10.6.5 and wifi issues

I tried a few more things this AM. Tried a safe boot, but OSx reports no Airport on my laptop. Tried to add it in Network Preferences, same issue.

Rebooted in normal mode, and added back my Airport as "Airport 2". No luck. I also tried each of the 11 channels on my SMC wifi router, with no luck.

I am running a Late 2006 macbook. I am having the same problem after the 10.6.5 update. My Airport won't stay connected to my wireless router. I have to connect through ethernet. If the Airport does connect to my wireless router, I get no internet connection. It says I have no IP address. I have tried everything suggested in this topic and other topics. I sure hope apple address this MAJOR FLAW because I rely on wifi daily for grad school.

If anyone has had any success, I'd like to know. Thank you!

Hi,

In my case AirPort drops connection to AirPort Extreme after downloading around 200MB from other (not upgraded) Mac.
Switching AirPort on my Mac off and on fixes the issue for the next 200MB or so.

Removing and then recreating AirPort interface doesn't help at all.

I think we have to wait for hot fix from Apple.

I'm getting random drops too. Turning off the airport and restarting it reestablishes the connection. I'm on my iPad and it seems to work well.

The same here. Connection drops frequently. I tried all suggestions but had no luck at all. I'm wondering if this issue is related to the problems the iPad has with iOS 4.2. And i'm wondering why Apple suddenly has so much problems with wifi.

Message was edited by: Clyndon

And i'm wondering why Apple suddenly has so much problems with wifi.

Suddenly? I have not had any wifi issues or any other issues since updating. Everything running smooth as silk.
You should keep in mind that these are technical support forums. Generally, the only people posting here are those with problems. The thousands/millions without problems don't ever come here.



If you feel strongly that there is a bug in the latest update, file a bug report or post your concerns on the Product Feedback website.

I didn't want to sound offensive. I also never had any issues with my Apple products. It's just strange that first Ios 4.2 is delayed because of wifi and now after updating to 10.6.5 my MacBook has Problems with wifi. And I'm shure that my router works - I'm using it with my wifi only iPad right now. But you are right. This seems to be the wrong place.

I am having the same wifi issues as most everyone else here. I have a late 2006 Mac mini that only has access to wifi. I've tried everything suggested here, most recently repairing permissions and deleting/recreating the AirPort service.

When I can get a connection to my Airport Extreme, I try pinging my router, and at first I get success. But the second I bring up a second application like Mail, ping starts to drop packets, and never recovers.

I then try turning Airport off and back on, then it refuses to connect back to my Airport Extreme, asking for my password and the connection timing out.

I've had some flakiness like this with 10.6.4, but these latest problems have been since the install of 10.6.5. I've had one successful internet connection since installing it.

Apple really needs to fix this. The only reason I have the net connection for this post is because I am running a MacBook with 10.4.11 (flawlessly with Airport, I might add).

An other interesting note I make here, is that almost everyone state that they are on 2006 hardware, so am I.

I seem to have found a solution. I followed a Apple Tech Support procedure from the long-running "Dropping Wi FI Signal" thread, then changed the channel on my Airport Extreme. I now have working WiFi on my Mac mini.

What worked:

Copy three files to the desktop for backup, then move the files from their original location to the trash:

Macintosh HD -> Library -> Preferences -> SystemConfiguration

com.apple.airport.preferences.plist
NetworkInterfaces.plist
preferences.plist

You will be prompted for your admin password when you attempt to move the files to the trash.

Restart the computer.

Connect to your wireless access point...you may be prompted for your wireless password.

If this does not work (it did not for me) then change the channel on your wireless access point. This worked for me, and I finally have WiFi working.

I have ping running right now in a terminal window, and I get an occasional dropped packet, but nothing like I was seeing before (when every packet was dropped). So there is something about the combination of deleted preferences and changed channel that is working.

EDIT: In the time it took to write this, Steven posted just above me with a better solution. His solution seems to suggest that yes, changing your channel will work, but is clearly not the best option. Try his solution first!


I wanted to chime in with my experience and what has worked so far. I will try to be very terse as to not make this paragraphs long.

iMac Aluminum Early 2007, updated to 10.6.5 this morning. Ever sine I had issues where the Internet was very sluggish and downloads would ever exceed ~30KB/s. A symptom of this was if I ping google.ca I usually get ~12ms. While downloading at 30KB/s the ping would be 1000-4000 or even lost.

MacBook 2008 (I think) 13" with 10.6.4 I tried to ping google.ca on the same wifi connection. 12-13ms average. On that Macbook I download the exact same file from same source and get full speeds with minimal drop in ping.

I realised that if I download 30KB/s uber slow on the iMac, EVERY wifi device on my network gets horrid ping to google.ca so basically downloading a file really screwed up my wifi networks traffic.

==FAILED SOLUTIONS== (Didn't directly fix the problem but could have helped? Don't rule out trying these)

- I cleared my DNS
- I deleted the wifi connection, turned off Airport and rebooted (as described earlier)
- I checked permissions (found nothing obvious so I didn't fix permissions since there are a few "bad" permissions that I intentionally did that way)

==SOLUTION== ( Worked for me, can't promise it will work for you)

I went into my Router (Some SMC router/modem from Rogers Cable in Canada) and changed the wifi channel from 8 to 6.

Easy as that.

I used 6 semi-arbitrarily, semi because someone earlier said they tried 6 and had some luck.

Using a Wifi detector I am aware that there are NO connections in range that use 8 or 6 so it wasn't interference from wifi.

Another theory is a non-wifi device interfering with that part of the spectrum. This is possible but many people having similar problems, the direct correlation to when I installed 10.6.5 with the problem beginning, and nothing I'm aware of changing that could instill interference leads me to think that this is an issue with 10.6.5.

Please let us know if you try changing your Router channel and what luck you have.

Please let me know if you have any questions in regards to my methodology or any technical information I can provide to assist further.

Of all my devices, the problem is only associated with an early MBP (2006) 15". I don't have the problem with recent devices, nor with the desktops. Over the past coupla days I tried all proposed solutions, but so far nothing really persisted.

One observation I have has to do with the number of bars indicated by the AirPort display in the menu bar: its always full at 4 bars :-/ Previously, I had areas in my house where the the reception was at 1-2 bars, but not now: its a full 4-bars! This kinda brings to mind the bar-problem that was fixed by Apple after the introduction of iPhone 4.

I had the same problem on a 13" MacBook Pro (Mid 2009). It worked correctly immediately after upgrading to 10.6.5 it was only 24 hours later after a sleep; so I'm wondering if this is a DHCP issue like they had with the iPad (i.e. when OSX tries to renew the lease for the local IP)?

Anyways tried most of the above with no luck. The closest I got was when I turned off my airport and then opened the Keychain Access App and deleted the keys to the router. I was then able to connect to the internet again, however it only lasted a minute then dropped again.

It seems to be working now but I couldn't say which bit actually fixed it. I reinstalled Snow Leopard from disk back to 10.6.1 (still wifi was not working); reupgraded to 10.6.5 using the combo updater still not working.

So now I made a lot of changes at once...
* Turned off Airport
* Removed the airport/network/preference plist files from the previous post
* Removed the local wifi passwords from the KeyChain Access App.
* Shutdown the MacBook.
* I then adjusted my router wifi to use G only (instead of b/g) and WPA2 only (instead of WPA/WPA2) and rebooted it.
* Started my MacBook and it all started working

Whether this is permanent or until the next time I sleep/OSX tries to renew the IP I guess I'll find out in the next 24 hours...

Further to my previous post, I can confirm that this morning I woke my iMac (2007) from sleep and the wifi connection is still good.

I put the steps I took to repair my wifi connection on my blog: http://www.haizdesign.com/blog/os-x-10-6-5-and-wifi-issues with a link back to this thread.

Well,

It is weird, but it seems to be sorted out.
I have new hardware (2010, MBP i7).
Yesterday, just after update I have had a constant problem with AirPort loosing the WiFi connection after downloading around 200MB.
I did rights repair, removed and recreated AirPort interface.
I have used applejack tool too (you have to use it in single user mode. Read here http://applejack.sourceforge.net/) followed by three PRAM cleans one after another.
With no success.
Then I have left my mac after another WiFi crash for some hour or so. After that I have found that the connection restored by it self and problem disappeared!
Now I have downloaded 2.3GB with no single problem.

Just give it a chance. Leave "broken" connection for some time and look if it recovery by it self.

Message was edited by: Squid72