iMac 12,2 (mid 2011) airport (wireless) problem

Let us know if and when you restart and the fix survives... so far encouraging, but based on other people's experiences this problem is too insidious to consider this a fix.. yet.

Good luck! (for all of us.)

OK, this is the last update from me. The five-step shut-down, unplug everything, zapp the pram process I outlined above, seems to have done the trick for me. I've been online all day today, and half of yesterday, without loosing my Airport signal. Here's hoping this process helps someone else like it helped me. I'm using a mid-2011 27" iMac.

Sunfellow,

Is your iMac set to ever go to sleep after your "five-step" process? I've found that if I never let my iMac sleep, wireless does not cause problems. If your iMac is sleeping properly, I'd say we have at least one fix.

My iMac is up and running -- and online -- most of the time. However, when I put it to sleep (like I just did for a test), it goes to sleep and when I awaken it, it immediately signs back online. I will, however, keep an eye on this. If putting my iMac to sleep causes the Airport connection to start dropping out again, I'll let everyone know... So far so good though.

Why would you proclaim this "at least one fix" (you must not have read much of this thread) when it has been:

a) Less than 3 days (too soon to tell)

b) The actions taken were a direct response to the Apple tech asking if the person has Lion and hence may be Lion specific. Have you tried it on at least Snow Leopard and Leopard too ? This is of particular relevance as Apple has actually acknowledged there were Wi-Fi problems with Lion (10.7.1 update), but NOT with the other two (or with 2011 iMac hardware)

c) The problem most of the people in this thread have experienced has nothing to do with their iMac "sleeping" (other than an already faulty connection potentially seeming worse). Set your iMac to "never sleep" and see if your connection woes disappear

It gets a little annoying when you have folowed a 21 page thread (and many other threads to) to see a new "solution" touted and hailed on virtually each page (with the first post usually a few hours after the, ahem, "fix" has been discovered) and with no regard to the previous posters' situations (hardware, software, details of their circumstances) and failed "solutions".

Your frustration is justified but misdirected. Apple does not read these boards and the people on it are only trying to help each other. If you are frustrated, call AppleCare or Apple Customer Relations.

Following this very large (and vaguely titled) thread, there are likely a multitude of issues being experienced, from simple misconfigurations to a poorly written driver by Apple. That one user found success is all I meant by "at least one fix". The phrase was deliberately chosen to indicate that it was not a panacea.

Resetting the Power Managment hardware is a reasonable troubleshooting step. I personally have seen my iMac's wireless "wonkiness" solved by never letting it sleep. This is unacceptable to me from an energy saving standpoint, so I am hopeful that resetting the power management restores this functionality to full working order.

I am struggling to find anything in my post which may have caused your misapprehension that I believe Apple is reading these boards.

You may "understand" my frustration at the problem, which is the subject of this topic, but you appear not to understand my frustration at the continual hasty trumpeting (most recently yours) of the numerous individual specific "solutions", which inevitably turn out to be the "Emperor with no clothes". What you are saying is that "If you are frustrated, call AppleCare or Apple Customer Relations". Why, if I am frustrated with your lax language usage, should I should be calling Apple - why is it Apple's problem ?

Your (apparently "deliberately chosen", but poorly chosen) use of the word "fix" is what I railled against, that you believe one user has found a "fix" ("That one user has found a fix"). Numerous people have found "fixes" to this problem, but none have lasted thus far (which means they are not fixes), and many have lasted for more than several days. Yet you proclaim this a "solution" (if only for one person). A cure-all, no-more-problems, close the thread for this particular customer, honest to goodness SOLUTION ?!

You have seen your particular iMac's wonkiness solved by never letting it sleep. Good for you - be thankful. Now let the other people who have not yet had their problem "solved" (including the many people who have "reset their power management") continue this thread without some ill-behoved and premature statement that a fix has been found - even for one person - you sound intelligent, you should know that an optimistically CAUTIOUS response is called for NOT a fast response.

PS. If you have read more than one comment you would realise Apple has suggested more than a few "reasonable [read "generic"] troubleshooting steps". The problem is that none of them have worked for more than a month - so how "reasonable" are they when adjudged purely by their lack of ongoing utility ? Not at all ...

PPS. How is the title of this thread in any way "vague", what about "iMac 12,2 (mid 2011) airport (wireless) problem" seems, to you, in any way subject to misinterpretation by a regular (even dumb) native-English speaker ??

Message was edited by: DamenS "ejaculaltion" was bleeped out as though it referred purely to semen rather than words, changed the word to "statement"

I performed the steps to reset the power management that were suggested to you. After waking from sleep, my iMac continues to have dramatically reduced broadband speed. So, at least for me, that series of steps did not alleviate my specific problems.

Hi Samuel. Sorry to hear the five-step process that worked for me didn't work for you. I put my iMac to sleep last night and when I woke her up this morning, she autmoatically jumped back online, and has stayed online ever since. No lost Airport connections. So this fix is continuing to work with me. I'm sorry it's not working for you, and apparently many others.

Here is what my fix was: went into network preferences and deleted Ethernet, FireWire, and Bluetooth. Then selected advanced and deleted any extra networks. I then went into Bluetooth preferences, advanced and un-checked the Bluetooth PDA Sync port. I had tried everything under the sun with no success until this. I have been without a dropout for 3 weeks. I have also gone back and undone the changes; the dropping out comes back after computer goes to sleep a few times. This has fixed it for me. Maybe will work for a few others.

I had the same issue with my brand new 21.5 inch IMAC running LION and I had to call Apple support and did everything they said. The wifi dropped after 5 mins after I finished the conversation with them. This is not the issue with my Wifi router as my macbook pro with LION seems to be working fine and my other Windows machines seems to be fine too. I then took my IMAC to Apple store and the wifi connection seemed to work fine( I tested by pinging to google and there were no packet drops for 30 mins).

I figured that it has to do something to do with the compatibilty of Lion with my NetGear router and went to BestBuy and bought Apple TimeCapsule. After that I never had issues and also thought I could just use a backup solution too. It costed me 300$.

I would guess you can also try Airport Express base station(99$) and Airport Extreme Base station(179$) and see if it fixes the issue.

"why are we waiting....."

Just found this posting, and I have to laugh.....21 pages but no real solution yet.

I'll ring AppleCare tomorrow but looks like they need a larger 'tipping point' in order to fix.

shame.

27inch Imac i5 mid 2011 running 10.7

I am able to connect and hold a connection via Airport to my Wifi, but the issue I have is that its extremely slow to find the network. Ill boot up and everything is fine except it wont auto join the network although i have it set as the network to join, I will click on the airport icon upper right, "searching for networks" ~30sec-min later it finds all the wifi networks in my building and I can than connect. Issuse repeats itself after computer sleeps/restarts/ etc

I reset pram and all my software is uptodate, airport set 1st in the service order, I changed my routers chanel to not overlap anyone elses that I could pcik up.

HELP!

I am NOT having this issue on my old macbook pro late 2008 runing 10.6.7 intel duo 2.4ghz conect to the same network instantly in all situations.

Were you using the Ethernet when you deleted it from the menu? I have this problem with Ethernet downstairs and airport extreme upstairs, not sure if can turn off ethernet as you say. But hope I can. Connection drops several times daily. Am using old Mac, snow leopard, two iPad 2s and iPhone. Can't see the pattern, tried everything except your solution.

10.7.2 has been quietly updated with a small issue addressed to do with connecting to a network after sleep.

This may or may not address the issues disscussed in this thread. My update is installing now...

Will report back in a week or so to make sure everything works.