Q: MacBook Pro constantly losing wireless connectivity

Amazing thread, Apple should address this properly.

After an awful lot of trawling forums I finally found this useful thread.

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=518958

with tips that seem to of worked, basically clear your network settings, then clear passwords in keychain, then repair hard-drive permissions in disk utility, (mine seemed to fix about 300 airport problems).


or as the guy I now owe my thanks to put it said:

Name: "SouthernDoc"

I posted this in the other thread about this issue in the OS X forum.

This is what solved my problems with WiFi disconnecting randomly, not appearing after awakening, etc.

1. Open network preferences from your WiFi icon in the menu bar. Then click advanced. Delete the network that is giving you problems.

2. Open Keychain in the utilities folder of your hard drive. Find the passwords that are stored for your particular network and delete them. There may be multiple passwords for your network, so search carefully.

3. Repair permissions using the disk utility.

4. Reboot the computer.

5. Reenter your network data to log into the network.

This worked fixing my two computers and my parent's computer. All have been working well for a few weeks now thanks to this. I think the passwords somehow become corrupt with keychain because analyzing the logs of my AEBS, I could see that the computer was registering but the AEBS wasn't giving it access (I'm using WPA2 encryption).

Message was edited by: draper3000

draper3000 wrote:
Amazing thread, Apple should address this properly.

After an awful lot of trawling forums I finally found this useful thread.

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=518958

with tips that seem to of worked, basically clear your network settings, then clear passwords in keychain, then repair hard-drive permissions in disk utility, (mine seemed to fix about 300 airport problems).


or as the guy I now owe my thanks to put it said:

Name: "SouthernDoc"

I posted this in the other thread about this issue in the OS X forum.

This is what solved my problems with WiFi disconnecting randomly, not appearing after awakening, etc.

1. Open network preferences from your WiFi icon in the menu bar. Then click advanced. Delete the network that is giving you problems.

2. Open Keychain in the utilities folder of your hard drive. Find the passwords that are stored for your particular network and delete them. There may be multiple passwords for your network, so search carefully.

3. Repair permissions using the disk utility.

4. Reboot the computer.

5. Reenter your network data to log into the network.

This worked fixing my two computers and my parent's computer. All have been working well for a few weeks now thanks to this. I think the passwords somehow become corrupt with keychain because analyzing the logs of my AEBS, I could see that the computer was registering but the AEBS wasn't giving it access (I'm using WPA2 encryption).

Message was edited by: draper3000

Hi Draper3000,

I cam across this thread after posting on this one: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2533598&start=0&tstart=0

I tried the solution you provided (deleted my network info, deleted passwords in keychain, and repaired disk permissions), put the problem is very much still there. I'm really hoping Apple will take time to address this issue, as it is very incommoding.

Here is my original post:

"Hello everyone! This is my first post on this forum. I've been going through the posts for the past week and a half trying to find a solution to this very issue. I'm glad to learn that i'm not the only one, but also concerned that there seems to be no solution in sight.

I just bought my MBP in mid-October (new "mac-convert") and I have to say that the WiFi connection is driving me crazy!!! My 5 year-old sony vaio has no issue whatsoever, nor does the pc i assembled a couple of years ago. But this "premium" laptop keeps losing the connection randomly despite the bars being full... Had I still been within he 14 day period, I would have certainly returned it. I had totally forgotten what it was like to wait for a page to load or sometimes not load at all... I feel like I went back ten years :S"

Thought it would be good to re-post it here since this seems to be the main discussion on the issue.

Cheers!

1. Open network preferences from your WiFi icon in the menu bar. Then click advanced. Delete the network that is giving you problems.

2. Open Keychain in the utilities folder of your hard drive. Find the passwords that are stored for your particular network and delete them. There may be multiple passwords for your network, so search carefully.

3. Repair permissions using the disk utility.

4. Reboot the computer.

5. Reenter your network data to log into the network.

This worked fixing my two computers and my parent's computer. All have been working well for a few weeks now thanks to this. I think the passwords somehow become corrupt with keychain because analyzing the logs of my AEBS, I could see that the computer was registering but the AEBS wasn't giving it access (I'm using WPA2 encryption).

I could not connect at all to our Airport Extreme base station with my Macbook Pro, but this fixed the problem. Thanks.

However, I have an other problem. The signal strength is very weak even if I'm just a few meters away from the base station. And I get no signal at all if I move to an other room where our Mac Mini is connecting to the same network just fine. Any idea how to fix this?

Message was edited by: Fred_H

For those who have a Linksys WRT54 series router. An older firmware on these routers has a bug that makes your network connection drop randomly and then return again.
Make sure you are running the latest firmware (nasty bug).

This could as well be an advice for all routers (or other hardware), make sure you are running the latest official firmware.

Carl

Wow. I paid 2.2k for this 'pos' in July 2009

I thought it was the greatest thing since sliced bread -until I tried to watch a few streaming movies. I had noticed the problem (for a year now) but always wrote it off to something else...NOT MY golden laptop. NOW, I KNOW, I'm not crazy and this thing IS losing its connnection -all the time. It really started making me sick when my girlfriends $300 laptop keeps perfect connection and I get dropped every 4minutes. It gets in a cycle and that's it.. come back later.

I just purchased the Macbook Pro about a week and a half ago and was super excited to try it out (I previously have only had PCs)...then my internet started going in and out on my BRAND NEW computer, while my 3-year-old Dell had no issues with the connection.

Long story short, I found this forum and decided to try the 5-step fix that draper3000 posted. Since I'm totally new to Macs and how they work I wasn't sure how to "repair permissions using the disk utility", but after a quick Google search I saw that it was really simple, so I gave it a try. Didn't think it worked at first, but now it's been 2 days and I have had a consistent connection! I even went to Barnes and Noble to try another network (worked fine), and was worried that when I got back home it would go back to the unpredictable connection, but so far so good!

I definitely recommend trying the fix before calling Apple and spending all day on the phone!!

Thanks!!! I can now enjoy my new Mac : )

Just another "me too" post. I've been working on my 2 GHz Core Duo MacBook Pro for years and have had zero problems with Wi-fi connectivity--until now. I'm not sure if I can pinpoint the exact moment issues started popping up, but I've been dealing with constant connectivity issues since at least the 10.6.4 update. I don't know if the problem stem directly from that update, or if it's just a coincidence that it manifested since then (no changes have been made to my router or my Airport Express). My symptoms seem to be sporadic. I can surf for hours with no drops, and then suddenly, I'm losing connection to the Internet every few seconds (though not to any wireless routers--they typically show a strong signal in the menubar icon). I'm experiencing the same connectivity issue when I am connected to other Wi-fi setups like at our local coffee house (it actually seems worse there). Meanwhile, those around me (with Windows PCs and Macs) are staying connected no problem. The only way I can get back on is to "Turn AirPort Off" in the menubar and then "Turn AirPort On" and then I'm good to go--sometime indefinitely, sometimes for less than a minute and then I have to play the game all over again. So far I have tried all of the suggestions posted here, and some seem to work for awhile--but then it back to the same old, same old after a day or two.

I'm baffled by this issue since it doesn't happen all the time (but enough to be very annoying) and other than a few OS updates, I have not changed anything in my network setup, hardware setup, etc. I feel like I've gone from 60 mph to 0 mph on my MacBook Pro and am at my wits end what do now.

I don't know if I'm jumping the gun here. But ever since I downloaded the AirPort updates that were just posted, I've been up and running with no connectivity issues. Fingers crossed and here's to hoping!

I solved the problem by ordering and install Broadcom 802.11n Mini PCI-E Card Wireless Wi-Fi Airport in my Macbook 13" no issue after that!!

I registered on here just to add my name to the list aswell.

Brand new 2010 Macbook Pro 15"

I've only got a cheap and cheerful free O2 Router but my HP Laptop and the downstairs PC never dropped connection but this new MBP dropps every now and again. Not as regularly as some people seem to complain about but several times during the day Skype and MSN go offline and I see the Airport icon on the top bar shows its searching. To reconnect i just click on my wifi name again and it reconnects.

I tried the fix described earlier on this page about deleting the keychain entries etc but it didn't change anything.

Like the majority of people here... Slightly disappointed that such an expensive product is having such a basic issue. Im still within my 14 day return period and im seriously thinking about just giving it back now.

Just wanted to add another voice - Have the same problem with a new Macbook Pro. I have multiple sessions where I have to recycle the airport on/off to continue the connection, where my wife's toshiba laptop 5 feet away stays connected all the time....

Sorry if this seems obvious, and equally if it's been said in the 60-odd pages I admit to not having read...

I've had this problem and resolved it by running 'repair' with *Keychain First Aid*.

Symptoms: kept dropping from a known wireless without warning. If I selected that wireless from the drop down list by the airport fan, it would ask for the password (yet it MUST have known it as it's connected automatically every day for 3 years and I put it in..). yet, turning 'Airport Off' then 'Airport On' would reconnect without asking for pw.

On running Keychain First Aid, it returned a slew of errors on 'verify', including some stuff which appeared to include my wireless passwords. Repaired, then seemed OK.

Your mileage may vary, but easy and quick to do, and you get to do some housekeeping on your keychain too...

I had a very similar problem where my MacBook would continually drop the network connection from my Airport Extreme - every couple of minutes I would have to "turn Airport Off" then turn it back on to re-establish the network. None of the other systems in my house exhibited this problem (iMacs, iPhones and iPads).

Tried lots of stuff to rectify the situation with no luck. Finally I used Airport utility to log onto the Airport Extreme and noticed that I had a 2.4GHz network with the same name as a 5GHz network. I turned off the 5GHz network and (touch wood) have had no problems for over 24 hours.

Hope this helps,

Paul

I tried the Keychain fix, and it seems to have solved my problem - two days of continuous connection, which I've not had since September 2009 when I bought this Macbook Pro...

Thanks for the tip!!!

I pulled my $2000 MBP i7 out of the box yest and had the same issues. I changed the network configure IPv4 to "Using DHCP with manual address" about noon today. I set the same IP that my router assigned yest, and have not been disconnected since. Keep your fingers crossed.