Wifi Constantly Dropping in Lion

mgranger wrote:

Very specific as I am in France. I am using a FREEBOX v6 router (from my internet provider). In the french forums there are a lot of people with this problem, with different routers. This is why this is a problem with ML. I have no issue with Iphoes, Windows, Ipad and the problem arrived when I upgrade my iMac 2010 from 10.7.x to ML (not on my MBA???).

Many people with ISPs that lock them into a specific router and don't upgrade firmware seem to have problems which, in the end, are fixed by getting upgraded firmware.

I can't stress enough how many issues/items of compatibility have to be right for this stuff to work.

You should not unterestimate the complexity of developing a correct wireless product.

If you have ethernet ports free, I would be very tempted to go buy a new WiFi router/radio that is capable of providing a wireless bridge to a wired network. The Apple airport express can do this. But, also, just finding another wireless router to test with, might be a good thing. If you have another wireless router, you can turn off DHCP on it, and insert a cable into one of its LAN ports and plug the other end into one of your ethernet ports on your FreeBox. Then, it will provide a wireless signal, and DHCP and internet traffic will go over to the freebox.

Apple is only really supporting 802.11n and WPA2, the latest and greatest standards. If your router doesn't do those right, or at all, then you will see problems it seems.

I know it sounds like Apple needs to fix something, but if they are correctly supporting the standards, it's hard to find fault anywhere but with the older, out of date equipment.

Apple is only really supporting 802.11n and WPA2, the latest and greatest standards. If your router doesn't do those right, or at all, then you will see problems it seems.

Blah blah, tried all combinations of wireless standards and security types on three different routers (tp-link, linksys, cisco), has no influence whatsoever. Sometimes it seems to work for 15 minutes, but eventually the disconnection problems always return.

I know it sounds like Apple needs to fix something, but if they are correctly supporting the standards, it's hard to find fault anywhere but with the older, out of date equipment.

I don't know and I don't care if they are correctly following the standards, all I know is that my macbook works perfectly fine on Leopard, Snow Leopard and on all flavours of windows that will run on it, but not on OS X Lion. And since Apple makes OS X, they are the ones that have to fix it. They probably won't, but they should.

Happel wrote:

Apple is only really supporting 802.11n and WPA2, the latest and greatest standards. If your router doesn't do those right, or at all, then you will see problems it seems.

Blah blah, tried all combinations of wireless standards and security types on three different routers (tp-link, linksys, cisco), has no influence whatsoever. Sometimes it seems to work for 15 minutes, but eventually the disconnection problems always return.

I personally have never had good luck with tp-link, nor with linksys, since cisco bought them. Cisco, for me, is also a non-starter, because they just don't know how to create products that just work. They make their money off of support contracts and product replacement/upgrade cycles.

Can you provide specific model information for which of the above that you have tried? That would certain help people searching here, to find conversations that will point them at combinations which don't work well together.

I'm not trying to suggest that Apple has no responsibility to fix problems. I'm just trying to point out, that they have little desire to "support" other peoples products, and that places them in a position to point the finger at the standards and ask "who is not meeting this?"

I know it sounds like Apple needs to fix something, but if they are correctly supporting the standards, it's hard to find fault anywhere but with the older, out of date equipment.

I don't know and I don't care if they are correctly following the standards, all I know is that my macbook works perfectly fine on Leopard, Snow Leopard and on all flavours of windows that will run on it, but not on OS X Lion. And since Apple makes OS X, they are the ones that have to fix it. They probably won't, but they should.

The primary issue between Leopard/Snow and Lion/Mountain, is the movement to the preferences of 802.11n with WPA2 security as the default/supported network. The reason behind that is most likely related to airplay. On my local networking equipment, 802.11g or 802.11n on 2.4ghz will not do airplay reliably. But with 802.11n on 5Ghz, it is quick to start and pause free during playback.

I understand that you are wondering why you have to spend more money. I'm trying to help you reflect on the fact that you've already spent a lot of money, and there is a lot of capabilities that you are missing out on, perhaps, because your router/network is not compatible with what the equipment is expecting. Like it or not, that's where you are at. More changes in WiFi are coming this year, and new standards are going to make new equipment, and firmware updates hit the shelves. This particular issue, is not going to be a "once" thing. You are going to get to experience this over and over, and new equipment and software comes out, with more bugs that need to be fixed.

Just wanted to say thanks !! Your solution worked great for me.

In 145 pages but I'm sure it's been mentioned before but I'm running 10.6.8 and started having these problems out of the blue, always having to turn off then turn back on my airport. I don't want to jinx it but I lowered my mtu to 1400 from 1500 and that seemed to fix it. I'm 24 hours without a drop. I tried all the other fixes I saw mentioned. I'll update if my problems start up again.

Hi all,

Same problem here. Wifi worked fine but the last two months it is a little disaster. Wifi drops several times per hour only on my iMac. Renew DHCP lease is the workaround. Had the problem with previous ADSL provider and modem and it continues with my new ADSL provider with another modem. My daugther with a MacBook has no problems, iPhone's, iPads work fine. Only my iMac from 2011 has the problem but why? Running Moutain-Lion with all the updates.

Dear Apple please provided an solution because like this I almost start to think that W8 is back a beter solution. Can't image that I wrote that!!!! Have Wifi diagnostic run so if needed I can provide more details.

Sander

tfresca wrote:

In 145 pages but I'm sure it's been mentioned before but I'm running 10.6.8 and started having these problems out of the blue, always having to turn off then turn back on my airport. I don't want to jinx it but I lowered my mtu to 1400 from 1500 and that seemed to fix it. I'm 24 hours without a drop. I tried all the other fixes I saw mentioned. I'll update if my problems start up again.

This is usually attributable to your ISP having an oddly configured routing setup in their device. But also, look around for references to the Nagal algorithm which can contribute to this problem by creating delays for the last packet out in a stream. In some cases when timers are set too short, or otherwise not compatible with what is happening realistically, the delay can cause buggy software to ignore the last packet and this will result in DHCP data not being delivered correctly etc.

SandemanvdV wrote:

Hi all,

Same problem here. Wifi worked fine but the last two months it is a little disaster. Wifi drops several times per hour only on my iMac. Renew DHCP lease is the workaround. Had the problem with previous ADSL provider and modem and it continues with my new ADSL provider with another modem. My daugther with a MacBook has no problems, iPhone's, iPads work fine. Only my iMac from 2011 has the problem but why? Running Moutain-Lion with all the updates.

Dear Apple please provided an solution because like this I almost start to think that W8 is back a beter solution. Can't image that I wrote that!!!! Have Wifi diagnostic run so if needed I can provide more details.

Working WiFi would be a great thing! What do you see in the wifi.log as the disconnect reason? Also, if you open the console and select All Messages, do you see anything interesting scrolling by there? Discovering the disconnect reason will really make it easier to understand where the fault lies, and then getting that fixed.

Hi gphonei, Thanks for your feedback. Did a quick scan of the logfiles but nothing found but do not exactly what to look for. But I think I have the solution found. I saw an article about wifi b/g and n. When forcing wifi to use only b/g the problem disapperared. So it can be somebody around my house but I already changed the channels several times or a bug in OSX 10.8. With the last fixes in OSX I found OSX suspicious. We will see what the next release will contain. Bye.

This solution worked, until it dropped again. I was really hoping it would have worked it seemed promising.

I am not sure what's going on with this wifi but I never had problems with my 2008 Macbook pro 15' running on Leopard and Snow Leopard. My 2012 Macbook Pro 13' running Lion 10.8.2 is just having issues with holding a connection.

Its been dropping like crazy but the solution that I tried made it stop dropping like crazy today. It dropped once after so Im not convinced that Billjacobson's solution works.

All I can say is from reading what a lot of the posters here are saying, it really does seem like a software/driver issue with the Wifi.

joemoe1984 wrote:

This solution worked, until it dropped again. I was really hoping it would have worked it seemed promising.

Which solution did you use?

I used this one.

http://osxdaily.com/2011/11/06/lion-wi-fi-problems-solution-mac/

It made my wifi drop less but it was still dropping

Turns out this didn't fix the problem for me after all. What actually did it was setting up a static IP and making it require a password to change/disconnect from the airport. I had to totally manual settings not just DHCP with manual. The MTU wasn't the issue after all. So far so good but last time I said that my connection dropped hours later so who knows.

I believe this has something to do with Bonjour Sleep Proxy (Wake on Demand) interaction with router that is not 802.11n. The "n" suffix is the problem; a lot of routers are "g" suffixed. Routers must have firmware that includes the Bonjour Sleep Proxy Protocol- new apple routers do; but not necessarily other manufacturers' devices. To make this even more complicated, even if you have hardwired ethernet network, if you have older devices, printers, apple TV, you will get the same problem. For Wake on Demand to work, ALL devices in network must have Bonjour Sleep Proxy Protocol installed

Steve bless his soul, pushed the envelope too far, making apple "forward obsolete" from Snow Leopard onwards. IN the process, apple ****** off Adobe, and god knows who else.

This is just my opinion. I am going to try turning off "Wake for Network Access" in the energy saving settings. This will hopefully bring me back to "leopard" which didn't have this problem. The other way around it is to change energy saving settings to "never sleep".

Not sure if this would help but I read on other forums through apple.com that it could be an issue with the router. I know that everyone else is not having problems with their routers with other computers but D-Link has said that they had compatibility issues with Lion specifically. They were looking into a fix for it. Not sure if they have I hadn't done enough research yet.

It could depend on your Router and its firmware update. Best thing to do is to call the company's support for the router and ask if there have been any issues with Lion and their product and if they are working on a fix.

My Issues are at work on a D-Link router. I will look into upgrading the firmware once I figure out the password to see if that helps.

I have a Linksys at home and I don't have any issues with that one. I haven't had the wifi drop on it yet. I will keep on eye on it tonight though to see if it does drop.

If you are having issues it would probably help to post what router you have and which version you have on your firmware. Here are mine at work:

D-Link

Product: DIR-655

Hardware Version: B1

Firmware Version: 2.00NA