Mac Mini M2 wifi issues

Temporary Workaround 🫠

This is definitely a real issue that Apple needs to fix.

Here's a workaround until Apple provides an update 🤞

1. In your Wi-Fi access point (or router) split your combined SSID into 2 SSIDs: e.g., my-wifi to my-wifi2G and my-wifi5G
2. Connect to my-wifi5G: This fixes the package dropping issue, but the internet speed is still 25% of what it should be
3. Run `sudo ifconfig awdl0 down` in a terminal. This fixes the speed issue, but kills Airdrop, Airplay, ..., etc.

Hope this helps so you don't have to waste hours like I did.

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:

• Won't automatically connect when I get home
• Sometime I have to mess with it for 20 minutes to get it to connect
• Drops video calls
• Randomly drops connection

Troubleshooting:

• Turned everything off and then on (router, computer)
• Ditched network preferences
• Removed WiFi connection from control panner then re-added it
• Switched back and forth between networks

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.

I have the Bell Home Hub 3000 and have the same problem. I *may* have got it working by doing the following:

• splitting 2.4GHz and 5GHz into 2 separate bands - named them differently as well
• turned off the 2.4GHz band

My Amplifi Alien and enterprise Ruckus R650 are both WiFi 6 (not E). The ruckus has the ability to change anything. I extensively tested both, and tried what worked for you. Unfortunately the issue would manifest again. Here's what I've done, separately on both routers.

I was within 5ft during testing, changing the SSID to where only my testing devices were connected.

1. Tried toggling and disabling broadcasting.
2. Tested at an Apple Store.
3. Verified it's occurring on my MacBook M2, and Mac Mini M2 Pro.
4. Separated the 2.4ghz and 5ghz bands.
5. Tested 20/40/80 channelization.
6. Ran a site survey, trying multiple channels with the least noise (only 1/6/11 for 2.4ghz).
7. Tried disabling the radios. 5ghz on, 2.4ghz off. And 5ghz off, 2.4ghz on.
8. Disabled WiFi 6 radio, leaving 5ghz on.
9. Ruckus AP has a gateway mode. Tried that directly connected to WAN.
10. Ruckus AP is PoE+, tried an external power supply with PoE+ disabled.
11. Ruckus AP is capable of changing the TX power. Tested from -1 to -10dB (max).
12. Tested with WPA3/WPA2/Radius/Open.
13. Restored default configuration.
14. Blocked Multicast/Unicast traffic.
15. Disabled hairpin NAT.
16. Disabled UPnP 1/2.

In every scenario, I had an older Thinkpad T480s pinging my enterprise L3 Aruba switch. Its response times were consistent, 1-5ms. Every Apple device, sporadic from 5-350ms. Hard wired, .2-.5ms on Apple and Windows.

I honestly believe this is due to the adapter card aggressively entering PowerSave mode. I'm still looking into it, but the pmset command may have a way to disable that.

I was able to figure out how to run a sniffer pcap report, but in WireShark i've been unable to add the "PWR MGMT" column as shown in the thread from my last post. Which is essential.

For those unaware, holding down option and clicking on the WiFi icon will show diagnostic selections. Opening "Open Wireless Diagnostics" will give you more advanced debugging under the "Window" menu drop down (where you'll find sniffer).

I can repeatedly fix/break this issue now on every Mac I have. I hope several of you try this and report back. Good news is, it’s not hardware!

tl;dr

Ultimate Fix: Change your AP to use channel 6 for 2.4Ghz and 149 for 5Ghz. Sounds ridiculous, if you don't read the rest.

-----

Apple uses a virtual interface for AirDrop/AirPlay/Sidecar called "awdl0" that passes traffic through the active physical interface (en0). AWDL scans on channel 6 for 2.4Ghz and 149 for 5Ghz (or 44 in Europe/UK). If your WiFi AP isn't running on those channels, your Mac is briefly switching to those and back (Why Apple is strictly using those channels, is beyond me…).

If you are unable to change the WiFi AP channels (work, school, business, etc)… Then you can do the following “work-around” with caveats:

1. Open a terminal session, then run these commands:

sudo ifconfig awdl0 up
sudo ifconfig awdl0 down
ping x.x.x.x (Gateway IP will work).

Monitor the pings. You should now see they have much lower latency and are stable. That, and overall network activity is drastically improved. Browsing, file sharing, streaming, remote sessions, VPN stays connected, etc...

It's important to up/down awdl0 each time. If MacOS re-enables the interface after it's been manually disabled, it may not stick otherwise.

Caveats:

1. MacOS monitors awdl0 and will re-enable it every few minutes if it’s inactive. You’ll need to setup a cron job using perl/python (baseline scripts below) to monitor and maintain a down state. Be cautious using “sudo ifconfig awdl0 delete” instead, if it even allows it.
2. You will lose AirDrop/AirPlay/Sidecar functionality, again this is a “work-around” if you can't change the AP channels to 6/149.

Sources:

https://mjtsai.com/blog/2022/12/19/disabling-awdl-to-work-around-ventura-wi-fi-issues/

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/wi-fi-jitter-erratic-ping-latency-due-to-awdl-airdrop-airplay.2373916/

https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/451646/force-disabling-awdl-on-ventura-or-above/454060

Perl:

#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;
# The name of the interface to monitor
my $interface = "awdl0";
# Run the command to get the status of the interface
my $status = `ifconfig $interface`;
# Check if the interface is active
if ($status =~ /status: active/i) {
    print "The $interface interface is active. Disabling...\n";
    # Run the commands to disable the interface
    system("sudo ifconfig $interface up");
    system("sudo ifconfig $interface down");
} else {
    print "The $interface interface is not active.\n";
}

Python:

#!/usr/bin/env python3
import subprocess
# The name of the interface to monitor
interface = "awdl0"
# Run the command to get the status of the interface
status_cmd = f"ifconfig {interface}"
status = subprocess.check_output(status_cmd, shell=True).decode()
# Check if the interface is active
if "status: active" in status:
    print(f"The {interface} interface is active. Disabling...")
    # Run the command to disable the interface
    enable_cmd = f"sudo ifconfig {interface} up"
    disable_cmd = f"sudo ifconfig {interface} down"
    subprocess.check_output(enable_cmd, shell=True)
    subprocess.check_output(disable_cmd, shell=True)
else:
    print(f"The {interface} interface is not active.")

I found a solution it may help you guys.

i have tried yesterday, it still works fine after the masOS update this morning.

1. Switch off and unplug the power cable from Mac mini.
2. Press and hold the power button for 15 seconds.
3. Plug-in the power cable again.
4. The WiFi just return to normal speed and will not disconnect the internet.

I don’t know is it works permanently or works for your mini. But it just fine for me in the past 2 days.

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.

1. Split the wifi SSID to 2 networks as advised by others in this thread
2. Set the channel of the 5ghz network to 44 (Auto didn't work well)
3. Set the security type to WPA2 Personal/WPA3 Personal (WPA+WPA2 didn't work well either)

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.

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

• Mac mini M2 Pro 16GB / 512GB SSD
• Four SSD Kingston NV2 (2000 GB, M.2 2280) in Icy Box IB-1807MT-C31 (M.2) enclosures connected to the 4 USB-C thunderbolt port
• WIFI 6 ax 5GHZ on a Zyxel AX7501-BO router
• Internet provider 10GB/s symmetrical

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

How to turn off Wi-Fi 6E mode on your device

For Wi-Fi 6E networks that use a single network name as recommended, if you experience any other issues with your use of the network, you can turn off Wi-Fi 6E mode when connected to that network. Your device will then no longer use that network’s 6GHz band. Use of Wi-Fi 6E on other networks isn't affected.

Mac

1. Choose Apple menu  > System Settings, then click Wi-Fi.
2. Click the Details button next to the name of the Wi-Fi 6E network you're connected to.
3. From the pop-up menu next to Wi-Fi 6E Mode, choose Off. 

Just tested on my Mac mini m2 pro and I do not get the same result.

• With HDMI cable and NO Thunderbolt in use 1093 MBps Download / 1096 MBps Upload https://www.speedtest.net/my-result/d/549577998
• NO HDMI and Thunderbolt port 1 to HDMI cable 798 MBps Download / 806 MBps Upload https://www.speedtest.net/my-result/d/549579400

So either interferences or power issues. The longer the issue stay open, the more I doubt it can be solved by software

NOTE: I use a cheap HDMI cable with the 4 thunderbolt NOT in use (a shame!) and a USB3 powered hub to enjoy max WIFI speed. I'm not so happy but can wait....

Good day together,

As a general information at the start: when I use the word "normal" for describing my WiFi connection behavior, it means that the WiFi connection is showing high latency spikes, between normal latencies. It's just "normal" for me after several months with the Mac mini.

Today I did the following tests:

1. Only one monitor connected via USB-C to DP
2. Connect a second monitor via USB-C to DP
3. Connect a third monitor via HDMI
4. Disconnect the third monitor via HDMI

Results:

1. Normal behavior. High latency spikes, but nothing special.
2. As soon as I connected the second monitor, I had complete packet loss to the gateway in the same subnet for round about 7 pings. I then attached the grounding and the WiFi connection went back to normal. Detaching the grounding made no difference any longer.
3. As soon as I connected the third monitor, I had again complete packet loss to the gateway in the same subnet for round about 15 pings. I then attached the grounding and the WiFi connection went back to "normal". Detaching the grounding made a visible difference regarding the WiFi latency.

Interesting behavior in between: While I had 3 monitors connected, I attached the grounding over both USB-C to DP cables to the Mac mini. This produced complete packet loss to the gateway in the same subnet as long as the grounding was attached that way. This behavior was reproducible in that moment.

4. Detaching the third monitor connected via HDMI made a little difference in the latency. But, at all, the WiFi connection went back to "normal" again.

This is showing me again that there is something totally wrong in the design of the Mac mini. At least, this is my opinion. Unfortunately, it will/would be hard to explain this to Apple, because you will never get in touch with an Apple engineer who would understand what was done by myself or in this forum regarding the WiFi behavior of the Mac mini.

At the moment, I am still in contact with the Apple engineers (via telephone) to exchange debug data (Wireshark captures, WiFi diagnostics,...) for the third time, to prove that there is something wrong with the Mac mini and not with my environment/my WiFi setup. During the phone calls, I am always getting the feeling they are assuming that the behavior is caused by my WiFi setup and not by their Apple device. Even though a great number of other devices (Apple and Windows devices) in the same WiFi do not have any problems. But maybe that is only my experience with the Apple support. ...please excuse the little frustrated complaint about my Apple support experience.

Kind regards

Dominik

PS: I hope my English is understandable. I am a native German speaker. ;-)

Everyone is talking about HDMI and WiFi issues.  That is the symptoms but not the root cause.  I believe the root cause is the psu/pdu designed for the Mac Mini M2.  Everything you connect to the Mac Mini requires power including HDMI and WiFi.  Apple wants to make M1/M2 computers to be power efficient.  But I don’t think they properly designed power distribution correctly especially when you have many devices connecting through USB-C and USB-A ports that power to power on.

I have a Mac Mini M2 Pro.  Here is what I have connected.

1. 1 monitor connected directly to hdmi port
2. 1 monitor connected through Mokin USB-C hub.
3. On that Mokin USB-C hub, I also use it to power my external speaker.
4. 1 Sitecom USB-C hub, I use it to charge my iPad.
5. 2 other USB-C ports connecting to 2 external SSD drives.
6. Connect external HDD drive through USB-A.

Recently, I’ve added 1 more SSD drive to Sitecom hub.  Boom, the WiFi started to drop.  Shutting down the Mac Mini, unplugging the power, and holding down the power button for 15 seconds did not resolve my WiFi issue.  In the past this process worked.  The difference is I’ve added more devices.

By the way, I have a 2018 Intel Mac Mini with the same amount of devices connected with the same amount of usage.  No WiFi issue.

Lack of power will affect the WiFi signals.

here we go:

4 x Icy Box IB-1807MT-C31 M.2 in USB C 3.2 (Gen 2) 10Gbit/s. ref: IB-1807MT-C31

4 x Kingston NV2. 2000 GB, M.2 2280. PCI 4.0 ref: SNV2S/2000G

What work and not:

• 4 disks connected to USB-C with HDMI 8k cable -> WIFI 5GHZ pathetic performances or no connection at all, router is 1.5m away!
• 4 disks connected to USB-C with HDMI 8k cable and ethernet -> some disk are unmounted randomly, or fill up the screens with warning: you did not unmounted properly the disk...
• Stable wifi 5GHz ONLY if all disks are connected to a USB3 powered hub icy-box but then I get subpar disk performances...

I went to apple shop in Zurich, after 50min, one genius came back, saying Apple has nob known issues about Mac mini wifi :-) the genius proposes me to contact the tech team. At this point I just left, ****** of

I am a software engineer/hacker since 27 years and love tinkering, for me it look like a hardware issues, related to power or bandwidth or both.

Lets see if it will be solve in Sonoma, alas Im running their latest beta and it is still the same...

If Apple can solve it with code, I will carefully run a lot of benchmarks to see if I found a limitation in their software fix implementation :-)

I turned off WIFI and that corrected the problem for a while (I am using a Thunderbolt 3 connected ethernet cable), but now I am having the same issue. Lots of dropped packets, failure to load web pages on chrome, returning an error 'System error: net::ERR_NETWORK_CHANGED'.

So I've been dealing with this issue for nearly 2 month. It has something to do with WiFi 6. When I turn off "Wi-Fi 6E Mode" in network settings everything works fine. However, if you want to use Wi-Fi 6E like I do just because, I have to go through a series of steps to get a stable connection (see diagram below). I have to do these steps every time I restart the Mac or Wi-Fi router which has been unavoidable lately here in the SF Bay Area due to crazy weather causing power outages. That said, If you don't have a Wi-Fi 6 router or don't really need the speed, just turn off "Wi-Fi 6E Mode". But APPLE, you have to fix this issue, your customers don't need to have to jump through hoops just to use one of your highlighted features.