Wifi Constantly Dropping in Lion

delventhalz wrote:

That said, it is likely that if you bought a new wireless router (or used a USB wireless card, instead of your built-in card) it would start working again, because you have removed the incompattible piece of hardware.

I've had the same problem with multiple routers in different locations, so I doubt it's that.

Including: 2 Buffalo n routers, AirPort Express and a Netgear DG834G

Well turning on debugging didn't help.

DRW9 wrote:

I've had the same problem with multiple routers in different locations, so I doubt it's that.

Including: 2 Buffalo n routers, AirPort Express and a Netgear DG834G

Huh, that honestly surprises me. Though this problem has been extremely nebulous from day one, affecting diferent users in different ways.

My recommendation:

If this is a new computer you bought with Lion or Mountain Lion pre-installed I would try and get the wireless card replaced if you are under warranty.

If this is an older computer you upgraded to Lion or Mountain Lion, downgrade to Snow Leopard.

2010 MBP, but it's been fine for about 9 days now (I didn't do anything except enable debugging), if it comes back I'll get the Snow Leopard driver out a backup.

I did downgrade to Snow Leopard at one point, but almost every time I rebooted my filesystem got corrupted so I gave up and restored.

And you wonder why your computer does not work... Stop using that router that your grandmother gave you.

YOU ARE RIGHT! SHE SHOULD NEVER OF PURCHASED THAT APPLE TIME CAPSULE FOR ME! NO WONDER IT DOESN'T WORK!!!

like an idiot i decided to upgrade both my 2011 Air and 2011 iMac around the same time to Mountain Lion. Both are having wifi issues, not been able to find any work around so far. For now, I connected my Air to the csico router via ethernet, and turned into a hotspot. No issues if the iMac goes through the Air over wifi, but breaks if it goes through the Cisco router over wifi. The cisco router is a wifi capable DOCSIS cable modem from Starhub (Singapore), my current ISP.

I've got a CISCO Linksys WRT310N, it's a Wireless-N router, seems pretty modern to me, how often does Apple expect you to switch your wireless router? This is a total joke.

How often do you get software updates for your computer? Well your router has updates also, but no one ever updates their routers. Look... In the past year OS X Lion has been upgraded several times... now it is os x mountian lion. Seriously in the last year how many times did you update your router? Contact the manufacturer, they will walk you through the steps.

Carlo TD wrote:

How often do you get software updates for your computer? Well your router has updates also, but no one ever updates their routers. Look... In the past year OS X Lion has been upgraded several times... now it is os x mountian lion. Seriously in the last year how many times did you update your router? Contact the manufacturer, they will walk you through the steps.

In fact, there are countless ways that WiFi could be not working for you, including the problem that everyone is calling the Apple WiFi debacle.

However, some people whether affected by that, or not, have found that there are solutions which involve things which they can do themselves.

New routers out of the store, almost always need a firmware update, period. Not many do this themselves, although they really should. Hardware manufacturing and firmware content is almost never going to be in sync with the latest software revision of new hardware. There will be software bugs, and hardware issues that software must work around (like the power management issue in the WiFi chipset for some Apple computers).

If you haven't updated the firmware, that might fix some things, if you are not being affected by the "Apple WiFi Debacle" problem.

Apple told me that Lion and ML were not compatible with a WEP key. While I knew this was not true for Lion, it seems to be so for ML. Changing to WPA2 ( with my ISP's help ) solved the problem.

I wouldn't be surprised if it comes back.

Mountain Lion still drops wi-fi regularly on my brand new retina MBP. And everybody here who thinks it's my set up can shut the f up. I have a new generation Netgear dual band router that works perfectly fine with absolutely everything that I tried so far, including ipad and iphone. It looks like for MBP, good wi-fi connection is still rocket science...

adi9999 wrote:

Mountain Lion still drops wi-fi regularly on my brand new retina MBP. And everybody here who thinks it's my set up can shut the f up. I have a new generation Netgear dual band router that works perfectly fine with absolutely everything that I tried so far, including ipad and iphone. It looks like for MBP, good wi-fi connection is still rocket science...

If you have an Apple store close by, it might be a good idea to take your router and your MBP there, and say "See it doesn't work" to try and make the point that there is something Apple needs to address. Make sure that you pay attention to whether it's happening when you are plugged into the wall, or on batteries. Work out a demonstration, away from your house, that reproduces the problem, and then go sell it at the store!

It still seems that noone has found a way to put the problem right at Apple's feet that will cause them to fix it.

1. The problem is NOT reproduceable on demand. Sometimes it will happen all day, then go away for a day or week or month. But when the problem occurs, it's a BIG deal, as the network is nearly unusable.

2. The problem occurs even with ALL apple hardware, including a brand new AirPort.

3. Here is a scan of my wireless surroundings:

/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Apple80211.framework/Versions/Current/Resource s/airport -s

SSID BSSID RSSI CHANNEL HT CC SECURITY (auth/unicast/group)

LAGnet d8:30:62:35:c4:e7 -67 11 N US WPA(PSK/TKIP/TKIP) WPA2(PSK/AES,TKIP/TKIP)

LAGnet f8:1e:df:fd:34:9d -39 11 N US WPA(PSK/TKIP/TKIP) WPA2(PSK/AES,TKIP/TKIP)

deathstar 00:0f:66:11:7d:f4 -82 6 N -- WEP

2WIRE202 c0:83:0a:94:1e:b1 -76 3 N US WPA(PSK/TKIP/TKIP)

Wright Wireless 00:24:01:44:f4:ba -85 1 Y US WPA(PSK/TKIP/TKIP)

LAGnet 5GHz f8:1e:df:fd:34:9e -48 149,+1 Y US WPA(PSK/TKIP/TKIP) WPA2(PSK/AES,TKIP/TKIP)

Here is my connection status:

/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Apple80211.framework/Versions/Current/Resource s/airport -I

agrCtlRSSI: -53

agrExtRSSI: 0

agrCtlNoise: -84

agrExtNoise: 0

state: running

op mode: station

lastTxRate: 300

maxRate: 300

lastAssocStatus: 0

802.11 auth: open

link auth: wpa2-psk

BSSID: f8:1e:df:fd:34:9e

SSID: LAGnet 5GHz

MCS: 15

channel: 149,1

I'm in the same small living room as the AirPort Extreme. I believe the last time the problem occured was when I was connected on channel 11. Right now I'm connected via 5.8 Ghz and no problems so far.

One interesting side note, is that my MacBook Pro was running Leopard and Snow Leopard with no problems. Even after my upgrade to Lion, it still worked fine. Then when I swapped hard drives to an SSD, and did a fresh install of Lion, did the problem occur.

Another interesting side note is that I bought a brand new mac mini running Lion Server, that had no issues with wireless, UNTIL I reinstalled.

I'm not sure if it was the re-install that triggered the wireless problems, or just a coincidence.

Either way, this problem has been VERY hard to solve. I suspect the problem is a very low level one, that is driver related to a change in the Lion wireless driver. My oversimplified guess would be due to the implementation of AirDrop.

I have also seen this same problem on my clients computers, who are running Lion. Never once seen it happen in an earlier OS...