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

Well thats just wrong. What a wait this is going to be, if I dont return it. What happened to the master of customer support LMAO!!

Can you guys post more details here on your wireless router model and the security being used ?

I would recommend using WPA2-PSK. Stay away from mixed mode security. ( WPA/WPA2).

When the connection drop's can you guys ping your local router and verify that ping does not drop ?

eg:

ping 192.168.1.1

where 192.168.1.1 is the router IP.

My symptoms as described earlier were frequent browser stalls, downloads failing, and during normal browsing, pings to another host on my lan would either either extremely variable jitter (in the order of 500ms) or just completely fail (most often).

I generally have everything set to WPA2-PSK (AES-CCM) only since its a MUCH stronger security cipher as well as being required per standard to work at MCS (802.11n) rates. However, during my testing, i found that if I forced my AP to only do WPA-PSK (TKIP), I was able to hold a stable connection and DL and pings are successfu with almost no jitter and low latency. However the tradeoff is lower security and 802.11a/g rates.

This result was the same whether I used 2.4Ghz (Ch1. 20mhz width) or 5Ghz (either DFS or hard set channel with both 20Mhz and 40Mhz width) .

I am using a Cisco AP1142N 802.11n access point. The nice part of using the Cisco AP is that I get a LOT of debugging and logging. In previous notes in this thread, I posted the logging information that was generated by errors with the connection to my iMac. I have 11 other devices in my house using WPA2-PSK (AES-CCM) and none of the others have ever generated that error.

Will do. I think I'm already using wpa2-psk but I'll check. It will be tomorrow before I answer back. Thanks

"gareth97 is correct. There will be absolutely no acknowledgement from Apple. Someday a Software Update might come out and reas "addesses issues with AirPort" and that will be it, IMO "🙂

This will be the case.

I have been contacted by Apple directly, and sending info to them. so yes... Apple DOES know and is working on this. they will just find the problem, fix it with an update and be done with it.

Relax and dont do something drastic like returning the iMac, it will be fixed and it is software not hardware. (note those running bootcamp with no issues.. if it were hardware there will be problems in bootcamp/windows)

If you can, just turn airport off and run ethernet for now. saves a headache...

There may be hope ... for me at least.

I received an email from an Apple Engineer requesting all sort of data and information. I won't be able to send it to him until tonight so it may be a while before I hear anything back, but I'll post here when I do.

Same here. I assume there are many they contacted for more info.

Did you get a phone call last night also?

One thing he wanted,

"Please attach the system profiler reports of all the machines that display this issue in your reply."

it's 397 pages at 2.1 MB... Saved as PDF. is there some smaller version they would want? maybe i'll redo it as rich text or something.

unless i misread his request and should have ran some other report thats a little smaller...

No, I didn't receive a phone call. It would appear the issue has gotten Apple's attention. This is good news!

Yes, I had to attache the profiler output, 2.1 Meg, and detail a lot of other stuff like what Airport Extreme model, mode, firmware. I had to run some commands in terminal mode, such as:

/System/Library/Frameworks/SystemConfiguration.framework/Versions/Current/Resour ces/get-mobility-info

And attach the resulting tar file to my email response. I'll report back if I hear from them again. I hope they can save me the trouble of hauling this 27" iMac into the Apple Store at the shopping mall this Saturday, but am not optimistic about that given it is already late Thursday evening.

I had 3 emails from the Apple Engineer when I got to my iMac this morning. He wanted additional information and was suspicious of my Time Machine backup to an Airdisk attached to my Airport Extreme. He asked me to turn off the Time Machine backups for now.

Have any of you who are experiencing the problem been backing up to an Airdisk or Time Capsule?

OK I have had a look and yes I am using WPA2-PSK. I have a bebox from "be internet" - The manufacturer is Thompson and the model is 1BTG585N I'm pretty sure there is no problem there since I have a macbook, two iphones, and an ipad all connected to the same router. This imac is brand new, and its a brand new model so that is where the problem is, either a proper hardware problem or a driver/firmware problem.

I pinged the router while no error and got the following response:

PING 192.168.1.254 (192.168.1.254): 56 data bytes

64 bytes from 192.168.1.254: icmp_seq=0 ttl=64 time=4.090 ms

I have been on the internet in macosx leopard for about an hour or so now and no problem as yet, as soon as the network stalls I'll ping the router again and see what happends. Also I'll record the time and have a look in the diagnostic file.

I'm using a dual band Apple Airpot Extreme purchased in November 2010 as my WiFi router; firmware 7.5.2. My iMac is connecting to it on the 5 GHz band with 802.11n. My security is WPA2 Personal.

I only added my Time Machine to the iMac on Sunday. Bestbuy had a Freeagent GoFlex 2TB drive for $91 🙂

it was USB 3.0, so i had to buy the $20 FW800 adapter. works great, but it's plugged in directly to the iMac.

we pretty much can rule out hardware, bootcamp has zero problems.

I still think something is getting corrupted, or getting confused with the 3 antennae's.

My ping to my Airport is 1-2ms on average right now. I have a terminal box open so i can run ping at anytime since my problem has kinda turned into a "part time" problem from the full time issue i had before. Last week, posting this would have failed to connect to the apple.com domain at least once...

Now at least i can actually use the internet, was so frustrating before. thats why i went Ethernet for a few days.

same issue. Brand new iMac 27" 2.7 GHz i5

From reading these message boards I can see that this problem has existed in the iMacs for a long time. I see posts going back to at least 2009 describing the same scenarios. In this thread we are seeing the same posts from folks who have the brand new gen... exhibiting the same known problems from previous models.

Clearly the problem is well known at Apple over a long period of time. Yet it continues to promote and sell computers that can't handle a simple wifi connection. My $170 panasonic blu-ray player connects seamlessly and flawlessly, but my brand new $2000 IMac is off-line.

I started pinging and the service dropped out. I had to turn off and then on the airport...

PING 192.168.1.254 (192.168.1.254): 56 data bytes

64 bytes from 192.168.1.254: icmp_seq=0 ttl=64 time=3.103 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.1.254: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=2.510 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.1.254: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=2.224 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.1.254: icmp_seq=3 ttl=64 time=2.304 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.1.254: icmp_seq=4 ttl=64 time=2.145 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.1.254: icmp_seq=5 ttl=64 time=3.363 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.1.254: icmp_seq=6 ttl=64 time=2.172 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.1.254: icmp_seq=7 ttl=64 time=2.504 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.1.254: icmp_seq=8 ttl=64 time=4.151 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.1.254: icmp_seq=9 ttl=64 time=2.186 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.1.254: icmp_seq=10 ttl=64 time=2.116 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.1.254: icmp_seq=11 ttl=64 time=4.526 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.1.254: icmp_seq=12 ttl=64 time=2.149 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.1.254: icmp_seq=13 ttl=64 time=2.528 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.1.254: icmp_seq=14 ttl=64 time=3.042 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.1.254: icmp_seq=15 ttl=64 time=2.335 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.1.254: icmp_seq=16 ttl=64 time=2.085 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.1.254: icmp_seq=17 ttl=64 time=2.137 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.1.254: icmp_seq=18 ttl=64 time=2.974 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.1.254: icmp_seq=19 ttl=64 time=2.972 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.1.254: icmp_seq=20 ttl=64 time=2.134 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.1.254: icmp_seq=21 ttl=64 time=2.195 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.1.254: icmp_seq=22 ttl=64 time=2.175 ms

Request timeout for icmp_seq 23 <connection dropped here at 17:40

Request timeout for icmp_seq 24

Request timeout for icmp_seq 25

Request timeout for icmp_seq 26

Request timeout for icmp_seq 27

Request timeout for icmp_seq 28

Request timeout for icmp_seq 29

Request timeout for icmp_seq 30

Request timeout for icmp_seq 31

Request timeout for icmp_seq 32

Request timeout for icmp_seq 33

Request timeout for icmp_seq 34

Request timeout for icmp_seq 35

Request timeout for icmp_seq 36

Request timeout for icmp_seq 37

Request timeout for icmp_seq 38

Request timeout for icmp_seq 39

Request timeout for icmp_seq 40

Request timeout for icmp_seq 41

Request timeout for icmp_seq 42

Request timeout for icmp_seq 43

ping: sendto: Network is down <I turned of the airport here

Request timeout for icmp_seq 44

ping: sendto: No route to host

Request timeout for icmp_seq 45

ping: sendto: No route to host

Request timeout for icmp_seq 46

ping: sendto: No route to host

Request timeout for icmp_seq 47

ping: sendto: No route to host

Request timeout for icmp_seq 48

ping: sendto: No route to host

Request timeout for icmp_seq 49

ping: sendto: No route to host

Request timeout for icmp_seq 50

ping: sendto: No route to host

Request timeout for icmp_seq 51

ping: sendto: No route to host

Request timeout for icmp_seq 52

ping: sendto: No route to host

Request timeout for icmp_seq 53 <I turned airport back on here

Request timeout for icmp_seq 54

64 bytes from 192.168.1.254: icmp_seq=55 ttl=64 time=2.287 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.1.254: icmp_seq=56 ttl=64 time=2.138 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.1.254: icmp_seq=57 ttl=64 time=2.165 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.1.254: icmp_seq=58 ttl=64 time=2.182 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.1.254: icmp_seq=59 ttl=64 time=2.955 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.1.254: icmp_seq=60 ttl=64 time=2.159 ms

64 bytes from 192.168.1.254: icmp_seq=61 ttl=64 time=2.503 ms

That was all during a 1 minute period.

I meant to say off there. You knew what i meant lol.