Mac Studio Ethernet issue with native port

each medium on your Mac studio has its own unique setup, so it is really easy to mess things up.

• set

System Preferences > Network > Ethernet > (advanced) >TCP/IP > IPv6 ... to Link-local only

ON may cause routing activity that interferes with your networking. OFF will make it hard to find printers and other services on your network.

If you have enabled ANY VPN features in system preferences > network

these can interferer with regular network operation.

“Limit IP address Tracking” has been shown to be an issue on some Networks (this example is for Ethernet):

< Limit IP address tracking >

If you are using a VPN you installed on your own, remove it while continuing to debug. Also remove ALL devices in the left pane related to VPN in:

System Preferences > Network

f this VPN is for an Institutional/Corporate connection, contact your institution for additional guidance.

If you continue to have trouble after using these steps, create a new named Network "Location" -- a collection of settings applied "all at once" when you select it. Every new named "Location" you create starts with all defaults, which lets you walk away from any bogus settings that might be causing you trouble:

How to use network locations on your Mac - Apple Support

How to use network locations on your Mac - Apple Support

It can be related to the speed negotiation. Mac Studio's Ethernet is a 10Gb port. Your router might have a 1Gb one.

In System Preferences, head to Network and select Ethernet. Go to Hardware tab and set the "configure" to manual and selects 1000baset option under speed.

10GB Ethernet:

The Mac Studio has a 10GB Ethernet port. If you have some fancy equipment at the other end of the cable, it is possible it is trying to make a 10GB connection.

A 10GB (or 5GB or 2.5GB) connection is only stable when cables are excellent and fairly short (like Category-6 rated cables under 100 feet). If either of those are not true, or you have you added patch cables that are not Category-6 rated, you could be seeing it connect at a faster-than-Gigabit speed, then error out and disconnect.

The good way to check the actual connection speed USED to be Network Utility, But in Big Sur and later, Apple has deprecated network Utility and now you have to use a Terminal command to see your actual connection speed. First, you need to know what en number the link is. then you use a command like this one, substituting the actual en number.

my main Ethernet connection uses BSD name en5 (as shown in) :

 menu > about this Mac > (system report) > network:

 ifconfig en5 | grep media

with this as my output:

media: autoselect (10Gbase-T <full-duplex,flow-control>)

media: 1000baseT <full-duplex,flow-control>

To see if an Ethernet link is throwing more than a handful of initial errors, you can use Terminal command:

netstat -I en5

This is the resulting output. Counters are In-packets, In-errors, Out-packets, Out-Errors, Collisions. There should never be more than handful of errors from starting up, and in most cases, NONE.

Name       Mtu   Network       Address            Ipkts Ierrs    Opkts Oerrs  Coll

en5   8163  <Link#4>    00:01:d2:1a:00:dd   696697     0   484301     0     0

en5   8163  grantsmacpr fe80:4::461:ea0d:   696697     -   484301     -     -

en5   8163  192.168.0/23  192.168.0.204     696697     -   484301     -     -

If the link were running beyond its ability to run stably, for example it auto-speeded to 10GB but the cabling could only reliably support 2.5GB, we would see non-zero errors counts, and errors increasing over time. (and possibly, disconnecting)

I knew you tried it before, just wondering if this could be related with speed.

And I still think it's some related with speed/negotiation. It doesn't sound as a cable or hardware problem. If your Mac Studio port is defective it shouldn't be able to connect.

Have you tried changing negotiation manually setting it to some value? I would try this.

Are you using jumbo frames by any chance? I'm having weirdness on mine with jumbo frames when it wakes up from sleep. I seem to have to flip it back to standard and then to jumbo again to get it to work.

I just connected my Studio Max to ethernet and turned off wifi and no problem with using ethernet with "Configure automatically" hardware setting.

The ethernet connects to gigabit switch via cat5 cable. The switch connects to an AmpliFi Alien mesh router via cat5 cable.

I had a similar issue I have only a 1gb hub and router. How it showed up was using Blackmagic software - first it was the ATEM mini pro ISO that kept connecting and disconnecting. I got the new Blackmagic Cloud Pod yesterday and had the same issue of connecting and disconnecting from the device. Hmmm - It seems the default settings are for automatic and act badly on a 1GB network. I found the following:

"In System Preferences > Network > Ethernet > Hardware, I changed my Speed to 1000baseT (since my setup doesn't take advantage of 10Gb speeds), set the Duplex to 'full-duplex, flow-control' with energy efficient disabled, and increased my MTU value to 8,000."

I first had to unplug the ethernet cable from the Studio to change the settings. Once changed and the cable plugged back in and a reboot for good measure, everything works fine. Seems that there is an issue with default ethernet hardware settings and anything but a 10Gb network. I was lucky to find this fix to the issue. So anyone running a less than fully 10Gb network may find this issue.

So I’ve also been having this bad Ethernet port issue, now 1 month later. Speeds vary from 100% to 10% of the speed of my other computers on the same network. It usually runs at 10%. I won’t use Wi-Fi Because of security issues. 

The only fix that works is plugging the Cat6 cable into the thunderbolt port with an adapter. But i shouldn’t have to do that with a new computer. 

I took it to apple store 2 days ago. They were able to duplicate the issue using my system log in. So they did an overnight port test and is passed. Then the did a clean OS install and it passed again. 

I brought it home and restored my Time Machine backup and the problems returned. So it’s a software issue. I’m not running anything port heavy. Just Adobe suite and Protools. 

So I guess I just have to wait for a software update to Monterey or my 3rd party

Programs. 

The joys of 1.0 computers. 

I had an issue with using both the Blackmagic cloud pod and ATEM Mini Pro ISO that exposed an issue that I would not have been aware of running to printers and other computers. It would continuously connect and disconnect.

Seems the whole issue is Automatic mode in network set-up, advanced setting and hardware set-up. Unplug the ethernet cable (because it will not allow you to change the setting) change to manual - I went to 1000Mps since my hub and other computers are that. problem gone away. Odd thing is the MacBook Air M1 and Mac mini M1 never had this issue. just the new Studio and only found it since the software controllers were giving me connect and disconnect rapidly.

just my issue.

connect and disconnect is likely directly caused by Ethernet power-saving. This feature was added to support genuine 10Gigabit Ethernet, which COULD get hot without it.

It is NOT necessary (or even appropriate) for Gigabit Ethernet, and should be turned OFF.

In addition, "limit IP address tracking" could be contributing to such issues, and should also be turned off in most cases.

Hmmm. That may be likely root software cause of it. I would never have thought of switching from Automatic to Manual configuration until tipped off about it. Issue seems to be resolved at least at the level the impacted me. I am sure there will be a fix to this software configuration issue - especially with people who use the Blackmagic Cloud components or Atems - then it raises it's ugly head.

I really cannot justify upgrading to a 10 Gigabit Hub yet due to cost. My Internet connection is via a Mini 2000 hotspot out here in the country - the only good news is I hit one of the very few 5G towers in our county - My current NAS is 1 Gigabit - so not cost effective yet. So dealing with legacy issues in a rural environment. I run the video studio seperate from other personal and business computers. I do not use the Mac Studio for any other purpose, emailing, or web browsing but I am tied to the 1 Gigabit network for common resources - NAS and network color laser printers amount other assets.

Sounds like a bad connection or faulty Ethernet Port. I would contact Apple Support and run it up to technical support.

Official Apple Support