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WiFi slowdown (or cap) on Catalina 10.15.2 - but not with SafeBoot and iPhone

About two weeks ago I upgraded all the 7 Macs in our little film production company to the newest version of MacOS X Catalina, 10.15.2. From that moment on, something odd happened that we haven't been able to resolve to this day: the Macs were suddenly "capped" on the company WiFi, which is a Mesh3 created by 4 white Tenda Nova MW6 cubes.

All the Macs are capped to download only at speeds of 18-20Mbs, compared to the 65-70 normally available. However, all IOS and mobile devices do not have any problems and still achieve normal speed rates.

We have tried many different solutions but none until now has brought us closer to a solution. Now this morning in a desperate attempt, we tried booting one of the Macs into SafeMode (for those who don't know what SafeMode is, please look here) - and voilà, all problems gone, WiFi speed is perfect.

Should I just line up with the many others who are complaining to Apple and Tim Cook about the crappy Catalina OS and its updates - or does anybody have an idea how to resolve this strange problem?

MacBook Pro with Touch Bar

Posted on Jan 14, 2020 9:31 AM

32 replies

Jan 27, 2020 6:03 PM in response to Dirk van den Berg

I have the exact same problem on my

Macbook pro Late 2013 and i dont know what to do. I have tried a clean install on Catalina twice but always the same issue and my wifi speeds are capped at 18MB/s while before the update it was around 130MB/s and this is not just for the internet but it is also the same issue for my network shares and it has become intolerably slow to copy data to and from my network drives. Please help

Jan 28, 2020 7:55 AM in response to SohailAfghan

Hello SohailAfghan and thanks for the endorsement!

Yesterday (Jan 27, 2020) I set up two brand-new MacBook Pros - a 15inch i9 late 2019 and a 16inch i9 late 2019. Both machines came out of the box. Both machines have no problem when receiving internet connection via USB-C Ethernet adapter. But both machines show the exact same problem on WiFi: capped speeds that do not get higher than 15-18Mpbs (no "capping" with upload speeds), and both react "favorably" - meaning giving normally high speeds on WiFi - when I force-quit mDNSResponder.

Today (Jan 28, 2020) I brought both machines from the Austrian countryside (and the LTE network) to a superfast cable network in Berlin, Germany. The result is exactly the same: download speeds on WiFi are capped to 15-18Mbps on a network that achieves 250Mbps in download and 50Mbps in upload.

Both machines run on Catalina 10.15.2, and were setup from scratch (the 15'' with a clean install, the 16'' from its box).

Feb 21, 2020 2:37 PM in response to Dirk van den Berg

A quick update: after installing the Catalina 10.15.3 Combo Updater, the problem completely disappeared. I must therefore deduce that it had been entirely created by the previous version of macOS, 10.15.2.

dialabrain

Level 10

122,747 points

Jan 14, 2020 11:39 AM in response to Dirk van den Berg

You can post an EtreCheck report for analysis. Enable Full Disk Access.

http://etrecheck.com/

Paste in the report using the additional text icon under the reply window.

Jan 28, 2020 8:23 AM in response to Dirk van den Berg

I dont know maybe it has something to do with wifi drivers not present

LD150

Level 10

89,965 points

Jan 14, 2020 9:36 AM in response to Dirk van den Berg

Now don't get rude or you will not get any help.

Do you have antivirus or cleaner apps installed? That would do it.

dialabrain

Level 10

122,747 points

Jan 14, 2020 9:42 AM in response to Dirk van den Berg

Just to add to what peter said, if something works normally in Safe Mode but not in a normal boot, that means you have some third-party app(s) installed that is interfering with normal operations.

Jan 14, 2020 10:47 AM in response to dialabrain

Agreed. But I did a clean system install only days ago because of this annoying problem. And the only third-party software I did re-install on the new Catalina was LittleSnitch…

LD150

Level 10

89,965 points

Jan 14, 2020 2:22 PM in response to Dirk van den Berg

Clean my mac and similar apps are not recommended for background use. Suggest you uninstall after use if you have to use it.

Ditto little snitch IMO

Jan 15, 2020 4:53 AM in response to dialabrain

Thank you, I did that already ;-)

dialabrain

Level 10

122,747 points

Jan 15, 2020 4:53 AM in response to Dirk van den Berg

You're welcome.

Jan 15, 2020 5:02 AM in response to Dirk van den Berg

Hi , I have the same problem on my MBP mid 2014 ( 16 GB of Ram , 512 SSD ) . I hope that this problem will be solve with next update .

Jan 15, 2020 5:10 AM in response to Dirk van den Berg

Unistall faster as you can clean my mac ....

Jan 15, 2020 8:05 AM in response to Birkhoff92

I did. Had installed it only a week ago for the first time since I've always used Onyx and TinkerTool…

From the way you write I deduce that you don't recommend CMM; any specific reason for that?

dialabrain

Level 10

122,747 points

Jan 18, 2020 6:19 AM in response to Dirk van den Berg

FWIW, You are not supposed to post multiple times for the same issue. If you have further details to add you can do so in one post.

WiFi slowdown (or cap) on Catalina 10.15.2 - but not with SafeBoot and iPhone