New Mac Mini M2 has constant issues with wifi. Its unusable. Ethernet works perfectly, but when using wifi the connection will consistently drop packets. Wifi works perfectly with older Mac mini M1, MacBook Pro, Intel Mac in the same small office. I have turned off all other devices and still have same issue. Did a factory reset and same issues.
Mac mini (2023 with M2)
**Solution discovered** (but Mac MUST release a fix for this soon. Very unhappy with my new Mac Mini M2 Pro.)
it is a problem with Wi-Fi 6 routers that combine all the bands under one SSID (Wi-Fi name).
If you have Spectrum, their “smart” router doesn’t have the function to separate the bands and therefore will NOT work. You need to get another router and the bands have to be named separately as others have said in the posts.
this is an issue that shouldn’t be an issue, and I’m surprised no fix has come for this yet so regular people don’t have to become network professionals to get their internet to work!
Newbie here - please be kind. :)
Bought my basic Mac Mini M2 a few days ago. Did the initial setup with Migration Assistant bringing my settings and data across from the MacBook Pro. Discovered I have the problem with the Mac Mini M2 not being able to connect to the 5GHz side of my wifi or not be ing able to connect to Internet if it does connect to 5GHz wifi. Works OK on the 2.4GHz wifi.
Achieved some success after re-installing macOS, but problem returned today after I reconnected my Anker power dock. I now have a reliable and repeatable correlation between switching on the Anker power dock and the 5GHz wifi link failing. When I disconnect the Anker power dock I can reconnect to the 5GHz wifi and normal connectivity returns.
I hope this might help someone else. How do I go about reporting this to Apple for proper investigation?
"Achieved some success after re-installing macOS, but problem returned today after I reconnected my Anker power dock. I now have a reliable and repeatable correlation between switching on the Anker power dock and the 5GHz wifi link failing. When I disconnect the Anker power dock I can reconnect to the 5GHz wifi and normal connectivity returns. "
I had thought that 13.2.1 had fixed this but it has returned.
REPLACEMENT ROUTER SOLVED MY PROBLEM (BUT APPLE STILL NEEDS TO UPDATE FIRMWARE)
I had a similar problem with my new Mac Mini M2 as others on this thread. The new Mac could not connect to my Wifi even though every other device we have connected without a problem. One of these other devices is a Macbook Air M2 running Monterey.
We have fibre optic service with 500mb/s coming through a 5-year-old Bell Home Hub 3000 router (I am in Canada). The new Mac Mini could connect via Wifi to the router but could NOT get an IP address. The error messages were either no IP address or a self-assigned IP address. Either way, it could not reach the Internet. Connecting via ethernet cable worked perfectly.
High level customer support from both Bell and Apple kept bouncing me back and forth for days, tweaking settings and blaming each other. We tried everything, including reinstalling Ventura. No one suggested disabling AWDL, but I wouldn't want to give up that functionality anyway.
Eventually, a high level tech support guy at Bell recommended separating the signal into two separate SSIDs--one for 2.4 and the other for 5ghz. (He might have been reading this thread.) The Mac Mini connected without any problem to the 2.4ghz SSID but behaved exactly the same way with the 5ghz SSID. This was enough to convince him that it is an Apple firmware issue.
But here's an interesting twist: I took the Mac Mini to other locations, including an Apple store, had no problems connecting to other Wifi networks. One of these other networks I tried definitely had an SSID that combined 2.4ghz and 5ghz, and the Mac connected to the 5ghz band without any trouble. For whatever reason, it was only my router that created probelms for the Mac Mini.
On a whim, and out of desperation, I called a Bell store and asked if I can swap out my router for a different Home Hub 3000. Right away they said yes. Apparently, it was in my contract all along that I could just bring in my router and exchange it for a different one anytime, no questions asked. It is insane that not one single Bell tech support person told me I could try this as part of the troubleshooting process. In fact, some of them told me that I could NOT get a replacement.
The replacement Home Hub 3000 worked perfectly and immediately. The Mac Mini connects right away to 5ghz. If anyone else out there is experiencing a similar problem, be sure to try swapping out the router (if you can).
Even though the swap solved it, I still think this is partly an Apple firmware problem. There is absolutely no reason that the new Mac Mini should NOT have worked on my first Home Hub 3000, when everything else connected to it without any problems.
For me only disabling AWDL works. "sudo ifconfig awdl0 down"
This is definitely not Router related. I have tried several routers and even one of them on all bands - 2.4, 5 and 6Ghz and its the same. It does not happen under Bootcamp (Windows), so that rules out hardware fault. It affects my 2017 MacBook Pro, M1 Air and M2 Max.
Some information around the web:
https://github.com/jamestut/awdlkiller
https://www.meter.com/mac-osx-awdl-psa
(definitely not fixed on 13.2.1 contrary to what they state here)
I have this problem too but on my M2 MacBook Pro. My computer works fine on my work and college network but not on my home network. It's completely unstable. Even if I do manage to connect it will drop on a video call.
Symptoms:
Troubleshooting:
Potential fix
None of that worked but this post gave me an idea. My home wifi is split into two networks 2.4GHz and 5GHz. I originally had them together as one network but it was causing issues with home automation so I split them in two with two different names. I just turned off the 2.4GHz and my laptop immediately connected to the 5GHz network!
If you don't see a edit then this worked for me.
One other thing I did that I am not sure did anything useful but I will include for completeness - I assigned my computer a reserved ip from the router. Like I said not sure if this did anything.
For me - my Wifi performance issue has been resolved with the update 2+ weeks ago.
All - Let me share my experience.
I have many iOS and OSX devices on my Eero pro 6 MESH network - have 1GB DL and50MB upload.
On Wifi this Mac Mini Pro had terrible performance, high latency, speed tests would not complete.
When connected to ethernet - performance was fine.
I had escalations with Apple and they suggested 13.2.1
Once I applied that patch/update my performance has been rock solid
If anyone is having issues I would strongly recommended applying that update
A week later, I have found a settings change on my two access points (Netgear, WAX206) that seems to have helped with the issues I have with the Mac mini. Again, no other devices had problems.
I have moved my AX network from operating on the 80Mhz band, potentially needed 4 channels in the 5Ghz band, to 40Mhz (needing 2). Impact is speed has dropped a bit for all my devices... but the Mac mini has been reliably connected at 300-400 Mbps (using Ookla speed test, on a 1Gbps Fiber provider) and no ping drops to my router for 3 days.
This still points to something with the Mac mini hardware or software/firmware, but it's allowing me to at least use this machine reliably.
Same issue... but I use an enterprise Ruckus R650 AP at home. So, I ran into the post below. A large enterprise with a support contract had this exact issue, and had a Ruckus engineering team replicate their environment to do a deep dive.
They found, Apple's Network Cards are entering sleep every few milliseconds, causing spikes. This post is very detailed with all the steps, commands, and logs of what the engineers did/found.
Hopefully someone here is more familiar using Mac's "Sniffer" mode, and WireShark than I am. I feel this is worth looking further into here.
This issue was also happening to me on a brand new M2 Pro Mac Mini, but I have done a few things that helped to resolve it.
For context I am using a 2.4+5ghz Wifi6 router (not 6E), the TP-Link Archer AX80.
It has been stable all day today, even after multiple sleeps and reboots, at about 1700mbps on the 5ghz network.
The issue started happening in 13.3, got better after a reboot into Safe Mode, then came back when 13.3.1 rolled out this week. I took the Mac to the Apple Store and they performed a full DFU restore. That didn't seem to do anything either, but after doing some reconfiguration on the network as above things have improved to the point where I am no longer noticing any connection drops.
Here's some further observations after another week of testing anything and everything. Firstly a recap of my Mac's specific issues:
1) Internet connectivity on 5GHz (Channel 44) had been mostly unusable. High pings, regular disconnects.
2) Internet connectivity on 2.4Ghz (Channel 6) was useable, but at ~50% of the potential connection speed.
3) Regular ping spikes every second or so, moderate packetloss and high jitter
4) Selecting AirDrop in a Finder window, or having the Displays system setting pane active caused high pings and internet connectivity to dropout.
Results of this weeks tests:
1) Re-installing macOS changed nothing.
2) Updating macOS changed nothing.
3) Changing the Wi-Fi Security to WPA2-WPA3-Personal (as mentioned in this thread) changed nothing.
4) Turning off Setting time zone and System customisation in Privacy & Security > Locations Services didn't help, even though I'd read that has caused regular ping spikes for others.
4) Rebooting into Safe Mode though did allow the Mac to connect reliably to the 5Ghz network, at the full connection speed, pings were consistently <10ms with no jitter or packetloss. However it didn't stop the connection drops when an AirDrop window or the Displays system settings are active.
5) Rebooting back into normal mode the 5Ghz connection is still working, pings are still below 10ms for 99% of the time with no packetloss. However, the Internet connection still drops when the AirDrop window or Displays system settings are active. AirDrop transfers work when initiated from my iPhone or Mac, but the Mac internet connection times out whilst the transfer is in progress. The Macs internet connection restores once the AirDrop transfer is complete (from the iPhone side), or the AirDrop window is closed (on the Mac side).
So, at the moment, for me, rebooting into Safe Mode and back into Normal mode seems to have fixed the slow 5Ghz connection, the high (regular) pings, the high jitter, but not the connection time outs when the AirDrop window or Displays system settings are active.
Here's my current pings on 5Ghz. Red is when an AirDrop window is active, yellow when the Displays system settings is active and white is when neither are active.
I'll see if things change over time, or something triggers the other issues to start up again.
Moving around the cables. I have a dual monitor set up, it is set up through an adapter that plugs into the Thunderbolt. It was in a port right next to the HDMI hook-up for monitor 1. I moved it to the farthest port and let the adapter hang far away from the Mac ( before I didn't want it to hang so it sat on top of the mac mini). I have no idea why It worked but It definitely did. I would sit and wait for youtube to load for 2 plus minutes. For a couple of days, my google speed test said 0.1 Mbps and it's now consistently back up to 118 Mbps. I was pretty shocked at how instantly it happened. This has been my experience.
I actually think I figured the problem out .
i have a router in My bedroom and in my garage I have an airmesh router extender.
( this is where I have My mac mini m2pro.}
so I did a firmware update on my airmesh extender and what it said was new on the update was they added wp3 personal . I don’t recall correctly but once I updated that boom ! I can connect perfectly fine.
But I can’t connect to my bedrooms router I think I need to update that or try to enable that wp3
Another experience and a LOT of WIFI issues (I suspect that Thunderbolt4 share the Bus with WIFI adapter or there is some other issues)
My Setup
I was first hit by a bad HDMI cables, was NOT able to connect at all to Got another HDMI cable, able to connect
But I still have ridiculous WIFI performances and occasional drops
My 2.4GHz WIFI and 5GHz WIFI has different SSID since 3 years so I did nothing, Channel are AUTO, Wireless scanning report no congestion in my area.
With SSD connected I get occasional USB enclosure drop, random AND really bad WIFI performance 100MBps or less and drops
Remove all SSD so nothing is connected to thunderbolt -> WIFI performances reading with speedtest: 1200Mbps download and 1100Mbs upload and STABLE. Test repeated 5 times in 25 minutes
I found a workaround, not satisfying but OK for waiting a bit more.... I use an ICY box Hub Icy Box IB-AC6110
connected to the USB port of Mac mini. I get expected WIFI performances but bad disk performances :-(
Not really satisfied and may still give the Mac mini back. I was streaming from a PI4 to Plex before. Somehow for the Mac mini price, not worth all the troubles
there is something wrong with the power distribution to components.
Besides WiFI issue, I had USB-C connected devices turning off and on and HDMI connected monitor no displaying properly.
just shut off the Mac Mini, unplugged the power and hold down the power button for 15 seconds. Just like the old days. Everything is back to normal. Had the Mac Mini M2 for 2 months and did this procedure 3 times. Normal after updating. Including brand new out of the box.
macOS 13.4 released today (18th May 2023) has resolved all of the Wi-Fi issues I had been having. For the first time since getting my Mac mini M2 three months ago, my Wi-Fi is full-speed, stable and not exhibiting the internet drop-outs due to AirDrop and the Displays settings. I get occasional ping spikes, particularly after waking up the computer, but probably wouldn't notice those if I wasn't specifically looking.
Mac Mini M2 wifi issues
