WIFI Issues with Macbook M3 Max

I’ve started experiencing this issue as well with an M3 Max MacBook that I purchased brand new not two months ago. I’m six feet from the router, but the MacBook fails to find an internet connection even though wifi shows itself connected to the router. My M2 work MacBook has no problems.

Resetting the router, restarting the laptop, forgetting the network, reconnecting to the network - none of it works. The MacBook might come back online only for the internet to stop working a few minutes later, or it might not come back online at all. Worse I can’t seem to connect to my phone’s personal hotspot either.

It is a problem with the computer. Either some piece of the WiFi hardware is failing two months after purchase or the OS has a serious WiFi bug in it.

I think there's definitely a wider failure with the M3 chip computers — my 15" M3 MacBook Air has trouble discovering any wifi networks and when it does connect, it only manages to maintain the connection for a brief period of time before losing awareness of all networks.

First, Restart in Safe Mode and see if the problem is the same. Safe Mode keeps most third-party add-ons from loading.

'works in safe mode', 'fails in regular mode', implies" it's something you added".

next hold the Option key which you click on the WiFi icon on the menubar.

Select "Open Wireless diagnostics"

press (Continue) and it will do a quick check for GROSS problems and mis-configuration.

Don't let it create a report, the report is not human readable, and it HUGE.

juanabrams wrote:

This has to be a wifi modem issue. I cannot even AirDrop something from my iPhone to my Mac. It first says "Waiting" and after a while it says "Declined" when if it's my Apple ID I don't even need to authorize and if I need to approve I'm not even getting a notification on the Mac to accept or decline. But I don't remember this happening in the beginning so maybe it's one of the software updates

If your local network routing is incorrect, then all sorts of misbehavior is possible.

Check the Wi-Fi router firmware and update to the latest, and restart the Wi-Fo router.

If you have both wired and wireless, then using two subnets is a common choice, or the Wi-Fi router has to present the Wi-Fi as an access point and not routed.

If you have more than one Wi-Fi router, you either must use multiple subnets, or all of your Wi-Fi routers must be reconfigured as access points, or you need to switch over to a mesh mode id that’s supported.

next, hold down the Option key while you click on the WiFi Icon in the menubar. The values you see there are you current operating parameters. Screenshot, photograph, or transcribe those values and post back to the forums for Readers to analyze. Looks like this older one:

gosh that sounds like a problem. You should post your Option Wifi snapshot for analysis.

or run wirelss diagnostics

Once the wireless daignositcs window is open, these c-hoices are available on its Utilities menu:

you could use the Monitor function, to see what is happening when its drops

or the Performance widow to see if your. performance is stable or wobbly

Were you able to find a solution here?

very often how fast you can run depends on thing is your "network neighborhood" that are not under your control.

if you neighbors change the channels they are using, sometimes that clobbers your performance.

This screenshot from WiFi Explorer, an inexpensive utility with a free trial period, can give you additional insights into what might be going on. This is an example of how crowded the Spectrum around you can get:

...

nobody in this example is getting much done today.

No. I was not able to find a solution. I just bought the M3 one month ago and it rarely connects to wifi networks other than my home wifi.

I have this same issue. It can be as bad as 60% packet loss, pinging the router gateway (i.e. between the Mac and the router). It is the only device on this network that has this kind of problem.

The Macbook is connecting to a tri-band router (2.4GHz, 5GHz-1, 5GHz-2). The router is configured to present a common SSID across all bands.

The packet loss is highly variable. It will successfully ping 50 or 100 pings in a row, then start dropping the next 10 or 15 pings. Other times, every other ping will drop. Again, other devices on the network at the same time running pings see 0 dropped pings at the same time the Macbook is dropping pings.

I also see the same behavior if I connect to a network configured on only 1 of the 5GHz channels (i.e. unique SSID name for the single 5GHz channel). The only workaround I have is switching to an older legacy network on the same router that is WPA2 Personal (not WPA3 Personal) and 2.4GHz only.

It is very clearly a problem with the Macbook, and not with other devices or the router. Here's the obligatory screenshot of the detailed WiFi menu.

Then let's look around your 'network neighborhood'. The tools to do this are already installed on your Mac.

Hold the Option key while you click the Wi-Fi icon on the menubar, as before. but this time, choose wireless diagnostics and STIOP. From its Window menu, choose 'Scan' and a window like this opens, click on the channel column to sort by channel-number.

...

this tabular presentation is generally all that is needed for casual analysis, but if you need to look at how far up and down each channel spreads, you may prefer a tool like Wifi Explorer, which has a spectrum view:

the situation documented above is so crowded that no one is getting much through on any channel.

Not really congested in the 5GHz range, which is the where the problems area. If there's any congestion at all, it's in the 2.4GHz range, and connections from the Macbook work flawlessly to that radio. If the problem was related to congestion, I would expect every other device connected to the 5GHz radios to have the same problem, and again, only the Macbook has the issue.

these newer computer use more modern modulation techniques, and their operating characteristics may change because of that. At the same time, your neighbors are doing upgrades, changing what data channels they are using, and may be clobbering you data in new and unforeseen ways.

I answer many of these queries when posted on the MacBook Pro forums. [in my opinion] there is no such uptick in problems, and almost without exception the problem is not in the newer hardware supplied with these Macs.

Please post your Option Wi-Fi snapshot values for an analysis.