Q: MacBook Pro constantly losing wireless connectivity

How do you know that the majority do not have this problem? Have you conducted a random sample of MBP users? There are a variety of possible reasons why people might have problems and never complain on Apple Discussions. I for example didn't really get around to monitoring MBP posts until after I had already had mine for 2 and a half years.

There is no reason to go buy another router. It won't help. The problem is with the MBP only. You can't change the world of wireless networking just because one Apple product refuses to work properly.

I can't believe how well Apple can completely ignore it's customers. I love my Mac, but I am honestly beginning to feel about Apple like I use to with Microsoft. I think they've reached the point where they think there opinions are more important than their customers.

Hopefully they'll show I'm wrong but so far it's more than obvious.

glenn

All,
I share with you the Macbok Pro wireless connectivity issue. I believe that, if Apple wanted to listen to us, they are already doing it and secretely working on a solution whilst pretending that everything is working fine. Hence, there is not point in starting flames, while it is instead useful to share technical information, trying to find out about a workaround.

I use a Draytek 2820vn at home, firmware 3.2.0, in b+n and WEP 128 bit, and used a British Telecom "BT home hub" version 1.5 before. The way the problem looks on my MBP is the following: connectivity quality starts degenerating after about 1 minute from connection start, to the point to be completely unusable in a few minutes. I then turn Airport off and on, and start the cycle again. I usually monitor quality by pinging my access point (ping 192.168.1.1 in most cases) and seeing how long the ping takes (<2ms can be considered acceptable). When I interrupt the pinging, I get a statistics of the % of packets that have been lost.

I have always had the connectivity issue, but on two magical days of my life.

1) In the first case, I don't remember how it happened, it seemed just chance and lasted a couple of hours

2) In the second, it was just after stopping using DHCP on the MBP and forcing manual IP addresses and DNS in the network settings. That was my millionth attempt to do something strange in the settings and seeing if the connectivity problem could be avoided. Well, connectivity was perfect (0% packet loss, streaming music from the internet and video Skyping without issues) for at least 1.5 hours. Then, I put the laptop to sleep to have dinner, and when I got back to it the problem was there again. You can imagine how I felt.

Among the many tests I have done, I have:
- changed wifi channel on the access point (same effect as turning Airport off and on on the MBP)
- used no or different forms of wifi security
- used b only, g only, n only
- tried using the "long preamble" in b
- using DHCP or not
- resetted the thing on the MBB by rebooting while pressing CommandAlt+PR
- resetted the contents of KeyChain
- used non-public SSID names
- downgraded the wifi drivers to previous versions (replacing the IO80211Family.kext folder in /System/Library/Extensions with versions from the DVD and from a 10.5.2 Mac)
- used a "cold" MBP I have just booted, or a hot one after hours of use

None of these achieved anything. The "magical days" when things worked only demonstrated that it is a software issue, that is consistent with the findings of other forum users who have installed Windows on the MBP and had no problems with it.

At the moment, to trying not to die of frustration, I am getting a Quickertek "Nano" wifi USB dongle (one of the few with Leopard-specific drivers), hoping that it won't rely on the MacOS driver and will work nicely while waiting for Apple to wake up.

I don't want to surrender. I want my Macbook to work. I have paid every single quid of it. I deserve that.

Giacecco

P.S.
I have finally called Apple support, and they suggested me to change wifi channel hahaha!!! Then, I started explaining that I was not exactly a newbie, and described the series of tests I have done, and they hung up on me without saying a word.

Giacecco

Greetings,
Do you have router connectivity problems or is it that you are just losing your internet access?
I have switched off IPV6 under Network Settings/Advanced on my MBP. I have my Linksys router that does not support N draft set to G only with broadcasting SSID Disabled. I use MAC Filtering. I have changed from WEP to WPA Personal.
Since doing this I have had four full days with everything working spot on. No router drop offs, no internet drop offs, no networking problems.
Prior to these changes I had one kind of drop off or the other. Im no genius but I think it has to do with IPV6. 4 days later I have full bars and complete network and internet access, upon waking from sleep or cold booting.
Hope this is helpful.
Roberto

Message was edited by: RAA59

As a generality, I would think, that it is mainly people who have a problem who search Apple support for a solution.
If you tried my solution and it did not work, you have lost 10 minutes of your life, and I am sorry.

My solution is similar to other posts in this forum that have worked for others. If you contend that all MBP's have this problem you are wrong.
Diagnosing a Wifi problem without multiple routers and computers to isolate the problem is very difficult.

While AP Grapher shows my connection dropping every couple of seconds for an instant, I haven't really seen any issues with this. A ping to our ISP returns 45ms for a "wired" PC and my "wireless" MBP. I view streaming video, download files, etc. with no issues that appear to cause a loss of quality. I just upgraded from a Linksys WRT54GX to a WRT160N router. All settings were left to default. WPA2 security in place. It appears that my connection speed has increased from approx. 40 mbps to 70 mbps. My MBP is approx 30 ft. from the router going through several walls. My neighbor uses my WLAN with a very expensive, new Dell portable, is closer than my MBP and he is having issues galore with the WLAN. His old Dell laptop had no issues. I'm running the latest and greatest MAC software upgrades 10.5.5 now. I used to think this was a software issue but then why is my MBP not seeing all the issues described here (except for the dropping in AP Grapher)? I purchased my MBP in Dec 07 so it's almost a year old. I do still have that nasty first key ignored issue however. Good luck to all. I sincerely hope Apple is working on a fix for this obviously widespread problem.

I’ve had my MacBook Pro 17” 2.6 GHz for 5 months and NEVER had any Airport problems (so much for all the rants on inherent “design flaws”. Recently (last 2 weeks on a daily basis) I’ve encountered continued Internet disconnects (airport showing full 4 bars) but the internet connection simply disappears.

I tried lots of trouble shooting options (including re-installing the system software) - all to no avail. When I saw the recommend to delete Real Player Download Manager from my Startup Items, I did just that and WHAM - never a problem again (5 days and counting). So, if you have Download Manager in your startup items - get rid of it - quick.

CVB

My apologies for straying from the matter at hand.

In case you were interested, I have had another of my "magical moments" in which wifi worked for a couple of hours and then died again.

This time it was just after another of my hundreds of attempts to make it work. The test was not new: the "Repair disk permissions" one, described several times by many other posts.

I repaired the permissions and found that Airport.app had wrong permissions. This should be irrelevant, because I have a Drytek access point and I have never used that application or AirPort access points. Well, fixed the permissions, rebooted, and I had great "n" wifi for two hours.

Then, I closed the lid, went downstairs, attached the Mac to the magsafe, open the lid, and the network was soon broken in the usual way.

I know that when I close the lid on battery power the Mac goes into suspend mode. So, what must have happened, is that wifi must have been stopped and started again. What happens when wifi is started?

What if I deleted the AirPort.app application?

G.

Does Airport show a lot of available networks at this location? If so, what could be happening is that when you lose the network connection by closing the lid, Airport looks for the next available network when the machine wakes. I had this problem briefly on my MBP, (so far, thank God) but it was a major unresolveable issue with my previous Thinkpad. Basically, you have to remove all the other networks from the list. Go to System Preferences, Network, Show: Airport, change the default from Automatic to Preferred Networks, and clear all the Network names except for the ones that you actually use, making sure that your home network is at the top of the list.

I have tried but that is not the problem. The MBP correctly finds the right network when it wakes up, but the connection is simply bad.

Hi Roberto, is your network still working fine? Turning off IPv6 is the very first thing I have done. I believe that the workaround to the original problem may be a combination of the things you have done.

I think this is just a sad reflection on Apple. I have been a true-blue Apple user since 1979 (yes, I'm that old - I'm now closer to 70 than 65) and this issue has been going on with the MBP for almost a year now and Apple won't even acknowledge that the problem exists and that they might be diligently slaving away to fix it. I do have to admit, however, that it is better. Last week while changing planes in San Francisco, I was able to log in with iPass and get my email and browse the internet (even though AP Grapher told me that I was getting less than 50% connectivity). Previously, it had difficulty even finding a Wi-Fi, let alone making a connection. Just a couple of weeks ago while up in Vermont at a hotel, my brother-in-law with his little 12" PowerBook G4 was able connect to the hotel system and even though I was sitting right next to him with my MBP, I would see the same Wi-Fi fleetingly but could never connect. My wife's PowerBook G4 never has a problem connecting and my daughter's MacBook never has a problem. But my top of the line MBP (with all bells and whistles) continues to struggle.

As much as I would like to buy an iPhone, when I read about the connectivity issues there I have decided not to drop another penny into Apple until all lights are green.

All,
I am in one of the magical moments. The network has been working fine for the last 4.5 hours. This is what apparently made it work this time:

1) I used iStumbler (freeware, download at http://www.istumbler.net/) to get an idea of the access points that are broadcasting in my neighbor

2) I took note of the strongest ones' channel numbers; in my case, the strongest neighbors were on channels 11, 6 and 11 again

3) the rationale then is: how do I get as far as possible from 11 and 6? of course, using channel 1; BUT channel 1 was already in use by some weaker access point somewhere, so I picked 2

4) I set 2 in my access point, set also the network to 'n' speed because I felt optimist, and there I am, almost 5 hours up and running now

The issue is: people should not normally go through all this process. And all my other laptops in the house can manage the potential "interference" from my neighbor without issues. What I must think, then, is that the problem is the Macbook Pro being not capable of managing interference successfully. Is it possible?

Let me know what you think,

Gianfranco