Wifi Constantly Dropping in Lion

benboyd5 wrote:

Think about it. Who would buy their operating system or devices if you can't use them

Wirelessly? No one.

The vast majority of users can use them wirelessly; in fact I'm typing this via Wi-Fi now and haven't had a Wi-Fi drop since 2008 or so with no issues in Snow Leopard or Lion. Further, almost all Macs in Apple Stores are connected via Wi-Fi to AirPort Extreme base stations in-store, and I've spent over two hours of personal time on different machines in-store just out of curiosity to see if I could get one to drop the connection and haven't had any luck so far.

I would love to be able to reproduce this, even once, but I have had zero luck doing so so far so I'm at as much of a loss as all of you.

Right this problem is limited to a small number of users.

William, if you're interested I have a snipit of a log:

"Aug 1 12:21:51 Defiant kernel[0]: AirPort: Link Down on en1. Reason 4 (Disassociated due to inactivity)."

This is what happens when my wifi drops. Problem with this reason is, I was using the connection at the time. My connection reestablishes itself and can go for hours with no issues. Which is what makes it so frustrating. (And if anyone knows any sort of modification that could remove that reason to disassociate...I would greately appreciate it.)

I'm using an Airport Extreme so modifying the broadcast interval is not possible.

All that time spent in the Apple Store, and not once did you notice that all their computers have their DNS set to 8.8.8.8 and they've hidden the terminal window that is running a ping command, and their Airport's have been modified with a special beacon interval?? Geez, what have you been doing all this time there...playing Angry Birds? 🙂

Seriously, though, this thread is about a problem that many, many people starting having immediately after upgrading to Lion. Your repeated defense that you don't have the issue doesn't make anyone else's problem less frustrating, nor does it help solve a problem that DOES exist.

Hopefully, Apple will soon find the problem and fix it. Until then, I'm doing my best to stay wired (Ethernet-wise, I mean!).

I have been having the same problem. Intermettent internet, so some website I can see, sometimes I cannot, streaming videos is a nightmare.

I understand it is most likely a Lion problem and there's little I can do (how frustrating - ending up on an old windows laptop when I need to be online) but I just wanted to ask if people have more luck if they are 'wired' ?

Thnks.

I was having the same problem and changed my Airport's broadcast channel from "automatic" to a specific channel (I picked 6 for no particular reason) and the problem has not resurfaced in the past two days.

Tried it immediately - didn't work.

The issue is absolutely reproducible:

Keep Safari, Mail and iTunes open. Wait until the Mac falls asleep. Wake it up and .. Wifi connection is gone. Only to be recovered through the network analysis in Safari.

Tried the the 8.8.8.8-thing as well as the "continued ping-ing through the terminal command". That's all no solution.

What helps is: prevent the Mac from sleeping by setting the time-to-sleep in the power preferences to "never". Not very "green" but helpful.

SetUp: iMac (2011), i7, SSD/HD, Time Capsule (2010)

No need to mention: iPhone and iPad work still fine with the Time Capsule when the Mac dropped out

Check to see if you WiFi connectivity is gone, or if just some Applications cannot access the network stack. To check this, just open a terminal (do not have continuous pings going). Then reproduce the issue where you sleep the Mac with applications (Safari, Mail, etc) open. Now wake the Mac and verify Safari, or Mail reports no connectivity. Go back to your terminal and ping a DNS address like www.apple.com or www.google.com.

If the pings resolve and get replies, your wireless connection is fine. The problem lies in the networking stack.

OK ....

... Now it gets interesting ....

... Tried it on my Mac which is still not able to access Internet through Safari, mail through Mail or appleTV through iTunes and ...

... Ping www.apple.com indeed delivers a response. As well as ping www.google.com ....

So, what's next .... ?

Hi all,

I have tried most of the suggestions in the forum so far to no avail. Finally I tried changing the wireless channel on my router from channel 11 to channel 3 which is the other wireless "n" channel which seems to have worked. I have had days of uninterrupted Internet access as a result.

Hopefully this will work for you to!

Cheers

James

JalenJade wrote:

Right this problem is limited to a small number of users.

William, if you're interested I have a snipit of a log:

"Aug 1 12:21:51 Defiant kernel[0]: AirPort: Link Down on en1. Reason 4 (Disassociated due to inactivity)."

This is what happens when my wifi drops. Problem with this reason is, I was using the connection at the time. My connection reestablishes itself and can go for hours with no issues. Which is what makes it so frustrating. (And if anyone knows any sort of modification that could remove that reason to disassociate...I would greately appreciate it.)

It's part of the protocol, so it can't be removed.

What it means is that your machine recieved a disassociation frame from the access point.

Now exactly why that packet was sent is the bigger question. It could be a firmware bug in your router, or it could be that there was some timeout at the router and the router sent it to your machine as a result, assuming your machine was going to roam.

Either way, it was a result of a frame sent to your Mac from the AP 😟.

(Think of it like being in a bar, restaurant or store when they tell you they're closing for the night. You have to leave. Same thing here - the AP is telling your machine to leave the network, and it is.)

If any of you seeing this message have a friend with a Wi-Fi packet analyzer, it would be very interesting to know the contents of those packets and their construction to gain a better idea of why they're being sent.

If you're thinking "Wow - an attacker could just send all clients dissociation frames, making for a neat Denial of Service attack" - you're exactly right, and that's how hidden SSIDs are discovered - forge a dissociation packet and read the SSID packet from clients reassociating with the AP.

Same problem here. My father's 13'' 2010 MBP is seeing random wifi drops after upgrading to Lion from SL (no problems with SL). Wifi disconnects completely, but clicking my home wifi from network list is enough to reconnect, although sometimes you need to disable wifi and re-enable it to get it to connect again. The drops seem rather random and difficult to replicate. Interestingly after upgrading to Lion from SL on my 15-inch 2011 MBP, there are no wifi drops. The wifi router is DrayTek Vigor 2600VGST 802.11g, 2.4 GHz, WPA 2 personal.

After reading the suggestions on this forum, I've deleted my home wifi from the network list and moved the new entry on top and no drops so far (roughly 45 mins in at this point).

WK,

I read a thread you were involved in (2009) when SL (10.6.2) came out, and people had the exact same problem then as now (Disassociated due to inactivity). You basically gave the same explanations then, as now.

Do you recall what the ultimate fix for that was?

It seems odd that whatever Apple is doing to their OS, they do it over and over again.

I'm a relatively new "Mac person", but a long time (25 years) WIndows person, and as far as I can remember, I don't recall Microsoft having this kind of issue with any version of Windows.

Here's an interesting read, too, on the same problem back with the 10.6.3 fix that actually made the problem worse.

Hi everyone,

I see all you good network experts adding good advice but I am aligned with those who say that prior to upgrading to Lion they had no issues, period. Apple needs to fix this. If they have altered soemthing that affects the way my leased router works then I have issue with Apple. The reason many of us buy apple products (not ony for their superior operting system and reduced virus susceptibility (and many other attributes) but because it is a plug and play system that allows us layman business people, artists and other to not be concrned with issues like this. Thats why I pay an extra $1,000 for my Mac than I would pay for my PC or there abouts. APPLE has nmessed up, pure and simple. It must be the cash rich position they just announced thats making them complacenet with this issue 🙂 they need to fix it and every day that passes makes me like my PC more.

Get it done Apple!!!

Darryl Mylrea wrote:

Do you recall what the ultimate fix for that was?

People changed encryption methods and the problem seemed to go away, so the thread just kind of died out:,e.g.:

19afc03 wrote:

Sorted, at least for me. 1. Made a dedicated location for "Home" and stopped using the "Automatic" one 2. Changed security from WPK to WEP

ninjaboyfriend wrote:

I had this too. Changed encryption from WPA to WPA2 and works fine.

JoeAverage47 wrote:

Thats why I pay an extra $1,000 for my Mac than I would pay for my PC or there abouts. APPLE has nmessed up, pure and simple.

Wow, the myth of the Apple "premium" continues.

Otherwise, even "plug and play" systems require some standards to be followed; plug a "plug and play" United States market mixer into an outlet supplying either 100v or 240v and see what happens; it's only "plug and play" because the US standard holds that when you plug it into a normal wall socket that socket will provide 110 - 125 VAC.