Q: Dropping Wi FI Signal

So William, I just don't get what your main point is. On one hand, you go to great lengths to "explain" why it is just impossible to produce a wireless implementation that can be expected to work with virtually any router/firmeware. On the other hand, you say that if Apple's implementation isn't good enough, then use Windows under Boot Camp or buy a PC - problem solved forever. So are you admitting that, whoever provides it, Microsoft or hardware vendors, it is possible to provide a WiFi implementation that reliably works with pretty much all routers that are out there? Or are you claiming that PC users generally encounter just as much difficulty connecting as Apple user are experiencing?

To be more specific, I have an iMac that started experiencing these wireless dropouts when I upgraded from Tiger to Leopard. I have a PC laptop that continues to work fine with the same router. So what would be your diagnosis? That the router has buggy firmware and the wireless implementation in the PC just happens to have the same bugs so in this case they work great together? But I have taken my PC laptop other places and also connect fine. Does that mean everywhere I have gone, the routers have just happened to have the same bugs that matches the bugs in my PC? Because, according to you, it is not possible to code a wireless implementation so that it is tolerant of any deviations from standards.

Message was edited by: FrankInColorado

William Kucharski wrote:

maurizm wrote:
You seem to take it personally, kind of "defending" Apple,

It's not personal; I just hate speculation without reference to facts, or those who make wildly impractical demands.

If they choose to use products for which their are firmware fixes they have not applied or products which violate standards, no one can stop them.

Any Mac reasonably does work with any Wi-Fi device that does not have buggy firmware and that follows the standards properly.

William, is it an "impractical demand" that my MacBook would not drop Wifi signal every 5 minutes when connected to my home Wifi network? Are you saying that my router (and the router of every other affected user) is not complying with 802.11 standards or that the firmware is buggy?

Is it an "impractical demand" for those users who are using Apple Airport routers that the two should be able to inter-operate without issue?

This is why people think you are "defending" Apple on this issue. You'll admit that if this is Apple's problem, then it is up to them to fix it, however, you then turn around and point your finger at the other vendors and their non-compliance to standards.

Which of these scenarios is more likely:

1. Every Wifi router vendor (Apple, Linksys, 2Wire, NetGear, etc.) mentioned in this thread and others is not complying with 802.11 standards, while SL is strictly standards-compliant. These APs cause issues with some, but not all SL Macs.

2. There is an obscure bug within SL that affects some, but not all, Macs.



Perhaps we should all be investigating all the Macs that are working fine with all these buggy, non-compliant routers in order to solve this issue?

All of the users contributing to this thread looking for answers have one thing in common, and that is Snow Leopard.

If the issue is the first case above, you seem to think that Apple shouldn't be concerned that their product is potentially not interoperable with the majority of Wifi routers on the market?
I would suggest that regardless of where the fault lies, that it is in Apple's best interest to ensure that their product is compatible with as many other devices as possible, particularly its own.

If it is the second case, then they should be addressing the issue via a patch.

Mike

FrankInColorado wrote:
So William, I just don't get what your main point is. On one hand, you go to great lengths to "explain" why it is just impossible to produce a wireless implementation that can be expected to work with virtually any router/firmeware. On the other hand, you say that if Apple's implementation isn't good enough, then use Windows under Boot Camp or buy a PC - problem solved forever. So are you admitting that, whoever provides it, Microsoft or hardware vendors, it is possible to provide a WiFi implementation that reliably works with pretty much all routers that are out there? Or are you claiming that PC users generally encounter just as much difficulty connecting as Apple user are experiencing?

No.

I'm saying if Windows works for you with routers not following the standards, *use Windows*.

Further, if you need to get work done and Mac OS X won't let you but Windows does, *use Windows*.

If your issues are due to an Apple bug it will eventually get fixed, but if it's not, it likely won't.

As I said, Windows drivers are provided by hardware vendors themselves, so if your router uses some vendor-specific magic that breaks its ability to connect with all systems, like Linksys' UPnP often does, you're best off using Linksys' hardware and/or Linksys' drivers.

To be more specific, I have an iMac that started experiencing these wireless dropouts when I upgraded from Tiger to Leopard. I have a PC laptop that continues to work fine with the same router. So what would be your diagnosis? That the router has buggy firmware and the wireless implementation in the PC just happens to have the same bugs so in this case they work great together?

More like the Windows Wi-Fi driver may have been written specifically to interact with your router, and compatibility was a second thought. Alternatively, you obviously you should check to make sure that your router's manufacturer has not yet released updated firmware to fix its issues. As an example, one very popular brand of router used with AT&T DSL had issues with Macs starting with Leopard. The vendor eventually released a firmware fix, which they would not have done had the problem been Apple's fault.

But I have taken my PC laptop other places and also connect fine. Does that mean everywhere I have gone, the routers have just happened to have the same bugs that matches the bugs in my PC? Because, according to you, it is not possible to code a wireless implementation so that it is tolerant of any deviations from standards.

No, because I can take my Mac anywhere and have it work just fine as well.

But say, for example, one revision of firmware on one router (or more likely, the firmware for one brand's router line) has a bug such that it will not assign an IP address via DHCP to any host that does not request DHCP option 44, a list of WINS/NBNS servers. Since PC drivers are much more likely to be interested in WINS servers than Macs would be, PCs will generally work with the bug. Macs may not be interested in WINS servers and won't ask for the information, and thus will be denied an IP address due to the bug in the firmware.

So how does Apple deal with that? Slow down DHCP on every server it talks to because that one revision of firmware on one brand of router has a bug?

As I said, you can see where it gets very complex, very quickly.

ihsoy wrote:
William, is it an "impractical demand" that my MacBook would not drop Wifi signal every 5 minutes when connected to my home Wifi network? Are you saying that my router (and the router of every other affected user) is not complying with 802.11 standards or that the firmware is buggy?

That may or may not be the case. The point is, we don't know.

Is it an "impractical demand" for those users who are using Apple Airport routers that the two should be able to inter-operate without issue?

No. On the other hand, most owners do not have issues with them, and it's certainly possible those that do have issues may have environmental factors causing their problems (interference from other routers or other devices being most likely.) I'm not saying that is the issue, just that it's a possibility.

This is why people think you are "defending" Apple on this issue. You'll admit that if this is Apple's problem, then it is up to them to fix it, however, you then turn around and point your finger at the other vendors and their non-compliance to standards.

How many times do I have to repeat the point that if it turns out to be Apple's bug, they should and will fix it?

Perhaps we should all be investigating all the Macs that are working fine with all these buggy, non-compliant routers in order to solve this issue?

Yes - repeating myself again, this is why anyone experiencing these issues should contact AppleCare. AppleCare logs which machines are having issues, which OS, etc. and it provides data to Apple Engineering. Complaints here are more like spurious data points compared to the bulk data AppleCare can generate.

All of the users contributing to this thread looking for answers have one thing in common, and that is Snow Leopard.

That's not true. For example, the poster directly above yours said his iMac started suffering failures when he upgraded to Leopard from Tiger. Not *Snow Leopard*, Leopard.

If the issue is the first case above, you seem to think that Apple shouldn't be concerned that their product is potentially not interoperable with the majority of Wifi routers on the market?

When did I say Apple wasn't concerned? I specifically said the fact that people here have been contacted proves that they are.

What I said is if it's not their bug, the *router manufacturers* will likely need to fix it.

We don't know.

I would suggest that regardless of where the fault lies, that it is in Apple's best interest to ensure that their product is compatible with as many other devices as possible, particularly its own.

They do.

Some here seem to have this fantasy that Apple writes the software and ships it and waits for bug reports to come in in lieu of testing.

If you really think that, there are many people in Apple's test operations who'd like to have a chat with you.

If it is the second case, then they should be addressing the issue via a patch.

*I agree* and always have.

But at present, we don't know because the vast majority of users are not having issues, making it that much harder to track down just what's going on in cases where people are.

If you or anyone else with this issue has not contacted AppleCare about their issues, I ask how precisely would you expect Apple to have any opportunity to diagnose and either fix their bug or notify a manufacturer that they must?

Speaking of patches, why not just issue a firmware/software patch that rolls back/downgrades the networking to what it was in 10.5.x for those having problems?
It doesn't need to be pushed through with Software Update, and shouldn't be, since not everyone has the problem - it just needs to be posted to the downloads area and made available for those who need and/or choose to use it.
Problem solved.

Maddoktor2 wrote:
Speaking of patches, why not just issue a firmware/software patch that rolls back/downgrades the networking to what it was in 10.5.x for those having problems?

Apple doesn't issue "rollback" patches. They never have, likely never will.

If you want to "rollback" you can always reinstall Leopard from your Leopard retail or Software Restore disc, if your machine supports it.

You obviously can't do that if your machine shipped with Snow Leopard.

I've also mentioned some have sworn things worked in Leopard and have reinstalled Leopard, only to find they continue to have issues, so going back won't necessarily "fix" things.

But as always, you're welcome to try - Leopard is still supported (and if you have a PowerPC Mac, it's your only choice.)

I wasn't able to read every page in this extremely long discussion, but I recently purchased a new MacBook Pro a couple months ago and have experienced a dropped wireless connection since taking it out of the box. My wifi signal never drops (it's always 5 bars) but all of a sudden I'll be unable to browse to any websites until I disconnect and then reconnect the wireless connection.

Previously I had seen a couple people mention that changing their wireless security from WEP to WPA. I never tried this because I was already using WPA2 Personal. Just because I was out of ideas, I decided to try changing my wireless security setting on my Linksys router to WPA instead of WPA2. WPA uses TKIP encrypting whereas with WPA2 it defaults to TKIP and AES. Could be an issue with AES I guess? This was two days ago and since the change I have had zero disconnects (and my laptop is on all day for the most part). Hopefully I don't jinx it by posting this, but hopefully it helps someone else having this same issue.

Good luck

I used to have the same problem after upgrading to Snow Leopard, and tried a number of the suggestions posted in this forum to no avail.

I then found a post on the cnet Web site that suggested deleting the password keys for my wireless router in the Keychain Access utility, along with all the networks listed in Preferred Networks list in the Network section of the System Preferences utility.

http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-10331876-263.html

I followed the cnet advice, restarted, reentered the connection information, and have been rock solid ever since.

If all else fails, consider giving it a try.

This has been a huge headache for me, as well. I've done about a dozen things, including:
deleting network .plist files
deleting keychain entries to my wireless networks
changing the DNS servers to google's open DNS
deleting the parallels shared networking
turning off IPv6
reinstalling snow leopard (I was getting desperate!)
Updating the firmware on my router.
Changing the channel on my router.
Changing the router from BGN mixed, to G only, to N only.
Finally, I've unchecked "wake for network access" in system preferences > energy saver > power adapter.
(of course, restarting everything after each change)

All of those steps helped, for a while. Since changing the "wake for network access" setting, it's been perfect, but only about an hour, so we'll see how long it works.

My co-worker has the same model Macbook. We've used the two units side by side, performing the same tasks and his works fine while mine doesn't. I just want mine to work like his does. Is that really too much to ask? If Apple can't figure out what's wrong and repair it then replace it. Problem solved.

What is going on... still no fix. Its getting worse!
It works fine, then the loading speed goes really slow. I have to turn off airport and on to temporary fix it... have to do it like +20 times a day!

I found that changing the radio (router) signal from channel 1 to 7 has helped.

I've been following this and other threads getting really, really frustrated as my Internet connection had been dropping out more and more (okay for some sites whilst at the same time not okay for others). I'd tried everything people here and elsewhere had recommended, including upgrading to Snow Leopard which only seemed to make it worse.

But I think I may have found the solution..... And if other people have been having the problems for the same reason as me, we all might be embarrassed!

It turns out I had a typo in one of my DNS server addresses. My ISP had previously had a lot of issues with their DNS servers (documented on their support forums), so I'd added OpenDNS servers and Google's DNS servers, but I missed a digit out of one of the OpenDNS addresses. Now I've rectified this I've had no more issues (touch wood).

From my understanding this would be why the problem gets worse with Snow Leopard - SL uses all the DNS servers in your list rather than trying the first and then if that doesn't respond the second, and so on. So the fact that the wrong address server was about 3rd or 4th in my list hadn't previously made too many problems, but with SL it was constant and only 'fixed' by switching AirPort off and back on. When SL can't find a server it seems to just imagine you're not connected to the Internet rather than trying another from the list.

I'd urge everyone who is having problems to double and triple check their DNS addresses.

Would be interested to hear if anyone else has their issues fixed by this.

Andy

The real kicker is I'm having the same problems when using Airport Extreme and Airport Express. I really wish Apple would quit blaming other manufacturers for something that is happening even with their own equipment. Let's see what's next. Blame the ISP and the user because Apple never sells faulty equipment or buggy software.

Since when did apple blame anyone ???

Changing the channel number of router fixed problem n my case, from 1 to 7.