Slow internet with macOS Monterey

For my M1 MacBook Air, the excruciatingly slow internet connectivity (download speed only) wasn't fixed by:

• setting up a new network location
• turning off IP protections, reporting stuff to Apple, etc.
• uninstalling all VPNs
• running in Safe Mode
• running as a test user
• reinstalling MacOS
• wiping the disk and reinstalling MacOS

But, over the 12 days since splitting the modem/router's channels to be separate 2GHz and 5GHz connections, I have had no problems, without rebooting once. It has stayed attached to the 5GHz channel without any noticable signal loss or slow-down.

Interestingly, my Android phone has been having trouble, since, as it seems to want to keep switching between 2GHz and 5GHz connections, and often drops the connection completely. The 2GHz channel seems especially prone to causing trouble. So I think that may be part of the problem; previously, the MacBook was most often attaching itself (or being directed by the router) to the 2GHz channel, to minimise noise and signal loss, but this was prone to drop-outs, and the MacBook seemed unable to adequately recover when that happened. I do think this is a bug in the OS somewhere, but I wasn't liking the chances of its being fixed, so am relieved that, so far, using 5GHz exclusively seems to be working.

Also interesting is that a number of users report that using 5GHz, 80MHz is causing trouble. I've not found that here.

I'll post again if my luck runs out!

I am the author of a submission at 4:14 pm on Nov 20,2021 to this community about this problem. I have also contacted Apple's support group about it (case number 101578289456) with no resolution of the problem. I would like to present what I know about my particular problem to the community in order to see whether others have a similar problem or can propose solutions to mine.

I acquired my M1 iMac in May 2021. By November 2021 I was aware that Internet access from my iMac actually halted on certain occasions, and resumed of its own accord after a few minutes. I used the Apple utility called "Activity Monitor" to find out possible causes. I found out that the computer was transmitting at rates up to 7 Mb/s to the "network" for the whole period during which I could not get Internet access, and that the total data transmitted was of the order of 10 Gb. I attach a screenshot of the Activity Monitor display during the most recent transmission.

I live in a rural location and use a wireless Internet service which offers 15 Mb/s upload and 2 Mb/s download, which normally is more than I need. I checked that these activity bursts were not automatic backups to my AirPort Time Capsule. I do not have a total data ceiling on my use of the Internet.

As I mentioned above I have contacted Apple support about this problem and I have sent Activity Monitor screenshots similar to the above, They have acknowledged them but have yet to offer any explanation. Earlier I contacted Sophos support (I have a Sophos Home subscription which includes an app that scans incoming data) about the same problem when it appeared that the data were coming from a Sophos process. Sophos changed the configuration of my computer so that their app was not under the "kernel_task" in the Activity Monitor hierarchy. After this, and up to the present, the transmissions came from the "kernel_task".

For this reason I disabled the option to send diagnostic information to Apple and developers, thinking that this could be a potential cause for the transmissions. I also described my problem in my first submission to the Apple Community and my choice to disable the transmission of diagnostics.

I have followed with interest the submissions of other users who have found slow Internet access from their M1 Macs. At least one other user thanked me for the suggestion of disabling the transmission of diagnostics. This does not solve the problem I have described. Other users have described using fixed rather than automatic location services (doesn't work for me) and repairing the disk permissions, which I might be persuaded to try if my computer actually had a disk!

Any ideas from the community? Do any other users find these huge transmissions from the kernel_task?

I have a similar issue on an M1 Mac mini. Wifi slows down seemingly randomly. A reboot helps to bring back wifi speeds, but similarly, after about a day, wifi slowness returns. I read about a new private relay feature slowing things down for some people, but I don't have that enabled (I didn't subscribe to iCloud+ so I don't have that feature) so that's not my problem. I also read that hiding the IP address in Safari could slow things down for web browsing, but I don't think that's my problem since I noticed system wide wifi issues, not just with Safari. Nonetheless, I am no longer hiding my IP in Safari. I'll report back if that clears up my wifi problems.

I have the exact same experience with my 2021 macbook M1. Since upgrading to Monterey it will not automatically connect to known Wifi sources, and when selecting manually it will take a minute to find my home networks. Very slow.

It also has problems finding other networks at the office and hotels, so I can rule out sudden interference problems.

Also when it is connected, the wifi symbol at the top of my screen will stay greyed out as if there is no connection.

Never had issues before until the update. Hope they fix this.

I had the same issue with my M1 MacBook Air. After upgrading, the internet connection was slow, while all my other devices kept their usual speed. I rebooted, same issue. I flushed DNS cache, same issue. I changed security settings in Safari (unticked hide IP address from trackers) and updated and the deleted all safari extensions, same issue. I even cleaned up the stored Wifi-networks. Nothing worked. As I got ready to downgrade to Big Sur, I discovered above suggestion of unchecking “send diagnostics to apple” boxes. Well now it seems to work. Thanks!

Hello green500,

your suggestions did not help solve or improve connection speeds.

My wired Windows desktop device is running with 500Mbit/s up.

Android phone on same WiFi SSID (and same location) 260 down, 200 up.

14" MacBook Air M1, Catalina, 212 down, 300 up.

14" MacBook Pro M1 Pro, Monterey, 400 down, 1.82 (!!!) up.

These upload speeds are ridiculous for video conferencing.

Fresh install of Monteray with all Analytics & Improvements options disabled.

This clearly seems to be an OS level issue.

Any info on whether that's known at Apple & ETA on a fix?

After struggling trying to figure out why my internet speeds were 0.2/0.13 after performing the upgrade I was able to resolve the issue with some Google Fu. This is what worked for me:

Go in to system preferences

Go to security and privacy

Choose the fourth tab 'Privacy'

In the scrollable area on the left scroll down to Analytics & Improvements

Turn off Share Mac Analytics in the right hand window

Reboot and suddenly getting the same internet speeds as the rest of the machines on my network.

I've had the following 2 wifi issues since upgrading to MacOS Monterey.

1. When my Mac hypernates an existing wifi connection doesn't automatically reconnect. I have to turn wifi on/off to reconnect.

2. Unable to teather toy Android phone hotspot. This previously worked seamlessly.

I have a 15-inch 2018 MacBook Pro.

They really outta fix this stuff.

I can't say thank you enough - I've been pulling out my hair all morning working on my network set up, trying to figure out why my Mac Mini (M1) was getting significantly slower speeds than every other device in the house (when it's one of the few that's Wifi6 compatible). Tried this - and my speed tests jumped from ~60-80 Mbps (testing all morning) to 510 Mbps instantly.

Hi,

I have the same problem with my MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2020), after upgrading to Monterey, my connection speed degraded more than 50%.

Testing with my 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz signal from my MacBook Pro, the speed is below what it should be, I do the same test with my iPhone on the same two signals of 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz with the same Server Speed Test and speed is full.

They had the MacBook Pro and the iPhone next to each other, something happened with this update that is affecting the Wi-Fi connection.

Same issue here with my MacBook Pro running on M1. Sometimes I need to restart the computer to get any connectivity. My other MacBook still runs on BigSur and does not have this problem with it. I am hoping that another update will fix the issue.

I'm having the same issues since upgrading from Big Sur to Monterey on my MacBook Air 2020 (Intel).

A typical Chrome browser user.

Normally a complete reboot resolves the slow / loss of connectivity WiFi issue. I particularly experience this when attempting to play / streams videos on several websites, one being such as YouTube for example.

Also, i never had the "Share Mac Analytics" / "Improve Siri & Dictation", nor "Share with App Developers" options checked, under System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Analytics & Improvements, as others have suggested. So i can clearly rule these particular configurations out as being the root cause of the WiFi issues since the upgrade to MacOS Monterey.

I also tried other options, such as PRAM / SMC reset, Renew DHCP lease, clear network configuration files and let the OS regenerate fresh files in case there's some incompatibilities with previous Big Sur configurations. But, nada.

Just did an internet speed test on the upgraded MacBook Air, and it looks normally, maxed out, which is good. And for now it seems that things look normal on Safari, and Firefox where sites like YouTube is streaming videos without any buffering this morning, for now.

And so this suggests to me that the system is somehow severely interfering with the packet data from the connection down to the Chrome browser(?).

However, i have another device; MacBook Pro 2019 (Intel), which is still on Big Sur, and the Google Chrome browser is on the same perfect home network connection and browser version too (Chrome version 96), where Chrome runs sites (eg, YouTube streams) seamlessly without connectivity issues over on Big Sur.

Is Apple now throttling the connection to the Google Chrome browsers now on MacOS Monterey? Coercing us to use non-Chrome browsers perhaps, such as Safari / Firefox? Then that would be a bigger issue if that's the case.

Has anyone come across similar specific issues, specifically with Google Chrome on MacOS Monterey? If so, have you found a long lasting solution? Please share!

Nevertheless, this is clearly an underlying software issue somewhere, and should surely be fixed.

Here on a m1 2020 mac Mini, same thing only with non Safari browsers... Even firefox which is not Chromium based.

As I'm web developer, I have to test my work on all browsers so it's quite embarrassing and I would like to avoid a temporary fallback to Big Sur where all was ok.

Apple and/or Browser engine devs please make the things fixed !

I've noticed since the Monterey upgrade issues at times with pages loading in Safari. Not happening with other browsers that I have experienced. Noticed that Google searches sometimes pauses several seconds before loading results. Other web sites sometimes do not load completely. Whatever the issue it was not happening prior to the upgrade to Monterey.

I have the same problem. After hibernating I loose my internet connection. I always need to restart the computer. I had the same problem with Big Sur. I have a MacBook Air from 2015. No idea what to do.