Wifi Constantly Dropping in Lion

changing ISP has worked several hours for me and I had not problems up to now. As "gphonei" said, there was a good discussion betwen them some days ago. . I think a guy named Augend ( or something like that, as I couldn't find those discussions here) said he had changed his ISP and had not any problem for several months and "gphonei" guided "MacsSa" in this case which led to his solution. We have 2 phone lines ( one general and another for my daughter's bed room) . yesterday I made a new contraction from another ISP on the line on my daughter's bed room and put the router on that. It is about 8 hours that they installed the new line and I had not even one disconnection . I have crossed my fingers and continually tapping wood !

Nice to hear that !

But you have done a risk to your wallet !. Although this worked for me and you ,I dont advise others to do that unless they have tested the new ISP before changing it . First go to a friend's home with a different ISP and test the connection, then do that if you want.

Just dropped wifi again since 10.8.1 update.

Do you have access to VPN or Proxifier ? If so, check if the connection drops with them ? those days that I had this problem and before I get rid of the problem , I could connect to internet by VPN without any issues . ( I know it is not a complete solution, but can make some sense ; at least better than nothing or can help others to find the source of the problem. ) . try OpenVPN or something with free trial version. they give you a 100MB trial which is enough for testing. ( I am not suggesting to use VPN permanently, Just please report the test result )

Well I had a nice long reply all typed in and I hit send and everything locked and wifi dropped. I'm saying pretty much the same thing, we need to post our finding and problems not trash apple or insist you have the only fix.

People have convinced unknowing others to buy a new router, change lines of code, remove any trace of certain programs.

I've spent hours on the phone with apple engineers trying different fixes and running test, so I know a little of what's going on. Apple also said that the wifi issue is affecting different programs on different machines. So when people are insisting it's certain program causing the issue Apple say's they're right and wrong. It's the wifi issue causing those programs to act up on that/those machines. It's an affect not the cause and that affect is to make that program drop wifi and sometimes lock the system. Yes deleting that program might fix some of those machines but it was the wifi issue that caused that program to lock up that machine and drop wifi. If that makes any sense, It certainly does to me.

I have MB late 2008 and try all solution to make my wifi work after update to 10.8....change MTU, delete wifi config and create new, rem. all wifi access data from keychain, downgrade to SL kext but nothing work for me on 10.8.1 😟 (SL kext not support AirDrop)...Only way to stay connected is to ping some public IP. To do this open Terminal and type "ping 8.8.8.8" (without quote), minimize terminal and your WiFi should work now !

Excuse my ignorance. what do you mean by Terminal?

thanks for clarifying this and bringing some light :-)

Terminal is something like command prompt in windows...to open pres CMD+space and type terminal, after open just type ping 8.8.8.8

@juato4 i try SL kext and Lion 10.7.4 but Wifi still drops 😟

thanks. I have just done so. Do I need to press return as well at the end?

sorry for the stupid questions 😕

Yes, after every command in terminal you must hit enter to execute that command. You can also use Network utility to do this.

...

thanks. I will try this.🙂

gsspike wrote:

Well I had a nice long reply all typed in and I hit send and everything locked and wifi dropped. I'm saying pretty much the same thing, we need to post our finding and problems not trash apple or insist you have the only fix.

People have convinced unknowing others to buy a new router, change lines of code, remove any trace of certain programs.

The post from Augend reflecting on his ISP problem, and MacsSa having similar issues, puts an interesting spin on this too.

Ultimately, you have ot work through the issues, not just try everything that's been posted here.

Because this is a technical issue, which needs technical skill to walk through checking on each part of your WiFi and ISP connection, it's hard for people to work out what is going on.

The WiFi mechanism is just a "wire" over radio, to connect your computer to your router, without a wire (wire less). If you haven't tried using an ethernet cable to see if you have the same problem, you might find something interesting by doing that.

If you have no problems with an ethernet cable, then it may be just the wireless mechanism.

Check your router to make sure you have the latest firmware for it. There is information for doing this in your manual, or your ISP can provide guidance on doing that.

Once you have the latest firmware loaded, you can check that each piece of the "network" technology going over wireless works.

If your web browser tells you "you are not connected to the internet", then open a Termina applicationl window (Look in Applications in the Utilities folder). In that window, while the browser is still telling you "you are not connected to the internet", when you press the reload button, type "ping -c 4 8.8.8.8" and hit return. You should see

PING 8.8.8.8 (8.8.8.8): 56 data bytes

64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=0 ttl=48 time=27.847 ms

64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=1 ttl=48 time=27.177 ms

64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=2 ttl=48 time=27.003 ms

64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=3 ttl=48 time=27.760 ms

Then your wireless connection IS WORKING, but "DNS" or some other packets are being dropped by your ISP.

If you see

PING 8.8.8.8 (8.8.8.8): 56 data bytes

ping: sendto: No route to host

ping: sendto: No route to host

Request timeout for icmp_seq 0

ping: sendto: No route to host

Request timeout for icmp_seq 1

ping: sendto: No route to host

Request timeout for icmp_seq 2

--- 8.8.8.8 ping statistics ---

4 packets transmitted, 0 packets received, 100.0% packet loss

Then your wireless network really is "not working". Packets of data are not going out.

If your wireless network IS WORKING then try typing "dig @8.8.8.8 www.apple.com" and hit return

If you see the following, give or take a few differences, then your DNS is definitately not working and you need to tell you ISP that you need them to fix it.

; <<>> DiG 9.8.1-P1 <<>> @8.8.8.8 www.apple.com

; (1 server found)

;; global options: +cmd

;; Got answer:

;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 15117

;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 4, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0

;; QUESTION SECTION:

;www.apple.com. IN A

;; ANSWER SECTION:

www.apple.com. 1781 IN CNAME www.isg-apple.com.akadns.net.

www.isg-apple.com.akadns.net. 42 IN CNAME www.apple.com.edgekey.net.

www.apple.com.edgekey.net. 21582 IN CNAME e3191.c.akamaiedge.net.

e3191.c.akamaiedge.net. 2 IN A 23.1.77.15

;; Query time: 71 msec

;; SERVER: 8.8.8.8#53(8.8.8.8)

;; WHEN: Sat Aug 25 17:51:37 2012

;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 158

If you will report back here what you find from these steps, that will help us help you, and perhaps help others.

48 hours after getting new ISP: no disconnection yet !

Earlier this year, someone in this forum recommended going to the System preference and then to "Energy Saver", click on the Computer Sleep, and changing the "computer sleep" to NEVER.

Which I did.

Since that time, I have never had a drop from my WiFi.

Last week I thought I would see if anything had changed, so I changed everything back to original. Again I had immediately Wifi disconnect.

Changed everything back, now NO disconnects!

Well for me and the Apple engineers I worked with found it is confind to my mac's wifi signal When it drops wifi I can't see any networks two different ISP's and 3 different routers. None of them see me. Also confirmed by Apple It can drop wifi while working on line. Wifi indicator can stay All black, light gray, dark gray or clear. Apple called me to use my computer to try fixes posted here and all kinds of test that Apple would send me to run, log and send back to them. They didn't leave out to many suggestions posted on these boards in different threads and some test they came up with.. What helps is I am a Master Diagnostician in another field who also had to keep our PC's and network up and running including 2 private satellite feeds. I'm not one of the Unknowing people out there. Anything I have tried without Apple I send my results back to Apple

I still agree with Apple it is one problem affecting some computers and different programs on those machine. My wife's identical macbook never had the problem in Lion and ML. But I also run different programs than she does. Programs affected by this issue on mine are mail, G Chrome, Safari, Preview and Iphoto. Those seem to be the worst on mine. Since 10.8.1 I can't even bring up cmd- option-esc so I'm forced to do a hard restart. I've also gone back to dropping every 4 to 6 hours. I had gotten it down to once every couple of days even a few times it lasted 4 days.

I agree that Different computers, programs, routers and ISP's fix it for some and not for others. Maybe I agree with Apple because I've run into this kind of issue before.