Q: WiFi Issues With MacBook Air

I'm seeing the same behavior on my 2011 13" Macbook Air, 1.8, i7, Lion pre installed, now running 10.7.2

After waking from sleep (usually opening the lid), there is no connection to the network. Sometimes I get the message 'none of your preferred networks can be found'. Select the network, sometimes it connects, sometimes it doesn't, sometimes it asks for the WPA Password (apparently there's an issue with the WEP passwords and this issue), sometimes it doesn't.

Have only had the MBA for a couple of weeks, this is the first Apple product I've ever owned that has failed to 'just work'.

My network uses an Airport Extreme, and today my MacPro, MacBook Pro 17", iPad2 all connected to the network automatically after being woken from sleep. Just as they do every time. The only one that doesn't is the 2011 MacBook Air 13".

I've gotten all the way up to a senior advisor on Apple Care. We reset the Keychains, the System Configurations, basically set the machine as if it had never seen a network. And today, the issue persists.

I have calls into the advisor to let him know, will post here if I get anything helpful.

Macbook Air 11, 2011, Lion ....same thing; initially connects then drops connection.  I just start turning my wifi off and then on again and it'll work.  If I'm lucky it'll stay connected for another few minutes till when I have to do it again.  After being on for about 5 or more minutes it'll stay connected and everything's great  ....but these intitial problems with getting it to connect after sleep are making me uncharacteristically grumpy.

I don't like being uncharacteristically grumpy.

I think i found my problem, remember I bought my MBA with lion installed and i got all the updates so...

Like I said it just started recently (2-3 weeks now)..

TO THE POINT.

I was keeping itunes, mail, ichat, twitter for mac, growl (mac app store version), and safari open at login, when the udates started coming in the computer started freezing and i would have to turn off and back on wifi. for the past 2 days I have turned off growl, ichat, itunes unless i needed them. Safari, mail and twitter stay on all the time and i have yet to have a problem. I think it might be something in itunes because a few minutes ago i opened itunes (while surfing) to sync over wifi and my page in safari "freezed", i turned off and back on and it was fine for a few minutes and then it started again. I said the heck with it and was just going to turn the computer off and started to close itunes. As soon and I quit itunes the page woke up (best way to put it) and finished loading. I repeated this effect 2 more times and then just to make sure I opened a few more things to run over wifi before turning itunes on. It worked, never been so happy to see the wifi freeze up and drop the connection. I am able to run itunes fine even while safari is open but not in use.

Now having said all this it will probably freeze up and drop every 10 seconds tomarrow but right it's a Good Apple. lol... try it, hope it helps!

I've described my issue of no or very slow connectivity on 40% of the networks I encounter here before, and some proposed solutions like the editing of a particular config file through the terminal window, or the altogether removing and again adding of wifi in the preferences screen seemed to work for a day or so, only for the problem to return.

Like others, I've repeatedly asked the Apple repair kids for help. Nothing they proposed worked. I challenged them, asking if they had any idea or if they were just roubleshouting. I brought this forum post to their attention and they admitted they had never heard about this problem. Yet they sell loads of new MacBook Airs, so are we the unlucky ones? What if instead of trying to solve the problem I had gone back to the store the day after I bought it and demanded to receive a replacement? Would I have been the happy owner of a working Mac? I wonder.

Either way, since it always seemed to work at the Apple store when they tested it, after weeks of troubleshooting I said "Look, just give me one of those Time Capsule things. If that combo works at least I've fixed my connectivity at home. If not, then I'll return both products because i've proven it's solely Apple's problem." It worked!

I got the Time Capsule instead of the Airport Extreme because buying a new wifi to replace a working one felt like throwing good money after bad. With the Time Capsule at least I get the added benefit of a much improved backup system.

As I reported previously here, we did take our less-than-2-week old Macbook Air in and they exchanged it for a new one.  Same problems with the wi-fi connection.  The apple care person we called did say they have an engineering group working on the issue.  ( tried to fix it remotely several times, by adjusting settings, etc.  10.7.2 did not fix our problem.  We have connected to the internet with a cable, so the computer is no good for travel and business as it is so unreliable.  Worst of all, two weeks ago it froze and had to be totally reinstalled from our external harddrive (we have customized settings for the machine). 

As with the rest of you, all other Apple products continue to connect to the wi-fi (3 other Apple computers, -- even our Squeezebox internet radios).  We have bought a new Airport Express, had the apple router checked out, etc.  Our feeling is that it has to be Lion, as our other computers have older systems and have had no problems.

Let's hope someone gets through to upper management, or Walter Mossberg or someone to bring attention to this problem.

You have consistently had good input.  Do you think we could get attention from Mossberg (WSJ) if there is someway to post the salient elements of this ongoing issue?  We represent a good number of folks by this time.

I have a MBA, purchased about two weeks ago. Same issue. I called Apple tech line, brought it to their attention. I also emailed their tech people under product review. I have not heard anything, but will continue to monitor this thread, it seems our voices are beginning to be heard.

Update on my end. Have been travelling to India, Singapore, Korea, China over the last 3 weeks and have no issues at all. However home network in Hong Kong with PCCW still has issues. Luckily folks from PCCW have been very helpful - they say many other MBA users have the same issue with the standard PCCW router (Netvigator), no such issues with Windows/PC. Basically they suggest switching the settings to "g" and channel 6 and seems to work. Apparently channel 11 also seems to work for some reason. So apparently in Hong Kong the fix is if connection goes down, switch wireless off then on again and move it to channel 6 or 11.  So fingers crossed this should be a fix. But irritating that Apple seems to be happy selling a premium-priced laptop with such substandard ability to connect- and that my broadband provider has been a lot more helpful than Apple has. If my MBA wasn't so new, I would switch back to windows/PC right away, but I guess am stuck with it for awhile.

Thanks scalpel73, very helpful for me. It's not really an ideal fix that they have come up with in my opinion, as it's unlikely to help anyone who is needing to connect to a wireless network where they do not have access to the wireless router (a public wifi hotspot etc). however.....

I am in the UK and I'm using a Sky netgear router. After switching the wireless router to channel 11, I am finding that when I boot up, the macbook air now automatically connects to my wireless network and also is still connected when I resume from sleep. Once the wireless is connected, it stays connected and works fine, as it has always done. So I'm now happy using my macbook air at home.

I was previously using channel 13 (and other channels before that).

Have checked to make sure that no-one nearby is using either channel 11 or 13. When connected, both 11 and 13 give 100% signal. The only difference is that channel 11 is the only channel which resolves the problems (for me) with needing to manually connect to the wireless network all the time. Channel 13 and all other channels I have tried still have this problem.

Unfortunately, I have no idea how this fix will help me when I need to connect to another wireless network outside my house which isn't using this wireless channel. I expect the same problems would reoccur.

***** UPDATE *****

It's working for me, but my wife's macbook air unfortunately still isn't auto connecting to the wireless network on channel 11 for some reason !!

How frustrating.... I will report back if I resolve.

ok, here's the update...

I noticed that the only difference between my macbook air and my wife's was that hers didn't have a "location" set in network preferences, and was still set to 'automatic'.

after changing this on her macbook air, it immediately started auto connecting to the wireless network, after booting up, and also after resuming from sleep.. no problems whatsoever.

[once the wifi has connected to a network, we have never had any isses with it disconnecting again, like other users have been having..]

Just to test that it was definitely channel 11 that was the fix for me. I changed the channel back to 13, and my macbook air stopped auto connecting again, so I "thought" this confirmed that channel 11 is the solution to our wireless problems somehow.

However... I have just done the same test again, this time, changing the router channel to a few other numbers, and also, setting the channel to automatic.. and low and behold, all the channels tried are working great, and are connecting automatically to our wireless network, after boot up, and also after resume from sleep. It is only when I change the router channel back to 13 that all the problems reappear, and the wifi stops "automatically" connecting to the wireless network, after boot up, and after resume from sleep.

So in summary.. for us it appears to be a combination of having a custom 'location' set in network preferences, and also having the sky netgear router set to any channel number APART FROM 13. (I haven't confirmed this by testing ALL channels though, but I have tried a few of the channels). Or maybe somehow, by initially changing the router channel to 11, this had some effect?

This means I can use my macbook air at home just fine.. but I have no idea what will happen when I try to connect to a different WIFI network somewhere else, e.g. an internet cafe or somewhere.....

I don't know if this will help anyone... but at least it got our macbook air's working ok with our home network.

Switching from 'automatic' to channel 6 is working so far for me.  No dropped connections or problems connecting after sleep.  Knock on digital wood of course.  Running a first gen. airport extreme btw.

Hi,

i have had similiar issues with my wifi router. I found a solution for my one - it is a FritzBox 7390 Router.

It allows to create 2 "virtual" WIFI hotspots and a guest HotSpot from one router.

2,4Ghz and 5Ghz. The MacBook always failed to connect on 5Ghz.

The GuestWifi option was the problem in my case. I disabled the additionally guest wifi and now i am able to conenct to the 5Ghz one too.

With this guest wifi hotspot my MacBook Air 2011 will not accespt the WIFI Password, but only on the 5Ghz band Wifi - the other virtual WIFI on the  2,4Ghz band can be connected.

It is frustrating to spend hours to get wifi working on a 1600€ device....

andyp.uk, Your solution is working for me as well. I am still monitoring but by now is everythink working since i set up chanel 11 (my lucky number).

Seems like auto chanel miss with MBA wifi.

Lets see what is going to happen next.

Thak you

Fernando

I bought an 11" MBA two months ago running Lion 10.7.2.

I too have been experiencing massive amounts of trouble connecting to public wifi spots. Connecting at home and work is like rolling the dice. Sometimes it works sometimes it doesnt. Yet, everyone else NEVER seem to have a problem...EVER!

As a new Mac owner, this is certainly causing some regret. Apple products are supposed to "just work".

My Sony Vaio notebook and iPhone 4s always connect just fine. Reboots and turning on/off the WiFi sometimes help. More often, I now just put away my MBA and break out my trusty Vaio so I can actually get work done.

I submitted a bug request for this with Apple and below is their response.

This is a follow up to Bug ID# 10391140.  After further investigation it has been determined that this is a known issue, which is currently being investigated by engineering.  This issue has been filed in our bug database under the original Bug ID# 9869571.

So let's see what happens now?!