Snow Leopard and wireless connection problems

Like many people on many threads of this site and many other sites (lots of many's there!), I have been experiencing major problems with wireless connections since upgrading my MBP to SL. Nothing I tried seemed to fix it. Having eliminated all the obvious causes - and a bunch I found on discussion sites that were not obvious to me - I finally decided it had to be interference from other wireless users in the neighborhood. (My MBP sees between 5 and 15 at any time.)

Why it affects only SL Macs I have no idea, but my old Leopard laptop, my iPhone, and my Dell Windows computer all connected fine even when my MBP said it wasn't connected to the Internet. So there is definitely a SL factor at play here. But as I say, I think it is connected with signal interference. (My MBP gets an IP address and onto the Internet flawlessly when I plug it into the router rather than go wireless.)

If this is right, the only "fix" I can think of is to manually set the router to a channel that minimizes interference. If you hold the OPTION key down when trackpad clicking on the wireless icon in the menu bar, you will see the channel you are on, and if you scroll down over each other network listed, it will (after a few seconds) display the channel that network is using. This way you can find a channel that nobody else, or at least the fewest others, is using. Pick that one.

It's not a real fix, of course. Only Apple can do that, since SL is a constant factor both for me and all those many many's I mentioned. But it may make life tolerable in the meantime. Good luck.

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.2)

Posted on Dec 5, 2009 10:47 PM

22 replies

california99 Author

Level 1

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Dec 11, 2009 8:15 AM in response to lurker412

It's REALLY curious that version upgrades seem to play a major role here, but in a seemingly haphazard way, with each upgrade being good for some users but disastrous for others. Looks like a classic case of interacting features in a complex system (the system in this case including all the wireless network providers around the world). Apple's problem may be it is trying to be too innovative and move ahead too fast.

Dec 11, 2009 2:36 PM in response to Paul Conaway

Hi,

I have an Airport Extreme base station and I have the same kind of problems since 10.6. I can notice some improvements with the recent Airport update but I still have some frequent disconnections. In the console I can see the following: "kernel AirPort: Link Down on en1. Reason 4 (Disassociated due to inactivity)." even while I'm using Safari and Mail. This is really annoying. I suspect a pb with the Airport Extreme base station because at the Office, I don't have pbs with a LinkSys router...

Cheers,

Xtoff

Rixa623

Level 1

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Dec 11, 2009 5:17 PM in response to Christophe THEVIGNOT

I am running Mac OS X version 10.6.2, Snow Leopard and it is getting to the point that I will soon be unable to use this computer to connect to the internet at all. It has been getting consistently worse and worse with safari unable to connect to servers such as google or yahoo. I see the blue question mark symbol instead of images on almost every page. My Quicktime and Flash are up to date. I tried putting in an Open DNS to no change in connectivity. I am not very technical with computers (not Mac ones anyway) and my Mac is about a year and a half old. I have never had his problem until I upgraded to Snow Leopard. The internet connection works fine, we have a PC running an MMO at this exact moment but I can't go more than two web pages without having to restart Safari. I read something earlier about checking the ISP but I don't know where to find this. >.< Any ideas for me to try?

california99 Author

Level 1

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Dec 11, 2009 5:31 PM in response to Rixa623

The ISP is just your internet service provider - AT&T, Comcast, or whatever. Using OpenDNS bypasses using their domain name server, but I doubt that will rectify your problem. I spent $80 or so on a new wireless router, which was faster than the old one anyway, but it did not resolve the problem for me, nor did buying a new cable modem (another $70 or thereabouts), but I may be benefiting from their higher speeds and reliability now my network connection seems to be working fine. The one thing I did that definitely had an effect was setting the router channel to one that no one else in my neighborhood was using. That coupled with the recent Airport update package seems to have gotten me back to pre-Snow Leopard performance (i.e., good). But those fixes seem not to work for others.

Dec 14, 2009 6:57 AM in response to california99

So, here is a quick update ...

Returned my Linksys N Router, spent an additional $10 and got a D-Link DIR628 ... it has a built in "Channel Scan" that seems to adjust your channel based on clarity that it detects.

Installed it yesterday, and lo-and-behold, zero connection issues so far. Now, my only problem is the Shareport Utility from D-Link not working correctly on my MBP, but really, this is a small issue and not as irritating as losing connectivity.

So, for me, it appears as if it was a Channel interference issue. I will see how this goes, but am fairly hopeful!

Thanks for all the info folks! 😉

Dec 14, 2009 12:01 PM in response to california99

california99 wrote:
Shobedobe, I've been using Macs constantly since 1987, and this recent wireless issue is the first time I've had any significant problems. That's what is so frustrating. Ease of use and reliability was always one of Apple's hallmarks. Since they will have texted SL extensively in their labs, the problem must surely be how SL interacts with all the network routers and ISPs it has to function in. But again, you (and other posters I've seen) are having the same problems with Leopard, and that is very different from my experience. Good luck.

I agree with Cali. I've been using macs in 1984 and have experienced the same things that he has.

One item I would like to mention here. There is a difference between not being able to get to the internet and dropping wireless(airport) connections. And the discussion seems to cover both interchangeably. If you have a strong Airport signal and can't load cnn.com for instance it is a network configuration issue. i.e. your DNS server listing isn't configured correctly or you are not getting your network settings correctly from your router. On the other hand if your wireless router signal keeps dropping then that is something else entirely. It is probably a problem with SL and Apple's internal software that controls the airport card in your computer.

For me it is the second issue. My Airport connection suddenly drops for no reason. I have an airport extreme base station (n capable) and a airport express (g capable) on my network. I have determined that there isn't a interference problem and the networks that I can see in my neighborhood are all on channel 6 and I am on channel 11. I have an iMac that is on 10.6.2 and it isn't have any problems and macbook that is on 10.5.8 that isn't having problems either. my MBP is the computer having problems and it happens when I'm stationary. Suddenly I have no connection.

california99 Author

Level 1

0 points

Dec 14, 2009 12:17 PM in response to Paul Conaway

1984. First generation user - Big Brother Superbowl ad and all that. Cool. Just to complete my experience with SL so Apple has a full picture: I've never lost a wireless connection while active online. It happened only if I was away from the keyboard for maybe half an hour. The real problem was after waking from sleep. Then it could be either no connection to the router or - far more commonly - good strong connection but no Internet connection. It was however wireless related, since I could always get onto the Internet if I plugged my MBP into the router ethernet port. But I've now got my system working acceptably well now (not 100%, took a couple of minutes to connect to my router this morning when I woke my laptop, but then was fine), I'm posting stuff now to try to help others, including Apple, figure out the underlying problem(s).

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Snow Leopard and wireless connection problems