Q: MacBook Pro constantly losing wireless connectivity

As far as I can remember it, I've had the problems since autumn 2009, with a MBP that was the las model before the uniboddy. Leopard.

I thought the Airport Express was the culprit, and since I had AppleCare I had a workshop checking it when it wasn't working in my house. But they found no problems, which meant the AppleCare didn't cover the investigation…

Dear Apple Support Communities Moderators,

I don't understand how you can read all of these posts to make sure no rules are broken yet not provide any guidance as to how this problem gets fixed.  This is my 2nd Macbook Pro and I still have the same problem that everyone on this post and I am sure other posts are needing help with yet you stay silent.  Why?  We are dedicated Apple Computer users and have put up with all of the one time fixes from others who have done many hours of research yet you who are supposed to guide this post don't say a thing.  Is this the type of company / respone Steve Jobs would want to see or have in existence?  Am I so nieve to think that Apple really cares about their products and those who use them?

Those who moderate this and other wireless issues should be ashamed of themselves for not standing up and stating what we all know.... There is a problem with our wi-fi software (because it works when Windows 7 is running) however we are not sure how to fix it.  I guess I am asking for too much transparency.  It is a shame that this company has chosen to stay quiet.  The time is coming when people won't stay patient much longer.

Because, among other things, these forums exist for users to support each other; official Apple support comes from AppleCare.

Then why does this problem exist?  I believe there are some great minds trying to find a solution to this problem however it still exists... even if you try what is being spelled out in detail as to what to do.  That being said, what is AppleCare's official position on randomly losing wireless connectivity?  From what I have been able to read they don't even acknowledge it as being a problem.

Well...I can confirm that using an Apple wireless router will not solve our woes.  I've been having these issues since 2009 and I thought an Airport Express would help my case.  Oh, sure, it worked beautifully for about six months, then I began having the exact same problems all over again.  The Apple store claimed there wasn't anything wrong with their router (of course), but replaced it dutifully anyway.  The issues still persisted.

I finally gave up and purchased a D-link DIR-655 after the holidays this year.  The performance was far superior to that of the AEX, and my problems were gone!  That is, until about two weeks ago...  My latency times (pinging) were off the charts (2000ms+), and I'd have frequent timeouts and lost packets.  I ran the network utility for 1000 pings and saw a staggering 22% packet loss and ping times ranging from 39ms to 19300ms.

This, along with the increasingly frequent disconnects, is simply not acceptable.

I have attempted every "solution" and supposed quick-fix to no avail.  It's curious to me how a company as large and successful as this can have so many issues with such a simple task.

Now here's the kicker...I have three MacBooks (my 2010 17" MBP, and two 2008 white MacBooks) and they are all suffering from this same issue.  The three iPhones, one iPad, three windows computers, two wireless printers, and PS3 are as happy as clams.

I'm a full time photographer and photo retoucher.  I use my MBP for a living.  This ongoing (and obviously denied) issue is ridiculous.  For now, I'll hang on to my $3000 internetless machine as it runs Photoshop just fine, and I'll do my browsing in bootcamp.  I can guarantee you, however, that my next business purchase will see my hard earned dollars going to Mr. Bill Gates.

PS - This tirade was written on my phone, as I can't currently connect to the Internet via my MBP *le sigh*

Well, my status as of now is that my Spring 2011 MBP is now working online beautifully. I had previously been coerced/forced/told to buy an Airport Extreme to make my MBP work since the "Macbook Pro is an advanced piece of technology and...." etc...

Didn't work. Actually. it DID work, but specific sites did NOT work. COuldn't access yahoo.com or apple.com, for example, but many others were perfect... then the Airport Extreme began to arise the same issues as before.

On my 4th and final visit to the Apple Store, they said, "let's just erase and do a reinstall" "I've done that al ready, three times, and all other OSes work fine, just not Lion." "we have a way to do a REAL full erase and install from an image file. takes only a few minutes"

Lo and behold, 15 mins later, my macbook was wiped, reinstalled with latest lion. I took it home and, now 3 days later, still running like a champ. I was reccomended NOT to re-install my apps via Time machine and just re-download and install them as new, but I could reinstall my User directory, and I did. Internet still works great, my network still works, and everything seems in harmony.  I just hope it keeps, but so far, It seems to just be a Lion issue caused by Upgrading to Lion.. maybe something to do with the recovery partition? who knows. I"m just happy it works.

See my post,

I feel your pain. 

<Email Edited by Host>

Hi!  I have a white iBook about six years old running the original Leopard that just started dropping my internet last week everytime it is inactive for about 5 -10 minutes.  So frustrating.  I am not a techy but did some searching on here and found your post about iStumbler.  I just downloaded the 10.5 Leopard version from their site and am crossing my fingers!  Thanks for the tip!

So I just shut down my Safari and brought it up again.  It worked!!  Woohoo!  Taking off for a few hours and will try it when I get home.  I think iStumbler may have been the ticket.  Thanks Skylark!

Free at 

http://www.istumbler.net/

Thanks for iStmbler I was able to use the WIFI again .. many thanks jodymaryk

@madik99...glad it worked for you!  Unfortunately, I left for a few hours and it was back to how it was before.  Not sure if I am using the iStumbler right.  It loaded and comes up but doesn't appear to be anything I need to do to it.  Let me know if yours continues to work after you have left the internet if you would!  thanks!  Mary

My anger regarding this fubar knows no bounds. I have a 17" system running Snow Leopard and Win 7. Win 7 uses Airport to connect to my network without problems as does a linux portable, an old XP portable and another old mac, new iPad and another Win 7 machine. On snow leopard, Airport DOES NOT WORK in any way. Have tried everthing and nothing. iStmbler shows the airport connect but that's it. The only way I can connect is via Ethernet. 3K and I cannot bring this machine out and link to the web and Apple lacks the guts to fix it as it's an OS problem, not hardware. This totally ***** in every way possible as the machine itself is wonderful. Apple, get your act together and do a righteous firmware upgrade as I am convinced the upgrades I get vie Apple for SN caused this problem as the system worked flawlessly for 3 months and then it started crapping out until now, it's useless. I have used tech for almost 40 years so ignorance or pilot error is not an issue. Fix this dam thing now.

By the way, what does the self assigned IP address mean with Airp Port. This makes NO SENSE as it a blind alley leading to nowhere. I used the proper IP address for the machine but that does not work either. Seems the OS is setting up a spurious address AP locks into and dies. Any help on this may help out other folks in the same boat as I . TIA

Again, not tech savvy here, just noticing a few things.  When it disconnects me from the internet and I go through Network Diagnostics to sign back on, it has not been holding my password even though I am checking the box "Remember PS in chain" or whatever it says.  Also, it makes me do it twice!  The first time, it easier doesn't recognize the PW (yes, putting it in correctly) or cannot connect to internet.  I do the exact same thing again, and it tells me 'appears your internet is working correctly' and up it comes.  Weird.  Getting to be a pain the you know what to have to do this alot!  Wish it would just work right.  This just started recently for me, past two weeks after five years and doesn't affect my iTouch, iPad or Kindle ereader.

http://www.apple.com/feedback