Wifi connection dropping randomly

hey man, so I called my internet service provider last night and we troubleshooted the problem. while he said it could likely be an issue with some of the new macs, we tried a few things to solve the issue.

basically he split my wifi network into two frequencies, 2.4ghz and 5ghz. i tried connecting to each individually and it seems to be holding now on each one. he said it could have been the mac switching between the two frequencies or trying to choose one or the other. i haven’t used it much since then (going to try again today) but it seems promising. knock on wood!

if anything try that. you can actually split it yourself by going into your ip settings. if not just give your isp a call and see if they can do that for you.

hopefully apple still realizes this is an issue and can solve it in a patch in the future.

Hi there tor_b,

Thanks for reaching out to us with this trouble you're having with the Wi-Fi connection dropping on your MacBook Pro. We're happy to help you with this. There may be some wireless interference that could be causing this issue you're having. You can get the steps to check, and resolve that here:

Resolve Wi-Fi and Bluetooth issues caused by wireless interference

Let us know the outcome, and we can go from there.

Have a great day!

hey i'm having the exact same issue, did you figure out a solution?

this was happening to me a few weeks ago and then I upgraded to the next version of big sur and now problems since yesterday. now it's doing it all the time again.

If other Routers overlap spectrum with yours, their data and yours will collide, and yours will slow down to compensate.

Drag and drop on Preview to see larger.

The connections in the example above will ALL be slow and drop out frequently.

Yes, it DOES matter, and it is not just straight channel assignment, it is Spectrum use. Channels were numbered long before current standards were set, and each router's use engulfs multiple channels.

If you are in a busy area, such as an apartment building, it may not be your equipment, but an extremely busy "network neighborhood" that is causing you to have problems. a neighbor may have added or changed their Router settings, causing more traffic that competes with your equipment.

The exact channels assigned is not nearly as important as Network spectrum, because the channel numbers were assigned long ago, and modern Routers use from five to as many as 20 channels. This is a real world example of a busy "network neighborhood", where many users hare having trouble with their connections:

drag and drop on Preview to see larger.

Not that even in the 5GHz band, there are two routers fighting for the same spectrum.

yeah i'm contacting them now as well.

mine was working great the first week then i started to get drops every few minutes. ended up upgrading to 11.1 from 11.0 and it seemed to solve the problem for a few weeks.

then yesterday it started doing it again. same this morning. now i can't even get it to hold my wifi for more than 20 seconds. it works perfectly with my phone hotspot though. and i know the wifi is good, works on all my other devices.

i really hope it's something they can just patch. super frustrating. will let you know if i find anything

Yes they would -- IF they were all siting right next to each other, and they all had the same types of radio receivers and antennas inside, which iPhones (intended as a radio-operated device) does not.

¿Are they all the same model device, and all right next to each other?

I’m sure the the neighbourhood could play a role but at least for me I have had trouble even connecting at one point sitting right next to my router.

I feel like it should be working regardless of the other networks around if all my other devices work perfectly (including my old macbook air) in every spot of my house. And just to note there are only like 3 or 4 other networks that show up for me.

Today mine was literally unusable for a period as it would drop within seconds. I gave it some time and when I got back it held the connection for almost 2 hours before dropping again. Then after that back to the same dropping every few minutes.

Apple support seemed clueless about the issue and said it must be something with the router. Don’t know what to do at this point. Hopefully Apple gets word of this issue and can work on a patch asap.

I use the ISP router to provide wifi yes. not exactly sure how the airport wifi works but you might be able to still split the frequencies if you are experiencing the same problem. call your ISP if anything.

I generally smell a rat here. Until 2 weeks ago the system in the house was stable and I haven't moved the location of any devices or changed any firmware/settings, so why would I start fiddling with router settings that worked previously and still work about half of the time on a random basis?

you are using one of the new mac's right? if you are then it could be an issue with the mac's not being optimized properly to support the frequencies... likely something they can adjust in a patch. mine was working fine for a period as well.

it's completely up to you if you want to separate the frequencies, you can put them back together after it's not like you're going to break the router (it's basically like just tuning a radio to another station). but this has from what I can tell so far, fixed the issue for me.

depends how much of an issue this problem is for you. if you can find another solution though go for it!