macbook air airport disconnecting solution for lots of people.

I work for a company that is pretty much all PC based network. But when several employees obtained the Macbook Air they have had all sorts of problems connecting to the network wirelessly. If i get them setup with the Ethernet adapter and a wire they have no problems. but for some reason they can't connect to any wireless network here at the office.

Can anyone help me?

If it helps:

Type of wireless network: Wireless B / No security / No key or anything.

Note: All other Windows based laptops at the office can connect without problems.

If removing this Rea Player item from logins does it, that would be too funny. I do have that in mine and will try it. Stay tuned. . tj

I also have this issue with the MBA
I have been using macs for many years, have always had the latest machine, currently have a MacBook and a MacBook Air. I sit next to my wife at home, she uses the MB and I use the MBA. I have 1 or 2 bars, she has full reception. When we go to the cafe the same story. So this is an issue with MBA and it is embarrassing.
How can you call it an Air when all the other macs on the market work better "Air" than the MBA?
When is Apple going to do something about this!

Have you downloaded and installed the latest Airport Update? (It shows up in Software Update but not on the downloads page.)

At this moment, I am sitting in a local cafe connected with 5 bars on my MBA. Both my Titanium and my MBP would not connect here, due to thick adobe walls between the tables and the router in the kitchen.

my view -> the MBA has much better wifi reception than any of my previous Apple laptops.

Yes, I have updated the MBA with the latest SW update. It helped a bit (or seemed to) for one evening. Then it went back to having one bar. Right now I am writing this on my macbook which has full coverage, the MBA has one bar.
I hold that Apple has to do something about this. I´m calling in tomorrow about this. its ridiculous.

One issue with encrypted connections is some sort of corruption in the keychain.
- Turn off Airport.
- Use keychain access and delete the specific access keys, often you will find several for the same connection.
- Turn airport back on
- Connect, and reenter the key with the 'remember' box checked.
This has helped me on all types of Mac portables.

Specific to the MacBook Air. I ended up having a much more stable system after I was forced to freshly reinstall the system (I had tried the Leopard Alpha Seed as a developer, but found it to be too unstable for production work - not suprising given the warnings about that by Apple.)

I installed using the system CDs supplied (turning off all language support and most print drivers to preserve space on my small SSD), followed by the 10.5.5 combo installer. The system is ROCK stable, and connects flawlessly - better than after all the previous incremental updates,

The network in my home office has 802.11B, G, and N APs (long story), in this situation it is crucial the channels are NOT set to automatic, but set to nicely separated specific channels. Channel interference can cause connect issues that masquerade as password problems and poor connections despite seemingly high channel strength. this might also be an issue, if you are in a neighborhood with closely spaced networks. MacWireless.com has a small widget that shows the existing APs, their channels and strengths. This helps with defining the best approach.

Deleting the keychain worked for 2 seconds, and then it went right back to 1 bar.
I will not reinstall the SW on this machine for this problem. That is a BS troubleshooting step that Apple asks people to do when they cannot seem to find the solution. The fact is that this is an issue that seems to be hardware related, and I just need to get Apple to get me a new one.

I ended up having a much more stable system ...freshly reinstall the system

thank you for repeating this fact. When I did network support in a state office, 90% of problems were created by not standard software or by botched installs of standard software and updates (".. it was just spinning forever so I turned it off." "Um, how long is 'forever'?" "Like three minutes!")

and connects flawlessly - better than after all the previous incremental updates,

A mathematician posted an analysis I saw on another site: something about five million lines of code raised to the one hundredth power for each module interaction equals several trillion opportunities for something to go wrong thus requiring seventeen million hours of engineer time to test all possible points of failure raising the price of each operating system to seven thousand dollars per computer. I don't remember the exact math, but you get the point ...

I have high speed external USB and FW drives with all the OS install disks and all the updates and upgrades ready at my fingertips. I can do a full OS reinstall -including my apps and my data - in just under three hours. Since I waste more than three hours a day watching mindless drivel on TV, I don't mind the time to do the reinstall.

AND - as you noted - doing a full clean reinstall using the Combo Updaters solves almost all of my problems.

Since the nearest Apple store is full day and $40 worth of gas south of me, I always try a reinstall before I roll into the Apple store demanding they replace my hardware.

But, that's just me, and 26 years of playing with these magic boxes ... 😉

Channel interference can cause connect issues that masquerade as password problems and poor connections

Yep. (underline, bold, italic)

MacWireless.com has a small widget that shows the existing APs, their channels and strengths.

Dang. It does not show hidden networks. Do you know where I can find something similar that will at least show interference from hidden networks? I am not seeking to hack in, I just want to know how much traffic is on which channel ...

Thanks. 🙂

I will not reinstall the SW on this machine for this problem. That is a BS troubleshooting step ...

Yeah. I bought a new car once and they gave me all this BS about changing the oil and using certain octane gas and other stuff that was only meant to make more profit for their silly service center.

At 75,000 miles the entire engine blew up and fell out of the car. I had it towed back in there and demanded a new car!

Go for it! 😉

Just to add my 2Cents to this thread --

If you are having disconnect from airport problems, make sure you do not have Real Player 11 on your mac -- any of them that use airport = macbook, macbook air, macbook pro. The disconnects are a direct problem with Real Player and it's various settings.

Roll back to no newer than Real Player 10.1

Note that you might have downloaded realplayer somewhere along the way even if you don't use it. Check your applications for this program and delete or rollback.

This has been pretty widely discussed on all the mac forums, not just here but elsewhere.

If you don't have real player, then obviously your problem might lie elsewhere.

I have been reading these forums with bated breath hoping for a solution to this awful awful problem. My story either falls directly in line to experiences as others, or follows a close parallel. If you plan to surf the internet AND want your Superdrive at the same time, this problem MUST be solved!

AFTER having said that, it APPEARS that deleting Realplayer from my MBA has done the trick.

Like others who have tried various fixes only to lose connectivity within a few minutes or hours all this may change. But.....so far so good. There! I said it. Now I'll probably lose my internet connection within the next 5 minutes.

Gary

I have exactly the same problem on two different MacBook Air with bad Wireless connection. 50% of the time I can not connect to Wireless. I have turned off Bluetooth but no change. Apple needs to acknowledge thois problems. On they support hotline they just told me it is a bad wireless, but I also have it at the office and at home sometimes. It is not the Wireless network but this stupid MacBook Air and I am getting tired of it.

I've got this problem too - sometimes it's fine, sometimes it drops the connection every five minutes. It's not a fix, but it does pick up the connection again if you renew the DHCP lease when the MBA drops the connection.

Go to System preferences, open Network, click on Airport, then Advanced, then TCP/IP and click Renew DHCP lease - that should reconnect you to the router.

I don't know if anyone will find this helpful, but my Leopard Macbook suffers from the same issue... WPA encryption, will sometimes stay connected for a long time, sometimes for no time at all.
HOWEVER: When I'm using my Macbook in Vista (through bootcamp) the wireless stays connected until I disconnect it.

I am using a *BRAND NEW* D-Link router that I bought today (specifically to try and solve the problem of frequent disconnections)

I'll repeat--

Make sure you delete REALPLAYER 11 and rollback to no newer than 10.1 if you have it.

I see this problem in all variety of Macs in my office all day long -- and in every instance, deleting Realplayer did the trick.