Wifi Constantly Dropping in Lion

OK... good tip. I will try the next time it happens. Thank you.

LenJC57,

If you are having a hard time getting DHCP to renew, just eliminate the problem by making a manual IP assignment to the IP that you get via DHCP. Then there is no renewal at all. See if that fixes your issue.

I've since downgraded to 10.6.8. AGAIN. I'm going to wait til at least 10.7.3 or hopefully some sort of "Wi-Fi Patch Kit" to come out. If the problem still occurs I'm going to just keep 10.6.8 and partition off another part of my drive to run Debian or Yellow Dog. Cause at this point I'm really sick of what Apple is pretending isn't a "big deal." They run you through all kinds of so-called "fixes" that the guy on the other line KNOWS DON'T WORK, but because of "tiered support" they have to do. As it stands now Apple is about to lose a customer of 25 years. Once this iMac is outddated (another 6 months) I'm taking my hardware requirements elsewhere.

I'm very disappointed, Apple. Very.

Nicely put, Abraham.

I think frustration with Lion is running really high. People are starting to call this Apple's Vista. Yikes!

Topher Kessler states: "The updater package does not contain any Wi-Fi related updates, so it is unexpected that this behavior should change." If this is true, why in the world did Apple say .1 would fix the problem?"

Since Apple put the upgrade through the App Store in Snow Leopard, I think they should have a quick and easy downgrade to 10.6.8 available. People could stay with that until discussion boards indicate that all is clear with Lion. I don't think it will work well until 10.7.3, since the .2 upgrade is going to have so many new features designed to work with new cloud technology. Bound to be a lot more problems to sort through. Anyway, a little "downgrade to Snow Leopard" could download 10.6.8, and a "Reinstall Lion" could download and install latest Lion.

Of course, that would be an admission that something is really wrong under the hood with Lion!

I wish I could downgrade back to 10.6.8, but I don't know too much about computers thats why i bought the Mac because of its use-ability which with mac os x lion is almost impossible!! This wifi dropping makes me so paranoid while shopping online, thinking my connection is going to drop. Worst part is it always shows full bars so i'll never know if it drops while reading a web site. Apple used to fix these problems quickly, but lately they have been dropping the ball big time! I know a fix is far off. I'm switching to my crappy windows 7 netbook that has reliable wifi (a basic thing!) until one day maybe apple fixes this disaster

10.7.1 is out with WiFi fixes.

@benboyd5: Unfortunately it does not fix this problem.

The update 10.7.1 doesn't work with my iMac 27" late 2009! It make me angry!!! I don't know how many times I installed and reinstalled Lion!!!

< Edited by Host >

benboyd5 wrote:

10.7.1 is out with WiFi fixes.

I have installed 10.7.1 and I am still having wifi issues. The update did not fix it.

coolm6n wrote:

yesterday night was the worst, the wifi crashed my imac 27" on lion (has reported to apple)

Below is a snippet of the error log:

Tue Aug 16 22:53:43 2011

Panic(CPU 1): Unresponsive processor (this CPU did not acknowledge interrupts) TLB state:0

RAX: 0x00000000ffffffff, RBX: 0x0000000000002710, RCX: 0x0000000000007000, RDX: 0xffffff807a625078

RSP: 0xffffff8080753c8c, RBP: 0xffffff8080753c90, RSI: 0x0000000000007000, RDI: 0xffffff806be5d004

R8: 0xffffff807a595408, R9: 0x0000000000000000, R10: 0x8000000000100000, R11: 0x0000000000000000

R12: 0x0000000000007000, R13: 0xffffff806be5d004, R14: 0x0000000000000003, R15: 0x0000000000000000

RFL: 0x0000000000000292, RIP: 0xffffff7f80ef5a1f, CS: 0x0000000000000008, SS: 0x0000000000000010

Backtrace (CPU 1), Frame : Return Address

0xffffff807a5bef50 : 0xffffff80002c783c

0xffffff807a5bef80 : 0xffffff80002c27b0

0xffffff807a5befd0 : 0xffffff80002d7bf2

0xffffff8080753c90 : 0xffffff7f80ed3bae

0xffffff8080753cf0 : 0xffffff7f80f1e006

0xffffff8080753d10 : 0xffffff7f80f1ed3c

0xffffff8080753d30 : 0xffffff7f80f1f127

0xffffff8080753da0 : 0xffffff7f80ecda3b

0xffffff8080753e20 : 0xffffff7f80ec6f5c

0xffffff8080753e60 : 0xffffff7f80ef74f3

0xffffff8080753e80 : 0xffffff7f80ec3015

0xffffff8080753ec0 : 0xffffff7f80e83936

0xffffff8080753ef0 : 0xffffff8000639536

0xffffff8080753f30 : 0xffffff80006382b0

0xffffff8080753f70 : 0xffffff8000638154

0xffffff8080753fb0 : 0xffffff8000820057

Kernel Extensions in backtrace:

com.apple.driver.AirPort.Atheros40(500.55.5)[01000ACB-C064-3F42-820F-BDE2008267 25]@0xffffff7f80e64000->0xffffff7f80fa3fff

Your machine had a processor get "stuck" in the AirPort driver.

Either this is a hardware bug or a kernel issue.

You may want to contact AppleCare and/or the Genius Bar at your local Apple Store for further diagnosis.

My MBP i7 17 inch from last summer worked "ok-ish" with 7.0 and was hoping that the dropping of the wi-fi would stop with 7.0.1, i even went and downloaded the "bigger" update directly from the downloads area, but instead of working now it is unbeareable! It drops every 3 or 4 minutes.

There is no point in using wi-fi on my portable machine! WHAT THE **** MAN!

The following words are a first for my in over twelve years of using macs:

Apple YOU have seriusly DISSAPOINTED me with this update, i have NEVER been hit with something SO crippling as this update!

Like most of you I had frequent wifi dropouts after the original Lion install. I made it through with the help of a draped-down-the-hall Ethernet cable. After some help from Apple techs and the latest upgrade all appears fine. Makes me wonder with all this helter-skelter system tweaking could the continuing problems be something other than Apple's problem?

So are you going to share the miracle cure???

I installed the latest Lion patch with had some wireless improvments but my wireless connection keeps dropping after a couple of minutes of inactivity on the connection. Again I had no problems before the upgrade. I have a MBP 2010

I have to keep ping running to keep the connection alive. The logs I see are

11-08-18 9:15:16.000 AM kernel: wlEvent: en1 en1 Link DOWN

11-08-18 9:15:16.000 AM kernel: wl0: Beacon Loss Event

11-08-18 9:15:16.000 AM kernel: AirPort: Link Down on en1. Reason 4 (Disassociated due to inactivity).

11-08-18 9:15:16.000 AM kernel: vmnet: bridge-en1: interface en is going DOWN

11-08-18 9:15:16.000 AM kernel: en1: BSSID changed to 00:00:00:00:00:00

11-08-18 9:15:17.132 AM UserEventAgent: CaptiveNetworkSupport:CaptivePublishState:1211 en1 - PreProbe

11-08-18 9:15:17.281 AM configd: network configuration changed.

11-08-18 9:15:17.284 AM vmnet-bridge: Dynamic store changed

11-08-18 9:15:17.288 AM vmnet-bridge: Failed to read SCproperties for key: State:/Network/Global/IPv4

11-08-18 9:15:17.288 AM vmnet-bridge: Stopping bridge for: en1

11-08-18 9:15:17.000 AM kernel: vmnet: VMNetDisconnect called for port 0xffffff80194a5500

11-08-18 9:15:17.000 AM kernel: vmnet: Invalidating peer info for hub: 0, port: 0

11-08-18 9:15:17.000 AM kernel: vmnet: bridge-en1: filter detached

11-08-18 9:15:17.000 AM kernel: vmnet: bridge-en1: down

11-08-18 9:15:17.000 AM kernel: vmnet: bridge-en1: detached

11-08-18 9:15:17.000 AM kernel: vmnet: Freeing hub at 0xffffff80cdc19000.

11-08-18 9:15:32.457 AM UserEventAgent: ServermgrdRegistration cannot load config data

11-08-18 9:15:32.457 AM UserEventAgent: ServermgrdRegistration oldConfig is nil during net changed notification

11-08-18 9:15:40.000 AM kernel: nstat_lookup_entry failed: 2

This seems to be working for me, 12 hrs so far. Change the channel on your wi-fi from auto to 3. Niot my idea but from this very same thread (sorry i am not mentioning you, but i can't find the post, just copied the text to text edit since my internet kept dropping!)

I didn't go through all the steps, i started with the less harmful to the machine, so i went 8.8.8.8 changed the wi-fi channel to 3 and bingo! then returned to the original DNS (i don't think this makes any difference at all) I believe this has got something to do with clerspace and receotion/transimssion issues, since 7.1 i i hardly see any of the different networks i use to be able to see all the time.

Cheers to the poster of the tips, i am back online thanks to you!

-Reset SMC. (http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3964)

-Backup and then delete the files in /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/ directory. Reboot your machine after this. This will delete all network preference's.

-Check if you have the firewall enabled. Disable it. Delete this file: /Library/Preferences/com.apple.alf.plist Reboot your machine.

-Check if you have any kind of antivirus installed. eg. Avast etc. Uninstall it.

-Check your DNS settings. Use a known good DNS like 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4

-If you have multiple Location's set up in Network, try deleting them and only picking Automatic.

-When your connectivity drop's, ping the router and see if that work's. The issue might be with the ISP.

-On your wireless router, pick a cleaner channel. If using 2.4 Ghz, use HT20 only.

-Pick WPA2-Personal and your preferred security. If that does not work test if Open/No Security works.

- If you are using a 5 Ghz channel, pick ch 36/40/44/48 and try if it works.

- Make sure the beacon interval on your Access Point is set to 100ms.

-Make sure the Mac see's the AP at a good signal strength. -35 to -70 is a good range. Hold down the Option key and click on the WiFI Menu Extra for this info.