Slow internet with macOS Monterey

Hey all!

I’ve fixed this issue before simply by creating a new network location, just takes a second:

How to use network locations on your Mac:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202480

In short:

Open System Preferences > Network.

On the top next to “Locations”, select the drop down menu, usually set to “Automatic”.

Select Edit Locations.

Click the “+” to add a location.

Give it a name, (Usually such as your location, Home, Office, etc. or just leave as Untitled).

Click Okay or Done.

Then in the bottom right, click “Apply”.

The network will disconnect for just a few seconds then re-connect.

Restart the Mac and try again.

This is a safe and quick troubleshooting step. If all is working fine, great, if you need to, you can just delete the previous network location by clicking the “-“ instead.

Otherwise, I do find that having security software installed can be an issue.

In particular in the same Network Preferences:

On the left column, if you have any type of “VPN” highlight it and click the “-“ below to remove it, then, again click “Apply” on the bottom right, restart and test.

This may not be the case for everyone, but worth a look, cheers.

I just upgraded to Monterey on an Intel iMac 2020. This is happening to me on a wired connections. Internet slows to a crawl. My other connected devices are maintaining high speeds. After rebooting the iMac its speeds up only to slow down a day or two later. Reboot seems to be the only thing that clears it. Switching to wireless and then back to wired doesn't seem to help. This needs to be address soon as it will caused a lot of IT tickets.

I have noticed very slow loading of Web pages with Safari on my M1 iMac running Monterey, some pages taking more than a minute to load. The loading progress bar suggests that it stops before the DNS is accessed. When I originally set up Monterey, I ticked the box that allowed system diagnostics to be sent to Apple. This may be my problem, since the Activity Monitor, when I run it during the wait to load Web pages, showed that the process kernel_task was dominating CPU time (in a fairly idle computer) and, interestingly dominating Network usage by sending Gigabytes of info to the Internet (my service is 12 Mb/s normally) while I was waiting for Safari to do its thing. I unchecked "Send diagnostics to Apple" in the Privacy System Preferences box and the problem was resolved. Sorry, Apple and developers! Apple might make an effort to understand kernel_task's fulminating OCD and to correct it in a future release.

Go to Settings > Security & Privacy. Click on the fourth tab (Privacy). Scroll down in the left box and find 'Analytics & Improvements'. Uncheck 'Share Mac Analytics'. You might have to unlock the lock on the bottom by entering your password. I also uncheck 'Improve Siri & Dictation' and 'Share with App Developers', just to be on the same side.

Hello 17001005,

Welcome to Apple Support Communities. We understand that your Internet speeds don’t seem to be as fast since updating to macOS Monterey. We are happy to help.

Please check for potential sources of wireless interference using the steps here: Resolve Wi-Fi and Bluetooth issues caused by wireless interference - Apple Support

Apple recommends these settings for your router: Recommended settings for Wi-Fi routers and access points - Apple Support

Let us know if you have further questions.

Take care.

Appears to be an issue with Monterey. I rolled back to Catalina on my early 2015 MacBook Pro, and I'm getting the usual fast speeds again https://discussions.apple.com/thread/253335091?answerId=256242908022#256242908022

Glad you're providing this evidence because it's pretty annoying to see people offer "solutions" that mean changing system settings that were already working fine before the Monterey update.

I did fill out a ticket reporting this performance issues under the "MacBook Pro" feedback page https://www.apple.com/feedback/macbookpro.html

But I haven't seen any acknowledgment from Apple on this though =(

I called Apple Support that recommended I tried:

How to reset the SMC of your Mac

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT201295

and/or

Reset NVRAM or PRAM

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT204063

I cannot say if this works for everybody. I seems to have worked on my computer. For now. I have absolutely no expert knowledge in these matters so I don't guarantee anything. I assume that someone at Apple will fix the problem eventually.

This resolved the issue for my case:

from:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/253335091?login=true

I was able to work this out with a senior technician at Apple (AFTER updating to 12.1 today).

After doing a million other steps the thing that got my speed back was by going to System Preferences > Network > Location, Edit Location > Hit the plus sign and add a location (I left it "untitled") then hit done.

It took a second for the ethernet/wifi to reconnect and turn green but when they did I ran my speed test which went from 0.09 mbps upload to 50.0 mbps

An interesting point was that the speed was normal (fast) in safe mode before I made these changes.

I hope this helps. Cheers.

Hey DoctorFiguresItOut! (Cool name by the way)!

That is really useful information!

That, to me, sounds like a permissions issue!

Either User permissions, or Disk Permissions.

If you are able to see if the same happens in another user account, or not, that may give you the answer!

If the problem does NOT happen in a new user account, I would probably repair the permissions of your user account:

Open System Preferences > Security and Privacy > Privacy > Full Disk Access.

Unlock, click the “+” and add Terminal (Which is in Applications > Utilities, you can also open it in Finder and drag it into that window to make sure it’s there and has a check next to it).

Next open Terminal from that location.

Copy, then paste this command and press Return afterwards:

diskutil resetUserPermissions / `id -u`

Terminal will let you know when the process has finished and there is no time indication but is usually pretty quick.

Once done, restart and test the issue.

Otherwise, if the same issue DOES happen in another user account, (And in Safe Mode for that matter), the disk permissions may need to be repaired:

How to repair a Mac disk with Disk Utility:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210898

The symptoms you provided brings that to mind, and others maybe experience similar symptoms with totally different causes, but with the symptoms you provided, that’s what comes to mind, then it’s worth a try if you’ve already tried the alternatives. Hope that helps!

I figured out my issue, in which the root culprit was a VPN service that i had already installed on my system; "Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client".

The above VPN application was already installed on Big Sur OS, and had never caused me issues until the Monterey OS update. I suspect there's a slight working change / compatibility issue between my installed VPN app and Monterey OS.

So what i noticed was, even though AnyConnect VPN wasn't actively connected via the app UI, the underlying VPN "Network Service" was still in a "Connected" state.

Also, i noticed the network service will frequently / regularly auto-connect itself (or re-install itself after removal of network service) in the background..

And so, when the VPN "Network Service" was in a "Connected" state, that's when it caused me local network issues, where i suspect it was overriding and interfering with my perfectly normal network settings.

So what i did to resolve my particular issue each time i experience local network issues on the machine, was the following:

1. Open System Preferences > Network
2. Observe the list of services installed on the left pane, and lookout for any VPN services which are "Connected" (also has a green dot icon to indicate connection status). Then, select the particular VPN services which are currently "Connected".
3. Now, on the right pane, there should be a button labelled "Disconnect", click on that.
4. Now refresh your browser / tab, and see whether the service disconnect action restored your network connection back to normal.

• Tip: There's also a checkbox labelled "Show VPN status in menu bar". If you check that, then you can easily disconnect the VPN service from the menu bar in future. It would save you some clicks.

• Tip: Also, you could try removing the VPN network service (or app) if you no longer need it, by selecting the VPN service on the left pane, and then selecting the minus "-" button located at the bottom of the left pane. However, i noticed that the network service reinstalls itself frequently (whack-a-mole...)

I've also attached an accompanying annotated screenshot which you may follow visually, below.

So for the rest of you, it may / may not be a VPN network service which is causing your issue, but some other connected service that could be interfering / overriding normal local network operations on your machine, which may just need to be disconnected instead 🤷🏻‍♂️

I had this issue. My M1 Mac shipped with Monterrey 12.1. I upgraded to 12.3.1 and created a new network location. Seems to have solved the issue. (knock on wood)

Use network locations on Mac - Apple Support

Following an old thread on Catalina, users found that force-quitting mDNSResponder (findable for me in the activity monitor right at the top on the network tab) completely restored their wifi speeds. I'm on a 2019 Intel MacBook Pro running Monterey 12.4, and this solution is working for me

Hi, I have observed the very same problem. Here are the config of my computer.

• MacBook Air 13 inch 2018.
• 1.6 GHz Dual Core i5
• Memory 16 Gb 2133 MHz LPDDR3

I went so far as to get the connection checked by the network provider.

Their PCs get full connection speed, i.e. 600Mbps.

The MacBook Air only gets between 130 and 200 Mbps, cf below.

I get the same problem, would I connect to Wifi or to Ethernet with a belkin Ethernet adaptor.

If I make the same test on my iPhone, iOs 15.5, the speed is 600Mbps.

How on earth can a MacOs update be that bad as to cut more than half of internet speed?

Please, Apple, this needs fixing'.

In my case the antivirus Cytomic EPDR required by my employer was the culprit. I opened a topic here but wanted to share it here since this topic is very high in Google results and it may help someone.

Completely uninstalling this software following this steps fixed it for me, I had 0,07 Mb/s upload before :(