Q: Dropping Wi FI Signal

I've spent the past few weeks collecting data from my SL MBP for a very helpful Apple network engineer. It's likely a bit too soon to say we've really identified the issue and fixed it, but everything we've found makes sense. The key change in SL is that it defaults to 802.11n. The iPhone and Leopard machines do not (or so I understand). With some wireless routers (including some of Apple's own judging by many of the posts to this thread and others) this seems to cause problems (1) due to a sensitivity to interference from other wireless networks in the vicinity, even much weaker signals, and (2) getting and holding an IP address from the DHCP server. Thus, selecting a channel as far remover from any others you pick up and setting the router to 802.11g only mode have a high probability of fixing the problem. (I know that are some posters for whom this did not work. The channel selection made an intolerable problem livable for me, and I just changed the wireless setting to avoid 802.11n who may eliminate problems altogether, albeit at the cost of having a slower wifi service.)

I think most long-term Apple customers would accept problems if they were informed what was going on - that Apple recognized there was a problem and were working on it - but their real error is only partly an engineering one and much more one of marketing and public relations. As a supplier of consumer products, their engineers have the responsibility of ensuring that their products work in the environments into whichj they are sold. Many people may have cheap routers, but the people with those routers are *Apple's customers*. Engineering 101 teaches that good engineering is about building products that their customer can use - hopefully with ease and without the need for specialist knowledge. Having dropped the ball on this one, Apple should come clean and tell their customers that they know about and are working on the issue, and (ii) make sure that all their telephone support staff and Genius support personnel in the Apple Stores are also aware of the issue. When a customer has a wireless router that is working fine with Windoes laptops and older Macs, it's simply unacceptable for Apple to say "The problem is your router." Sorry Apple, but in such a case, the problem is with you.

Hi,

I changed the channel of my router twice.

Afterwards, I opened a console window where I ran the command "ping www.lemonde.fr". At this point I had both my Wifi and my cable ethernet connections. I unplugged the ethernet cable and saw to my surprise that the traffic from the ping command continued. Then I tried to reload an apple.com page in my browser. This did not work, the browser could not find apple.com. So I thought that this time maybe my wifi connection was all right but not my DNS settings. So then I googled again a bit and found a posting which suggested to click on the "Assist me" button inside the Network preferences, then "Diagnostics" button. The Diagnostics found that I had wrong DNS settings for the WIFI and suggested to remove these DNS settings. Afterwards, my Wifi connection was working again. I am not sure whether the problem was the Wifi channel used by my router or the wrong DNS information which was cached together with my "Airport" connection.

My wifi connection seems slow though.

Regards,

Antoine

Yeh my internet randomly stops even with full signal. I have to turn off my airport and back on to temporary fix the issue. Happens a few times a day... not really a problem but annoying.

The point is: it's not just wireless. My MBP at home is on wireless with SL and it works perfectly. Never had a problem with it. My machine at work is hard-wired into a LAN and it CONSTANTLY drops the signal, not just to the internet, but to our local server and other machines. This is totally unacceptable and Apple must address it asap instead of screwing around with their new tablet!

Hamble, having followed this entire thread, and several others, this sounds like it is something very different. If your MBP works fine at home on your wireless but not when wired in to your office LAN, the issue is either your MBP's ethernet port or your office LAN. You can check your MBP's ethernet port by turning of the wireless in your MBP and plugging directly into your home router with a Cat-5 cable. If that works, then you know the MBP ethernet port is okay, and hence the problem is with your office LAN, and it needs to be checked. First thing to try would be to plug another machine into the ethernet socket you usually use at the office and see what happens. If that works fine, call in a network techie.

Apart from the possibility of a faulty ethernet port in your MBP, this doesn't sound like an Apple problem. (Guess it's time they had a break! ) Good luck.

Kind of a random thought here, but can anyone with this problem confirm that there are no BlueTooth signals flying about that the Mac might be picking up? (WiFi can certainly mess up the Mac's BT connections ... maybe it works both ways.)

I've just turned off the Bluetooth on my BMP. I'll see if the Wi-Fi is any more stable and get back to you in a few days. Good thought though as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth (I think) both work on 2.4Ghz, so it may have something to do with the problems. It's worth a try!

I have Bluetooth off and have had since I bought this laptop, and the Wifi dropouts therefore have no relationship to that.

I've turned off IP6 - that's had no effect.
I've dropped the speed on the wireless router, with no effect, and am now trying the different channels ... again with no effect yet.

The search for a simple solution continues ....

James

The Mac's Bluetooth being "off" is not the same as having no Bluetooth in the air. What I had in mind was no Blackberry, cellphone, or mp3 player broadcasting within range. Hard to know what your neighbors are up to, of course, but the range of these devices is not supposed to be all that great. On the other hand, things like baby monitors and wireless phones are notorious for messing with WiFi connections -- and those can broadcast quite a distance.
Not sure how to test for this stuff ... with a MacBook, I suppose you could try out different corners of the house. If you find a location where the problem goes away, I'd say it's 99% certain that interference is the culprit.

The only Bluetooth in my house is the Magic Mouse - I have tried turning it off. No help. I have tried disconnecting the power to the portable phones - did not help. The closest house that might have any of these things including a wireless router is two miles down a dirt road. I do not think extraneous signals have anything to do with it.

If you don't have interference and have turned off 802.11n on your router, then your issue is different from the one the Apple engineer thinks he identified in my case - I'll know for sure in a couple of weeks, since I've had runs of good connections for that long that ended in failure for no explicable reason, but everything seems okay so far. Intriguing (as well as frustrating).

I experienced similar dropping WiFi signals and I think I have fixed my issue.

At home, I have an Airport Extreme Base Station (Fast Ethernet) and an older, white Macbook. When SL came out, I upgraded the OS on the Macbook. There were no issues with the wifi connection. The AEBS was at firmware 7.3.2 (I previously updated it to 7.4.2 but my AppleTV had issues syncing content, streaming movies from the external, attached drive, etc., and my MB had trouble backing up via Time Machine. Reverting to 7.3.2 seemed to fix all the issues.)

When the OX 10.6.2 Combo update came out, I updated the MB. Still no issues with a dropping wifi connection. I also did the Airport Client Update 2009-002, again experienced no dropping wifi issues (as far as I remember). I also had a Windows laptop running WIndows 7 and had no issues with this computer.

I then went away to my parent's house for the holidays for a couple of weeks and bought a new MBP that started out with SL 10.6 (this MBP replaces my Windows laptop). While still away, I updated the MBP to 10.6.2 (via the Combo Update) and did the Airport Client Update 2009-002. At my parent's house, both the MB and MBP had no issues with a dropping wifi signal.

When I got home, the problems began for me. When I tried to wake either laptop from sleep, I would be unable to connect to my AEBS. In fact, my wife's iPhone would not be able to connect as well. I could see the router and would be prompted to enter my password, but no connection (connection timed out). The only way to resolve the issue would be to restart the AEBS. I tried making various configuration changes (all mentioned in previous posts...assigning a specific channel, fixed IP addresses, closed networks, etc.) to the AEBS but to no avail.

Finally, I reinstalled SL onto both the MBP and MP. I chose not to do the 10.6.2 Combo Update or the Airport Client Update. Both laptops are at 10.6. I also updated the AEBS to 7.4.1. Since these combined changes a couple weeks back, I have had no issues dropping a wifi signal. Everything seems to be back to normal (and I am having no issues with my AppleTV).

Knock on wood, so far several weeks with no wifi issues.

It's remarkable how very often, on this thread, people report having multiple computers using the router or base station. Having two Macs may double the chances of encountering this problem, but even allowing for that I think there's a significant correlation.

Troubleshooting is incredibly difficult when, as in your case, the two machines (and the two networks) work perfectly well in isolation from one another.

I've had the same disconnect and disassociation due to inactivity issues that everyone else has been having. I tried all the common recommendations (open, WPA, WPA2, static and DHCP addressing, different channels, disconnecting cordless phones, etc) to no avail. I took my MBP to work and tried it on two different open wireless network and never had a disconnect. So I assumed it was something at home.

I have a Netgear WNR2000v1 router and I remembered that I upgraded the firmware on my router around the same time I got my MBP (about 2 weeks ago). As a last resort, I downgraded the router firmware to an old version and it has appeared to fix my wireless disconnect issues.

I've had no disconnect issues as of yet, which has only been a day on the old firmware.

I'm not sure that this is a true fix or if I just got lucky, but you may look at downgrading your router firmware and see if that helps at all.

California99 - Strongly agree regarding the marketing/PR failure. This is the second serious usability issue I've had with Apple products - I also experienced the dead-keyboard issue on a MacBook that shipped with pre-installed 10.6 at release. In both cases, this and other boards were full of posts reporting a very specific, very obvious, very serious problem. In both cases, AppleCare support techs and Genius Bar folks appeared totally unaware of the issue. In neither case, as far as I'm aware, did Apple make any public statement that they were/are aware of the issue. In fact I'm not aware of Apple ever having publicly acknowledged a tech issue before issuing a fix. I'd love to be corrected.

By the way, I've been having this issue with an Airport base station and my 10.6.2 MB. Love that my Apple router can't speak to my Apple laptop, while my girlfriend's Vista(!) machine works like a charm. I'm going to try your suggested 802.11n/g fix tonight; fingers crossed, because nothing else has worked - except plugging my laptop into the wall. Which is sort of the opposite of the point. And knowing, now, that it's the laptop rather than the router means that - without a fix - my next laptop won't be a mac.

Oh, and thanks for all your posts on this issue in various threads. Very helpful in isolating and explaining the issue.