Mac OS 10.15.6 update and new wifi drop problem

Some issue like this are caused by marginal or extremely busy "Network neighborhood".

Hold down the option key while you click the Wi-Fi icon an the menubar, and Readers can analyze the snapshot provided to give you additional insights.

Looks like this older one:

Transcribe or screenshot, and answer the additional question, "How many networks do you see?".

First, turn off the Hotspots on your iPad and phone. They appear to be directly competing with your Router for the limited spectrum available;

on each iDevice:

settings > Personal Hotspot > OFF

If any of those Printers are yours, they are set up for "instant Printing" from an iDevice, and should be set instead as Network printer on your Wi-Fi, and made available to any device connected to your Home Network, not just any device in range of the Printer. Again these devices are competing with your Router. you want them to be member of the Network hosted by your Router, not competitors.

You have connected using 802.11ac (Wi-Fi-5) on the 5Ghz band, on an 80 MegaHertz channel around channel 120. In the US, that is in the second, higher part of the 5GHz spectrum. You have a modern, capable Router.

Signal is an incredibly strong -43 dB, less noise at -95 dB yields signal-to-noise of 52, excellent. Number of Spatial Streams (NSS) of two is similar to saying using two antennas. MCS index 9 says you are sending 256 distinct data patterns per signaling interval, for a final speed of 867 M Bits/sec, truly excellent.

I think the issue here is that there are so many potential other Router-equivalents visible, and that some of them may be on your channel. If they start talking at the same time, they will throw you off the air.

There are tools in Wireless diagnostics, (available on the Option-Wi-Fi menu) such as SCAN that can be used to see what nominal channel these other devices are using:

(drag and drop on Preview to see larger}

but they do not tell the complete story, which is one of Spectrum use. There is a handy inexpensive Utility named WiFi explorer (has a free trial as well) that can show you Spectrum use:

(drag and drop on Preview to see larger)

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Hi, I recently updated to 10.15.6 on my 2016 MacBook pro 13" and have noticed the wifi pretty much flatlining. Done the usual restart and reinstalled the network connection, don't have any printers installed or anything like that. I can get a solid connection when I turn off/on the wifi connection but then pretty much becomes non-existent after that. Also restarted in safe mode and problems still remained

Had no issues like this before the update so I can only assume this is related?

BigMac_NZ--

that last poster's problems were not caused by software upgrades.

There is no pervasive set of complaints suggesting that this update is the cause of such complaints

I sincerely doubt yours are caused by they update either.

For best results for you, I suggest you start a new thread, so that Readers can clearly differentiate Your information from the Original Poster's information.

I would also ask that you post the Option-Wi-Fi snapshot there as well.

I'm having the same issue whereby my wireless drops intermittently. The wifi icon will scroll for about 3-10 seconds, but will then usually reconnect at that point. I have the latest 13-inch MacBook Air running Catalina 10.15.6, and have upgraded to 10.15.7 (the problem persists). I've tried all of the standard stuff on fix-it lists: set new location, reset PRAM and SMC, check country code, reconfig wifi, nuke preference files, etc; nothing works. Here are some salient facts:

1. It only happens when there is some load. I can reliably recreate the problem by running Zoom and 1-2 videos through YouTube. But even just running Zoom will eventually cause the problem, sometimes quickly. Websites with embedded video create it too.

2. My older laptop -- a mid-2013 MacBook Air running El Capitan (10.11.6) -- works completely fine. (Ironically, I bought the new laptop earlier this year figuring it would be better to teach over Zoom with, but it's the new one that's unusable and the old one is just fine.)

3. I recently stayed at an AirBnB and tried to recreate the problem on the network there. I failed to recreate it; all worked fine no matter how much load I put on.

4. No other computers or phones in my house are affected as far as I can tell, although sometimes my printer will blink when my laptop goes out, apparently briefly losing connection (but not always).

5. I've tried the router provided by my cable company and a new Linksys router; same problem.

6. I downloaded Wifi Explorer Lite as suggested earlier, and there is overlap with other networks, but not a lot (although I'm not completely sure how to analyze what I'm seeing).

I also notice that when the problem occurs, the process wifivelocityd starts using CPU. I'm not sure exactly what this process does, so I don't know if it's a cause or an effect. My older laptop doesn't have this process.

I wonder if the existence of other networks at home is the problem (per #3) above, although it would have to be something that doesn't bother my older Airbook. If it is, what might be the fix?

Sorry for the long post, but I'm at the end of my rope. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

PLEASE start a new thread, and copy and paste you query there. This one is already confusingly full of other people's problems, and Readers can not keep them straight to get you the help you deserve.

Also, On your new thread, please post the Option-Wi-Fi snapshot referenced above.

Version 10.15.7 of macOS fixes the issue

I am having the same problem. Were you able to resolve your issue?

For me this version is causing this issue.

Just did -- thanks.