Wifi Constantly Dropping in Lion

gsspike wrote:

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.

What I don't know, is what all these people are experiencing which causes them to have a "WiFi Constantly Dropping in Lion" moment. I am a computer scientist who's Masters degree and thesis was based on networking and operating system implementations thereof. So, I have a detailed view of what can happen, and I have a microscopic analysis mode when dealing with these kinds of issues. Those who are not network experts will really have no idea how to walk through this and find the root cause.

It's networking! It's not "an application". Something in the network stack of software is being impacted by how it interacts with the world for the case of "The Apple WiFi problem". Everyone else having a problem may be "confused" by the posts here and by their ignorance on the subject, and be lured into hunting and picking at the details of the posts here, trying to find an answer.

There are so many different things that can make WiFi not work well. But, there are so many more that can just make "networking" not function.

Witness the broad number of "solutions" people have "found" for their problems.

Why change the ISP, router, or anything else on the network if it has so far worked before the update on ML 10.8 ??? Apple apparently has not tested the new WIFI driver before he released the final version ML 10.8! On my network I have many iDevices also another Macbook with 10.7.4 version and all work perfect !

A few hours ago I downgrade WIFI driver (IO80211Family.kext) to SL 10.6.3 and WIFI seems to working normally now. 10.6.3 does not support AirDrop but until Apple fix bug I can live without him 🙂

IMPORTANT: This piece of information will not lead to any direct solution. This is written for experts to illustrate something happened which may possibly lead to finding the main source of the problem. PLEASE don’t enter any political or out of subject discussions.

I was hesitating to say this story here as I know if this subject results in off-subject discussions this will be against “Terms and Policies” of this community. So again, I ask anyone to just focus on the scientific subjects and nothing else.

Around 2 months ago I had a trip to one of those countries with supervised internet ( I mean many websites including Facebook, are filtered there but other websites as Google or non-political websites are not filtered).

In that country ( I don’t say its name as I don’t want to imply any political issues) if you enter www.facebook.com in your address bar you will be redirected to a page with this message: “ Access Denied”.

During my stay there, I could not connect to any website, or my connection dropped periodically, but something very very strange happened: During the disconnection periods if I wanted to go to Facebook, safari successfully redirected to that “Access Denied webpage” ! I mean I couldn’t connect to any webpage ( including Google or non-political pages which were not filtered ) other than that “Access Denied “ webpage ! But this wasn’t the only strange thing happened. Astonishingly I could connect reliably to any website via VPN without any disconnection.

I have no idea about that but I think if an expert can find the fact behind this story, may find the main solution or fix for the problem. For example there may be an issue in proxies or perhaps hidden proxies of MBP or ISP or some incompatibility in TCP/UDP applied there or incompatibility in proxy settings or something else ( I don’t want to imply anything, these are only some guesses ).

Any ideas ?

pookyba wrote:

Why change the ISP, router, or anything else on the network if it has so far worked before the update on ML 10.8 ??? Apple apparently has not tested the new WIFI driver before he released the final version ML 10.8! On my network I have many iDevices also another Macbook with 10.7.4 version and all work perfect !

A few hours ago I downgrade WIFI driver (IO80211Family.kext) to SL 10.6.3 and WIFI seems to working normally now. 10.6.3 does not support AirDrop but until Apple fix bug I can live without him 🙂

Something that you have to understand, is that all the time that your systems have been setting there working with the technology you have, standards have evolved, bugs in systems have been fixed, new bugs have been recognized, and there are all kinds of work arounds in consumer wifi technologies because the "manufactures", can't fix their hardware.

What you are thinking, is a square peg in a round hole problem exists. The reality is that there are many more problems which could be more like the diameter of the whole might allow certain square pegs to fit. Sometimes the peg is too long or too short.

Sure, many people find that changing to the old driver works. That implies nothing about where the problem actually is, only that a compatible environment exists in that configuration. Just because you change one things doesn't mean that it signifies that the other parts are not at fault.

"What you are thinking, is a square peg in a round hole problem exists."

So before I continue are you agreeing or disagreeing with me? Because that is pretty close to what I'm saying I'm saying.

gsspike wrote:

"What you are thinking, is a square peg in a round hole problem exists."

So before I continue are you agreeing or disagreeing with me? Because that is pretty close to what I'm saying I'm saying.

What I'm saying is that based on what little information we actually have about "THE CAUSE", for me, the picture is not clear. There is nothing that shows that Apple has a round hole of a WiFi driver, and the square peg of the standard is not fitting within it's implementation.

Instead, many people have all kinds of problems which are just "normal networking" issues that need to be worked though to find the root cause, and then apply the appropriate fix (whether that's a new router, new ISP, better ISP or whatever).

There maybe a wider set of circumstances that are caused by the "real problem", then what is recognizable by the reports here. In the end, we will likely never have "THE REPORT" on what problem(s) is/are found.

Given the reports here, I'm still on the side of "THERE IS NO REAL PROBLEM", but rather there are "circumstances" which create interworking issues. It sure seems like there is likely several vendors routers that just have real problems using the full set of features that 802.11n MIMO allows. There is the "frequency" part of 802.11 on 2.4ghz or 5ghz, then there is the security part with WPA2 and finally there is MiMO where the RF characteristics of the radio systems are much more technically challenging.

As a Mac user, who has 4 different Macs, none of which have "THE PROBLEM", I am at a loss for a chance to work on finding out what's really happening.

gphonei wrote:

pookyba wrote:

Why change the ISP, router, or anything else on the network if it has so far worked before the update on ML 10.8 ??? Apple apparently has not tested the new WIFI driver before he released the final version ML 10.8! On my network I have many iDevices also another Macbook with 10.7.4 version and all work perfect !

A few hours ago I downgrade WIFI driver (IO80211Family.kext) to SL 10.6.3 and WIFI seems to working normally now. 10.6.3 does not support AirDrop but until Apple fix bug I can live without him 🙂

Something that you have to understand, is that all the time that your systems have been setting there working with the technology you have, standards have evolved, bugs in systems have been fixed, new bugs have been recognized, and there are all kinds of work arounds in consumer wifi technologies because the "manufactures", can't fix their hardware.

What you are thinking, is a square peg in a round hole problem exists. The reality is that there are many more problems which could be more like the diameter of the whole might allow certain square pegs to fit. Sometimes the peg is too long or too short.

Sure, many people find that changing to the old driver works. That implies nothing about where the problem actually is, only that a compatible environment exists in that configuration. Just because you change one things doesn't mean that it signifies that the other parts are not at fault.

This is the first time I have been disappointed by Apple. I think everyone is looking for a solution to fix their WIFI to work normally until Apple fix bug? Also this is not the first time that Apple has made ​​a mistake with WiFi, this is also happened in 10.6, 10.7 and now again in 10.8 version. I am not paid to help Apple find there bugs and I just share my solution to temp. fix this problem. Also I'm really sorry that apple footsteps of Microsoft 😟

I can confirm that kext from SE 10.6.3 work perfect ! I use it about 6h without single drops 🙂

pookyba wrote:

This is the first time I have been disappointed by Apple. I think everyone is looking for a solution to fix their WIFI to work normally until Apple fix bug? Also this is not the first time that Apple has made ​​a mistake with WiFi, this is also happened in 10.6, 10.7 and now again in 10.8 version. I am not paid to help Apple find there bugs and I just share my solution to temp. fix this problem. Also I'm really sorry that apple footsteps of Microsoft 😟

I can confirm that kext from SE 10.6.3 work perfect ! I use it about 6h without single drops 🙂

So can you point out which piece of software or hardware is at fault? How can you be so sure that only Apple has a part in your problem?

Based on your logic, if my car doesn't start, I can say that my car dealer sold me junk. Whether I have gas, someone removed the ignition module, the spark plugs or something else, could not be part of the problem?

I really am saddened by the thought that people are so short sighted in their analysis skills that they can draw such amazingly unsubstantiated conclusions from such a small amount of actual fact.

Let's assume Mr X is an Apple expert in charge of fixing a bug. The bug is this: Quicktime crashes when opening a specific file named "A". What Mr X will do? simply opens file "A" by QuickTime and starts debugging.

But what can Mr X do for this problem ? he must come to your home and tests all your MB + modem+Network !!

That's obvious this problem is not easy for Mr X to solve as he has no definite idea about it ( look at the huge number of solutions proposed as just trial and errors!)

Instead of arguing on different symptoms, let's make a clear picture of the problem for Mr X !!

For example you are sure that downgrading kext will solve anything, but it didn't work for me when tried it last year. instead I changed my ISP and no problem during last whole year, but I daren't telling others to do that. in fact each one of us has seen just one small piece of the problem, not the whole . I never tell others to change their ISP unless they are sure about that, because I know I have reached it as a trial, not as a scientific fact. This is the case for downgrading or any other solutions.

Apple sells 3 million+ ML upgrades. Suddenly and and at the same time 100K macs start dropping wifi and each have all different issues leading to the same out come, dropped wifi. So to Deny ML has anything to do with it is absolutely ridiculous. No one here needs a Masters Degrree to see ML is the common link.

Those issues might not be caused by ML but it has caused those presumed left behind macs to eventually drop wifi. Finding out what part of ML helped bring those issues to the front hopefully will lead us to update/fix what ever each of our mac's problems are.

I'll say it again Apple does read our post. They told me that's why they called me.

gphonei wrote:

pookyba wrote:

This is the first time I have been disappointed by Apple. I think everyone is looking for a solution to fix their WIFI to work normally until Apple fix bug? Also this is not the first time that Apple has made ​​a mistake with WiFi, this is also happened in 10.6, 10.7 and now again in 10.8 version. I am not paid to help Apple find there bugs and I just share my solution to temp. fix this problem. Also I'm really sorry that apple footsteps of Microsoft 😟

I can confirm that kext from SE 10.6.3 work perfect ! I use it about 6h without single drops 🙂

So can you point out which piece of software or hardware is at fault? How can you be so sure that only Apple has a part in your problem?

Based on your logic, if my car doesn't start, I can say that my car dealer sold me junk. Whether I have gas, someone removed the ignition module, the spark plugs or something else, could not be part of the problem?

I really am saddened by the thought that people are so short sighted in their analysis skills that they can draw such amazingly unsubstantiated conclusions from such a small amount of actual fact.

"So can you point out which piece of software or hardware is at fault? How can you be so sure that only Apple has a part in your problem?"

For answer on this qustion you must ask Apple, but Im sure that is Apple part of problem coz I buy ML not Windows 8 so I can't say MS is part of problem if I buy it from Apple ?!?

"Based on your logic, if my car doesn't start, I can say that my car dealer sold me junk."

Yes if you buy new car. In this case ML is new version of Mac OS.

"I really am saddened by the thought that people are so short sighted in their analysis skills that they can draw such amazingly unsubstantiated conclusions from such a small amount of actual fact."

Trust me I have a lot of experience in the development and I'm not the average user of software.

Would not that someone misunderstands, I use Macintosh since 1995, today i use most of Apple product and Im happy with it!

Knowing that Apple reads these post eventually some one in upper Management will read posts like this

"THERE IS NO REAL PROBLEM" or it's not ML's fault, written by experts on these threads. So when he is going over the books for the end of the quarter he realizes his department is spending thousands hours fixing a wifi issue that only by coincident started happening after ML was installed. So he shuts down all research and tech support relating to any Wifi issues. That's what MS would do so why not Apple.

pookyba wrote:

gphonei wrote:

"So can you point out which piece of software or hardware is at fault? How can you be so sure that only Apple has a part in your problem?"

For answer on this qustion you must ask Apple, but Im sure that is Apple part of problem coz I buy ML not Windows 8 so I can't say MS is part of problem if I buy it from Apple ?!?

You're missing the point. Just because you buy something with a label of it's compatibility, on it, unless you can "test" the exact details of that Labeling, to prove that it is "correct", you can not "say" that one product is any "more correctly implemented" than the other.

Just because all the stuff you have works together (except for your macbook), doesn't mean that all that stuff is meeting all standards associated with the technologies that it is labeled with. All of the other stuff can be, simply, incompatibly, compatible.

I'm asking you, to think about this pragmatically. If you look at Auden's reported problem, it was his ISP that was creating the problem. They had an incompatible, broken system, which windows and everything else was tolerating, because they were not using advanced feataures. But, Auden's macbook was using advanced features that were not correctly working, due to details of the ISPs equipment.

Until you can eliminate every single thing else, by testing and thus proving correct implementations, selecting some part of the system to "blame", is just not productive, nor correct, and will put you in a position to continue to suffer, because you are not "fixing" the real problem.

gsspike wrote:

Knowing that Apple reads these post eventually some one in upper Management will read posts like this

"THERE IS NO REAL PROBLEM" or it's not ML's fault, written by experts on these threads. So when he is going over the books for the end of the quarter he realizes his department is spending thousands hours fixing a wifi issue that only by coincident started happening after ML was installed. So he shuts down all research and tech support relating to any Wifi issues. That's what MS would do so why not Apple.

I think your viewpoint is not in line with out business at Apple operates. Apple is trying to find "the problem", but there is no such "the problem". Instead, there are thousands of problems, with all different causes. They vest themselves to the users, as "You are not connected to the internet". People using WiFi technologies for networking, will thus decide that there WiFi is failing.

This is "the problem". Apple's indication to the user that they are not connected to the internet doesn't say "why".

So, people are here, looking for a "solution". They see many people going on and on about how it's all Apple's fault and that it's been going on for a year and that it's a terrible thing that Apple is not fixing their problem.

Yet, we see cases like the recent report by Augend that have absolutely found the cause of their problem, and fixed it by switching ISPs, not by "replacing their router", "switching out the driver to the Snow Leopard driver" or any of the other "fixes". Then, MacsSa also talks about his problem, and I got some information from him about the nature of his problem, and pointed out some details that made it sound like an ISP issue too.

He switched "ISPs" and found that his problems disappeared.

What needs to happen, is that people need to understand that if they are ignorant of how WiFi works vs how all the network protocols flow across a network connection, they may not understand where the problem they are having is actually at.

Yes, there may be something, in software, that Apple needs to "fix". But, not every single network problem you have with a WiFi networking setup is going to be "the problem Apple needs to fix".

In many cases, it's clear that people have issues that they themselves need to fix.

I have a late 2009 iMac and an 2011 MacBook Air. Here are the following setups:

iMac with three partitions: Snow Leopard, Lion, Mountain Lion. Netgear router. ISP X. Drops wi-fi constantly in Lion and Mountain Lion, never once in Snow Leopard. Take the same iMac to my office with ISP Y and D-Link router - same problems - drops wi-fi constantly in Lion and Mountain Lion, never in Snow Leopard. Also tried the above setups with an Apple Extreme Base Station at home and at work with ISP X and Y - same results.

MacBook Air running Bootcamp: Running Lion up until a few weeks ago updated to Mountain Lion after that, also running Windows 7 Pro. At home with ISP X and Netgear router - WiFi dropped constantly in Lion and continues to with Mountain Lion. No drops since installing Windows 7 Pro with the help of Bootcamp. Same computer and setup at work with ISP Y and D-Link router - same problem - drops with Mountain Lion, and solid with Windows 7 Pro (never tried Lion before upgrading). Also tried the above setups with AEBS at home and at work with ISP X and Y - same results.

Snow Leopard and Windows 7 Pro are solid on ISP X and Y with Netgear, D-Link, and AEBS. Lion and Mountain Lion constantly and 'reliably' drop wifi (exactly at 5 minutes of connectivity) on ISP X and Y with Netgear, D-Link, and AEBS. This is a grand total of 15+ different trials.

Call it what it is. Let the lashing begin.....I'm sure it's something I am doing. 😉