AirPort turns off by itself and won't turn on without restart

I have exactly the same problem, I took my Mac to the genius bar and their solution was to reinstall the OS.

Seems like a lazy solution to me. Has anyone else been able to solve this mysterious issue. Problem only started about 3 weeks ago.

Really bloody annoying

Another thread suggested turning off the mac, and while turning it back on, hold the Command, Option, R and P key.

This supposedly resets your sleep settings, which may have been the culprit. Sleep settings might be shutting down the wireless to save power.

So far it seems to be stable now. Ill report back if it worked for me or not.

Same problem just started a few weeks ago, too. I tried the R & P - and it seems to have worked. DD

Try the solution mentioned below - it worked for me.

Yes This seemed to start for me too just as you describe after the 10.5.8 UPDATE and Snow 10.6.1 does not fix it.

I too did the P-ram reset mentioned and the SMC reset.
I too did a CLEAN Snow 10.6 install and no LOVE.

I have seen the airport go off-line while the MacBook was wide open and set for NEVER sleep.

Temperatures running fine. NEVER happened in over year and a half until 10.5.8.

Larry

I have got the same thing happening on a 2008 Mac Pro (8 core).

Started happening after installing 10.6.1 but I doubt this is purely OS related.. couldn't find any way to fix it thus far..

I've been struggling with this issue over the last year-- been to the Apple service dept twice. One new logic board and a couple new Airport Cards and here I am again. Headed back to Apple store this Friday (and also looking for recourse).

Let me first say what my suspicion is.. I think this is BOTH A HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE ISSUE. The airport card will stay healthy a few months after serviced by Apple, then after it happens once, it happens more frequently (exponentially so) until it happens immediately after startup.. then nothing.. ever. After the first "disappear", it takes anywhere from 2 days to a week for the issue to accelerate to it's bitter end.

What triggers it?.. 1)Time; seems to naturally happen after a few months with a new card. As I mentioned before the frequency accelerates(1 Day-> -> A Few hours -> A Few Minutes -> DEAD). THEN AFTER IT HAPPENS ONCE these will kill it.. 2)Picking up the machine with one hand on the left side. I kid you not. 3)Calibrating the Sudden Movement Sensor actually "disappeared" the card immediately.

Hardware issue? Software issue? I happen to believe it's the result of an unholy union between the two.

Don't bother telling me all the ways to fix it.. I'VE TRIED THEM ALL. Config file trashing, PRAM resets, network settings edits, total wipe & reinstall OS. Relief from those methods hints at a software issue and is temporary. Oh sure I can do a clean install, that will buy me a day and then it happens all over again. I wiped/reinstalled OS last night and a couple hours ago it happens again (hints at hardware issue). The most common thing I see in various forums about this issue are people who post that they "fixed it" with one of the mentioned remedies only to re-post later that the issue is back with a vengeance.

So, please people, don't post that you found the remedy when you've only given it a day or a few hours!

LoveMacLongTime got it right. I never had this problem on my old-gen MBP. But I have been having it since the first week that I bought my new one in February. I have tried every Mac whiz, Apple Genius, and witch doctor's proposed solutions, and all to no avail. I DID reinstall the OS. Twice. And the problem persists.

But, the problem alternates with another one that I'm having: the system will occasionally freeze. Yes, that's right. For no apparent reason, temp's normal and I'm just typing away on MS Word, it freezes. It has also been known for me to leave it sitting around on my desk or cooling station, only to come back from a meeting to have it frozen and fans roaring.

But the Airport issue and the freezing issue never happen at the same time. It is always either one or the other. And still, all I get from Apple is "re-install the OS again."

Until you experience this problem you have no idea the depth of frustration that can result. At times it is absolutely infuriating, and even to someone who has never bought anything but Mac, it is enough to make me want to sue their pants off.

I'm getting this same problem on a 5 day old new MacBook pro 15". However I found the "airport" utility.
/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Apple80211.framework/Versions/Current/Resource s/airport

You can turn on logging by using this command
sudo /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Apple80211.framework/Versions/Current/Resourc es/airport debug +AllUserLand +AllDriver +AllVendor +LogFile

Then any airport events will be logged. I happened to have a quick working and then failing error log after turning it on, and it turns out that the problem happens when the Airport receives a false power down message somehow. My network stopped working at 00:13:50

Tue Oct 20 23:29:24 <configd[14]> bsd_80211_eventcallback: LINK_QUALITY (en1)
Tue Oct 20 23:29:29 <configd[14]> bsd_80211_eventcallback: LINK_QUALITY (en1)
Tue Oct 20 23:29:41 <airportd[22]> _airportdTimerCallback: reached...done
Tue Oct 20 23:30:44 <configd[14]> bsd_80211_eventcallback: LINK_QUALITY (en1)
Tue Oct 20 23:30:49 <configd[14]> bsd_80211_eventcallback: LINK_QUALITY (en1)
Wed Oct 21 00:13:33 <configd[14]> _PMConnectionHandler: caps =
Wed Oct 21 00:13:33 <configd[14]> _wowEnabled: WoW is active on en1
Wed Oct 21 00:13:33 <configd[14]> _apAppleWoWCapable: AP on en1 does not support Apple sleep notifications
Wed Oct 21 00:13:33 <configd[14]> wowCheck: Setting maintenance SSID for en1 to 'LookBehindYou'
Wed Oct 21 00:13:50 <configd[14]> _PMConnectionHandler: caps = CPU Video Audio Net Disk
Wed Oct 21 00:13:50 <configd[14]> _PMConnectionHandler: Applying power pref for en1
Wed Oct 21 00:13:50 <airportd[980]> airportd started
Wed Oct 21 00:13:50 <airportd[980]> _APXMIGwakeupAirPortdServer: received 'DLIL callback'
Wed Oct 21 00:13:50 <airportd[980]> process dlilevent: Interface transitioning from down to up. Applying power pref (on).
Wed Oct 21 00:13:50 <configd[14]> psCallback: powerSource = AC Power
Wed Oct 21 00:13:50 <configd[14]> psCallback: set powersave disabled on en1
Wed Oct 21 00:13:50 <configd[14]> bsd_80211_eventcallback: LINK_CHANGED (en1)

And a lot more power messages at 00:13:50

Then "airport -I" said that "Airport: off" however the Network Utility said that Airport "Link Status: Active"

And iStat Menu showed some bytes going Out, but none coming in.

In my "All Messages" section of "Console.app" at the time of the breakdown I got these messages:

10/20/09 11:59:59 PM Alarm Clock[838] Updating menu items at day change
10/21/09 12:00:00 AM Alarm Clock[838] Updating menu items at day change
10/21/09 12:13:32 AM Alarm Clock[838] kIOMessageSystemWillSleep
10/21/09 12:13:33 AM [0x0-0xa00a].com.digitallity.alarmclock2[838] 2009-10-21 00:13:33.145 helper[975:903] Adding power event: 2009-10-21 05:00:00 -0700
10/21/09 12:13:33 AM kernel hibernate image path: /var/vm/sleepimage
10/21/09 12:13:33 AM kernel sizeof(IOHibernateImageHeader) == 512
10/21/09 12:13:33 AM kernel Opened file /var/vm/sleepimage, size 4294967296, partition base 0xc805000, maxio 400000
10/21/09 12:13:33 AM kernel hibernate image major 14, minor 2, blocksize 512, pollers 5
10/21/09 12:13:33 AM kernel hibernate allocpages flags 00000000, gobbling 0 pages
10/21/09 12:13:35 AM kernel NVEthernet::setLinkStatus - Valid but not Active
10/21/09 12:13:35 AM kernel vmmon: powerStateDidChange flags=0x4 (state 2)
10/21/09 12:13:35 AM kernel System SafeSleep
10/21/09 12:13:50 AM kernel hibernate page_listsetall start
10/21/09 12:13:50 AM kernel hibernate page_listsetall time: 169 ms
10/21/09 12:13:50 AM kernel pages 401556, wire 83533, act 64662, inact 732, spec 65, zf 80, throt 0, could discard act 38740 inact 62254 purgeable 3092 spec 148398
10/21/09 12:13:50 AM kernel hibernate page_listsetall found pageCount 149072
10/21/09 12:13:50 AM kernel IOHibernatePollerOpen, ml get_interruptsenabled 0
10/21/09 12:13:50 AM kernel IOHibernatePollerOpen(0)
10/21/09 12:13:50 AM kernel writing 147884 pages
10/21/09 12:13:50 AM kernel image1Size 110966272
10/21/09 12:13:50 AM kernel PMStats: Hibernate write took 5517 ms
10/21/09 12:13:50 AM kernel all time: 5517 ms, comp time: 832 ms, deco time: 0 ms,
10/21/09 12:13:50 AM kernel image 221455872, uncompressed 606031872 (147957), compressed 220188000 (36%), sum1 abeec56f, sum2 473ad370
10/21/09 12:13:50 AM kernel hibernate writeimage done(0)
10/21/09 12:13:50 AM kernel sleep
10/21/09 12:13:50 AM kernel Wake reason = EC LID0
10/21/09 12:13:50 AM kernel System Wake
10/21/09 12:13:50 AM kernel vmmon: powerStateDidChange flags=0x82 (state 4)
10/21/09 12:13:50 AM kernel Previous Sleep Cause: 5
10/21/09 12:13:50 AM kernel AirPort: Link Down on en1. Reason 4 (Disassociated due to inactivity).
Etc...

What's interesting is Alarm Clock is working fine doing its normal thing, and then it gets the system will sleep message. So it sets a power event like it normally does (and this works fine usually when I close the lid and Airport comes back up) but this time I didn't close the lid.

Also the last message of 00:13:35 says "System SafeSleep" so the OS is obviously sleeping

It says that "Wake reason = EC LID0", which sounds like it thinks the Lid (screen) was lifted. And it also says "Previous Sleep Cause: 5".

I wonder what 5 means?

Does anyone else with this issue get similar logs?

Has anyone figured this out? If so, would you please post?

I am dying with this problem too -


Joel

I have the exact same problem. Does anybody know a solution?

I went to the genius bar, they took it into repair. They replaced the airport card. I got it back yesterday...problem still persists.

It's exactly as lovemaclongtime described

It gets worse, it freezes, sudden movements with the movement sensor freezes it up. turn it on, it wont recognize a card.

The Apple Expert working on my case asked me to try this, and it has helped me (so far, 24 hours), maybe it will help you too.

1) Close all apps
2) Delete the /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/ folder
3) Restart

That folder has all your network settings inside it, so when it is missing on startup, OS X will rebuild the folder. You will then need to choose your network connection again, however your password is still stored in the keychain, so it should automatically connect to secure networks.

Please reply if this does or does not work for any of you.

lol this is what the genius did for me first. i restarted it and it worked....for 20 minutes. Then he's like yeah it's a hardware issue.

Now they are doing something I don't think any you have tried. My macbook is now in repair, its getting a whole new lid (moniter)and another airport card. The airport card is located near there and they think some of the wires in the monitor might be screwed up.

Please keep us up to date oliver... I just bought my macbookpro 1.5 weeks ago and this has happened since day 1. Now on Wednesday I finally called support and they did the pram and the other reset. This worked for me until today (sunday)...better than nothing. I called support again today and they had be delete the lib/pref/etc so itd "restart" network settings as we all know. This lasted all of 5 minutes. Too frustrated to call back, the support guy told me I'd need to bring it in. But seeing how all of you are saying that even after servicing it doesnt work... I'm not going in. I live 1.5 hrs from a mac store. I dont want to take my precious time and gas to go down just to have it not work. So I guess I'll live with constantly restarting until I hear its fixed. This replace moniter/airport card seems promising. Do keep us up to date please =)