Wifi Constantly Dropping in Lion

iPad, MacBook with latest version 10.7.3, and dell system connect fine to wifi. IMAC has not, does not, will not stay connected. After HOURS and Days Of going through endless leads through this forum and osxdigest, Nothing works. Genius bar says that there is no problem with airport.

like many others in this forum I am really getting tired of waiting for apple to address this problem.

Anyone interested in finding a collaborative legal class action way to get apple to address this issue?

I am, but I don't want to spend anymore time fighting if I can help it. This whole issue I've invested countless hours in. But I'm willing to support an effort to help bring attention to apple in this regard..

I'm surprised at Apple's lack of response in this. Thousands of customers are frustrated with Lion's issues. Most of us are not so tech savvy to work on this nor have the time to fight. I'm going to continue monitoring for an answer. Customer loyalty is taking a big hit.

Sorry to hear this did not work for you guys,

I have been trying just about everything (that makes sense) before simply resetting the WiFi interface (en1) and removing all airport entries in the keychain as the link reference given by McCainiac suggested

My MBP has been working fine with Lion for quite a while before the problem occurred. The only thing that seemed to change in my environment (and probably triggered the issue) was the appearance of a new WiFi network (my neighbour got a new router).

Again, I did a total reset of the WiFi interface, removed everything, this would also remove .plist entries for airport (com.apple.airport.airportutility.plist) and made sure the keychain entries were deleted.

So far still working after many sleeps, re-logging, re-starts...

JM

How are you attempting to set up your imac, through airports wireless utility accessed through your Macbook, or via the network set up of the imac itself - use the former not the latter. Make sure your imac Mac address is listed along with the mac addresses of your other mac connected devices. Put your imac top of the list.

Given your previous attempts I would also flush the following on your imac

DNS, interface parameters, TCP, and ARP. And try the following first to isolate your imac's wireless adapter as a possible fault.

Connect your imac to modem using ethernet. test your ethernet interface is working and you can obtain the internet ok

Plug the ethernet cable back into the airport from your modem.

Turn on your macbook and using an admin login, set up an adhoc network called imac test, give it a wep password.

Disconnect your Macbbok from the airport wireless, then ask it to connect to the adhoc network so it is broadcasting.

Using your wireless on your imac scan for it and see if you can connect.

If all is well. Reboot both machines, and retest the adhoc connection as before.

Remember to log in with full admin privileges on both machines whilst setting up and testing.

If you have any trouble connecting your adhoc then check for signal compatibility issues in the wireless adapter property settings on both machines, ie mode, channel, signal strengths, roaming aggressiveness etc.

If you still have problems with the adhoc - have your wirelss card changed in your imac

In writing this I have made no assessment of your networking skills, which may be vastly superior to my own, but sometimes a fresh perspective can help. This is what I would do if it were me, but its your time and your call. I am aware you might have done this adapter elimination process already, in which case sorry to have inconvenienced you with the time it took you to read this. best regards, Ct

On my MBP this issue began to occur AFTER the latest sw update on April 9th. I have been running Lion for over 2 month now with no issues. After the last sw update, the connection drops randomly but it stays connected for no more than 5 minutes at a time, making web browsing nearly impossible. I've tried the suggested creation of a new wifi area, which worked for about 15 minutes, then back to dropping.

My ISP is maintaining my router; they set it for 802.11g, not 802.11n and it now stays connected as long as the computer does not go to sleep. When it sleeps and wakes up, it is not connected, but immediately does connect. I can live with this, but it's still not right, is it?

With my setup, on 802.11n it disconnects after a couple of minutes -- not usable; on 802.11g it disconnects in sleep, but re-connects immediately upon waking.

Cheers,

Alan Shank

Woodland, CA, USA

goatcabin wrote:

.... on 802.11g it disconnects in sleep, but re-connects immediately upon waking.

Did you expect anything different?

I tried resetting my System Management Controller (SMC) - It seems to be working

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964

"Did you expect anything different?"

I didn't expect anything, actually. However, the current situation is incomparably better than the prior one.

Cheers,

Alan Shank

I had a WRT54GL running DD-WRT and was continually having this problem on all channels with 802.11g. I was able to work-around the problem with a wireless bridge connected to ethernet port, but it wasn't pretty. So, I ordered a Linksys E3000 router and haven't had any drops since. I'm now running 802.11n on the 5GHz band (default channel). I'm getting very good speed on my entire network since now that my iPhones and laptops can stay on the 2.4 GHz band.

goatcabin wrote:

"Did you expect anything different?"

I didn't expect anything, actually. However, the current situation is incomparably better than the prior one.

Cheers,

Alan Shank

Indeed, but just for the record then, you can *always* expect the connection to drop when it's asleep.

I will just add my recent experience, I have had Wifi dropping after 4 minutes of inactivity since i got my iMac a few weeks ago. All my other devices don't have a problem maintaining connection.

I had tried most of fixes on here to no avail but then someone suggested reducing security on the router.

So i removed the firewall on the iMac and my router (zxyel660hw) and removed the WPA security on my router and i was able to maintain a connection. I turned the firewalls back on and everything was still good but when i turned the WPA security back on the problems reappeared.

So at least i have something to work on.

There is an equally large thread on the forum with the iPad2 having similar wifi issues. A few people on there have mentioned WPA security as well.

Follow these steps - it will fix the issue (After restarting or waking from sleep, my computer might not connect to the Internet) on the latest iMac with Lion 10.7.3:

What we will do here is - first install the latest iMac Wi-Fi Update. Then remove our preferred network in network settings plus remove the stored network passwords from KeyChain Access Utility. Restart and rebuild our preferred network with password. Done. Please follow the instructions carefully.

1) Download iMac Wi-Fi Update v1.0 here: Download

This update resolves an issue that may cause an iMac to not automatically connect to a known Wi-Fi network after waking from sleep. February 24, 2012 - 25.81 MB

http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1500

2) (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4628?viewlocale=en_US) - (slightly modified below)

Symptom: After restarting or waking from sleep, my computer might not connect to the Internet

1. Select the Wi-Fi tab and view your Preferred Networks list.

1. Select each network and click the minus ➖ sign to remove those networks from your Preferred Networks list.
   => REMOVE ALL NETWORK - including your PREFERRED NETWORK (which is the very one you are having issues with)
   
2. Click OK and close the Network preferences.

2. Remove your stored network passwords using the Keychain Access Utility.

1. Open Keychain Access from /Applications/Utilities. Your window will look like this:
   
2. Remove your AirPort network passwords from the login keychain: Select the "login" keychain from the Keychain sidebar. Click the "Kind" column to order the list of keychain items by their type. Remove all entries of the kind: "AirPort network password".
3. Remove your AirPort network passwords from the System keychain: Select the "System" keychain from the Keychain sidebar. Click the "Kind" column to order the list of keychain items by their type. Remove all entries of the kind: "AirPort network password".
   Note: The above steps will remove your Wi-Fi network passwords. If you do not know them, or if your network does not use passwords to restrict access, you should contact your network administrator.

3. Restart your computer.

4. Go to network settings / preferred networks and click the ➕ button to add your preferred network. Join your Wi-Fi network. You will need to enter your password for your network again if it requires one.

Done.

Click Sleep and wake it and it all will be fine!

I follow these steps and get to the keychain and there's no airport network password stored there.

In any case, I've had this iMac since about last september. The remarkable thing is that in the time since I got it, the wife connectivity has only gotten worse. Connectivity averages just a couple minutes or so before I have to take action (renew DHCP, restart wifi etc). I do that and it stays connected for another couple of minutes. Seems like rebooting makes it last longer, but eventually it gets wacked out. I have four other apple devices IPhone, Ipad 2, macbook pro (snow leopard), and apple tv, and none of them have exhibited this issue. It really makes the iMac almost unusable.