a few seconds), then it reconnects, then it drops, then it reconnects (got the picture?). Apple has remained absolutely silent on the issue (which has been going on for about three months now). The problem appears to affect all versions of the MBP (but a few people have reported that they have no similar problems - so not ALL MBPs).

Many have offered many 'work arounds' but none appear to be a final solution - and work arounds are not the answer for premier product like the MBP.

In the meantime, hook up the hardwire (or run your MBP under Windows)....

Had same problem for the past 2 months ever since I installed 10.5.2. Constant dropping of network signal. Switched back to hardwire until appropriate fix came along. New firmware update (yesterday) seems to have solved the problem with wireless connectivity for me anyways. Its a simple install and I hope it does the trick. Good Luck.

I have noticed the intermittency problem on my Windows XP partition as well. For me it appears to happen only with MBP wireless N (I run N only at 5 gighz); wireless G (which I run in parallel with my old Linksys router) appears to work fine on both MBP OSX side and WIN XP. It would seem that the issue is with the MBP wireless N implementation.