Wifi Constantly Dropping in Lion

gphonei wrote:

jrpeterson5 wrote:

It is a mistake to assume that some of us 'don't want to be helped'. Like you Augend, I am a doctor working 6 days per week. To 'resetup' all 15+ scenarios I discribed in my previous post to test a ping is simply NOT realistic right NOW....and CERTAINLY NOT realistic within a 24 hour period of your request. Those scenarios took the better part of an afternoon....wasted to answer previous questions. Have some sympathy and understanding. This thread, as others have stated, has become a waste because of the tone.

I'm sorry if that tone frustrates or bothers you. It's who I am and how I work at this kind of distance. If I could see you in person, experience your frustration, and see all of your circumstances, I might be able to know what you are capable of.

When people come here asking for help, I ask for those people to value the fact that I am spending time here trying to help.

My comments were not meant for you. They were meant for Augend who stated: "Even asked simplest Terminal commands as ping yahoo.com, .. yet, no answer". He asked me to do this exact thing - problems is it was less than 24 hours prior and was also on 15+ different setups invoving 3 routers, 2 ISPs, 2 computers, and 3 operating systems. If you have the time to do this within 24 hours then more power to you. I don't. That's all I was saying.....I think you have been a victim of your own words: "So, we are often fighting over things that are not meant to be fighting words, and then culture or past experiences are causing more replies to be heated, trying to defend what has been said".

WSR wrote:

gphonei wrote:

I am trying to help. I am being demanding of peoples time and commitment because I know that is what it will take to solve the problem.

You really need to stop talking now.

Which part are you playing WSR? Are you one affected by this issue, or are you just riding the bus here, looking for chances to jump in and stir the pot?

I was originally on this forum hoping for a fix, now it's just fun watching some of these "fixes" unfold. Apple seems to be content selling iPads & iPhones, while ignoring the base functionality of it's laptops and desktops.

Like many other users with this issue, all was well with Snow Leopard...then the Lion upgrade and we have a constantly dropping Wi-Fi connection .

As far as I'm concerned to only acceptable solution is for the folks at Apple to come up with a patch that actually fixes the issue. If your Operating System (yes I'm talking to you Apple), cannot handle something as simple as maintaining a Wi-Fi connection that's just plain ineptitude.

I've opened at least 3 support calls with Apple and I continue to get the same results...30 minutes to an hour of "trouble-shooting" and right back to where we started...a dropped Wi-Fi. My fix = as USB Wi-Fi device. $15 on Amazon.com

A USB Wi-Fi device continues to work fine for my iMac... going on a number of months now. Good to hear that others are finding this to be a solution to this wifi disconnect problem.

Selinger wrote:

I was originally on this forum hoping for a fix, now it's just fun watching some of these "fixes" unfold. Apple seems to be content selling iPads & iPhones, while ignoring the base functionality of it's laptops and desktops.

Like many other users with this issue, all was well with Snow Leopard...then the Lion upgrade and we have a constantly dropping Wi-Fi connection .

As far as I'm concerned to only acceptable solution is for the folks at Apple to come up with a patch that actually fixes the issue. If your Operating System (yes I'm talking to you Apple), cannot handle something as simple as maintaining a Wi-Fi connection that's just plain ineptitude.

I've opened at least 3 support calls with Apple and I continue to get the same results...30 minutes to an hour of "trouble-shooting" and right back to where we started...a dropped Wi-Fi. My fix = as USB Wi-Fi device. $15 on Amazon.com

Can you provide any details about how your problem manifests? Do the airport "bars" go grey and stay grey, or do you see a message in your web browser window that says something like "You are not connected to the internet"?

My airport bars will go grey and stay grey...however now I just disable my wifi entirely and use my USB device...

Can't confirm!

I feel about the same way. Totally incomprehensible to me. If the issue had been on IPad, I suppose a fix would have come out. For my part, my snow leopard macbook pro, my IPad, my IPhone, my Apple Tv all work fine. Just the iMac Lion fails. Apple's support walked me through an inspect of my wifi settings particularly vis-a-vis channels, and I'm running on low traffic channels, but it doesn't help. I keep a ping process (to my router) going in the background and that is my workaround -- thank goodness it works or this imac would be near unusable. I freely talk about the wifi failure to anyone I talk to about apple products these days, especially the fact that after more than a year there still hasn't been a fix.

If it hadn't been for this issue I would probably be 100% certain my next computer/device would be apple. i wouldn't have even considered other makers. Now, I know it would be utterly irresponsible not to give a hard look at other makers.

Selinger wrote:

My airport bars will go grey and stay grey...however now I just disable my wifi entirely and use my USB device...

Okay, here's something that everyone having this problem can try. This is more easily done then the other things mentioned here so far.

Open up a finder window, and navigate to /System/Library/CoreServices. In this folder, there is an app called "Wi-Fi Diagnostics.app". Double click on that, and in the initial window, click "Turn on Debug Logs", and click Continue. In the next pane, open on the "Basic Logs" entry by clicking on the > icon on the left of it, and then click on "Wi-Fi Logging" and "DHCP". At the bottom of that pane, select "Notify me when the WiFi interface", and select "Disconnects from the network".

Turn you airport back on, with your USB device unplugged. When it disconnects, a dropdown will appear with "Stop Logging" and "Continue Logging" buttons. Select "Stop Logging".

A .tgz file will be placed on your desktop which has lots of logging information in it. It is an archive of multiple files, double click on it, and a folder will be created. You can look in that folder at the files to see what they reveal about the moment the disconnect occured.

I'd be tempted to also just take my machine to the Apple store and say, here is the failing logs, tell me why it failed.

Since changing to Mountain Lion my wifi has become stable again. No more random grey outs of the signal strengh bar. I just hope some future update doesn't trigger the problem again.

Jon

Also as this topic has a wide viewer group can any one add to this topic of annoyance with a new feature, be it a bug or deliberate.

Finder window snaps to top after copy

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3944223?answerId=19450058022#19450058022

Any help appreciated

OK, I think I’m fixed.

I’ve been following this Forum for a year now ever since upgrading to Lion and began experiencing daily “loss of connection to the Internet”. Both my MacBook and MacPro were affected. They could still access the Router’s Admin Page, but not any site on the Web through the MODEM.

As a reminder, the MacBook is connected via WiFi, but my MacPro is HARDWIRED to the LAN via a RJ-45 connectorized cable to the Cisco Router. The hardwire made no difference … the MacPro still loss connection. While the MacBook link could be re-established by turning the WiFi off and on again, the MacPro required a Restart.

Four days ago I noticed my iPhone failing to sync with the iCloud server. It was timing out. When I checked into the Internet connectivity with my ISP, I found longs periods of time when the link was down. Rather than having continuous 10Gb/s service, the average rate was down to 1-2 Gb/s, with gaps in connectivity lasting as long as 12 seconds.

I had Brighthouse (Roadrunner) check it out and they found my MODEM defective. It was replaced.

For the past 4 days, I have had NO loss of connection to the Internet. The only cause I can think of is the Lion software, that monitors external connection integrity, is shutting down the link(s) when those applications which periodically communicate to the Web (like Mail, Outlook, Software updates, etc.) fail to re-establish connection within a minimum period of time. Apparently, 12 seconds exceeds this minimum.

This fixed the issue for me, but based on the symptoms others have described, changing a MODEM may not fix everyone’s problems.

Big Red Dog wrote:

OK, I think I’m fixed.

This fixed the issue for me, but based on the symptoms others have described, changing a MODEM may not fix everyone’s problems.

This is precisely the deal that a lot of posts here have reinforced. There might be a problem which Apple needs to fix, but not everyone is really experiencing "The Apple Problem". Only though careful diagnoses of the problem can you find the root cause to get it fixed.

My Wi-Fi ceased to work on my 2010 MacBook Pro after upgrading last May from Snow Leopard to Lion (10.7.3).

The Wi-Fi appeared in the menu bar as being connected (full strength), but when attempting to visit sites like www.google.com on Firefox, I received the error "Server not found."

I was able to fix the issue by altering the text in the Authorization file based on the notes here: http://www.24100.net/?s=how+to+fix+the+mac+os+x+lion

This morning (09/04/2012) I updated to 10.7.4, and I am experiencing the exact same issue. According to the Network Preferences panel, Wi-Fi is connected (and the bubble is green).

I've tried typing "ping -c 4 8.8.8.8" into Terminal and hit return. I saw the following:

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=29.165 ms

64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=1 ttl=48 time=29.548 ms

64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=2 ttl=48 time=29.976 ms

64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=3 ttl=48 time=33.200 ms

According to an earlier post on this forum: "Then your wireless connection IS WORKING, but "DNS" or some other packets are being dropped by your ISP."

I then attempted typing "dig @8.8.8.8 www.apple.com" and hitting return.

; <<>> DiG 9.7.3-P3 <<>> @8.8.8.8 www.apple.com

; (1 server found)

;; global options: +cmd

;; connection timed out; no servers could be reached

I'm also using a desktop Mac (running 10.6.8) and another (newer/2012) MacBook Pro (running 10.7.4), both of which have no issues connecting to the internet on the same ISP/same router.

The instructions from

http://www.24100.net/?s=how+to+fix+the+mac+os+x+lion won't work this time around - the code from the 10.7.4 authorization file no longer syncs up to the code shown in the 24100.net post (it was written for 10.7.3).

Any assistance would be appreciated.

jayna wallace wrote:

I've tried typing "ping -c 4 8.8.8.8" into Terminal and hit return. I saw the following:

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=29.165 ms

64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=1 ttl=48 time=29.548 ms

64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=2 ttl=48 time=29.976 ms

64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_seq=3 ttl=48 time=33.200 ms

According to an earlier post on this forum: "Then your wireless connection IS WORKING, but "DNS" or some other packets are being dropped by your ISP."

I then attempted typing "dig @8.8.8.8 www.apple.com" and hitting return.

; <<>> DiG 9.7.3-P3 <<>> @8.8.8.8 www.apple.com

; (1 server found)

;; global options: +cmd

;; connection timed out; no servers could be reached

So the ping demonstrates that packets of network traffic (ICMP Echo packets) can travel from your computer to the network, and be returned. So the "network" part is working.

The fact that you can not get a DNS lookup of www.apple.com from the google DNS servers, says that there is something not working with TCP routing. TCP is a higher level protocol and needs more functions of the network to work.

Let's try some additional things. What does

traceroute -w 1 -n 8.8.8.8

printout? This will show the path, on the internet, from your machine, to the 8.8.8.8 machine (googles public server for DNS and other services).

Also, please open SystemPreferences and double click on "Network" preferences, and then select your Wi-Fi entry from the list on the left. Next, click "Advanced" in the bottom right. At the top, click on the DNS "tab". What entries are in the "DNS Servers" list?

For each entry in that DNS list, do you get any different results from doing

dig @DNSSERVER www.apple.com

where DNSSERVER is one of those addresses in the DNS list?