Q: Wifi Constantly Dropping in Lion

Youssef 199 wrote:

 

I Made It To Run In The Background So That You Won't Feel AnyThing Happening And a .app Is An Application Made By AppleScript Editor. Not For iPhone Or Android. And Here's The New Link With Some Bugs's Fixed:

http://www.filesonic.com/file/WbCKyMf

Steer clear of any dodgy hacks such as this one. If you believe your machine is running badly now then wait until you start using these home-made crap hacks.

Cheers

Reset the PRAM about an hour ago..... will report in later

still no drops here working as it intended to . i also reset this the smc it fixes any wonkieness in the airport ect .

1  shut down  mac

2 unplug from wall

3 hold the power button for 5 seconds

4 plug mac back in wall

5 restart

6 done.

my mac is running as smooth as silk no drops super fast so far  fingers crossed this is permanent fix for me .

i will keep you informed.

here is apple support page for pram and nvram for macbooks power pc ect

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379

memeke when i rest the pram and then smc its gone now but was weird seeing it pinging ha ha  i thought my body was a router ha ha .anyway best of luck i hope you get it fxed. thanks

OURCES: RESETTING YOUR PRAM (APPLE), RESETTING YOUR SMC (APPLE),

still going great here ,i cant believe its running so smooth i will keep you abrest of things .best of luck to all

Thanks for keeping us up to date with your progress suitess

You have probably mentioned what Model Mac you are using previously and it would be very helpful if you, and others in their respective cases, indicated this information within posts to save folk having to trawl through the mass of information here.

One easy way to convey the details of your Mac kit is to ‘Use the Detailed Editor’ [top right of the Input Screen after you decide to Make a Reply] when composing your posts and then hitting the ‘Product’ Radio Button [bottom left of the Editor Input Screen]. Starting New Threads now opens with the Detailed Editor as the only option, hopefully this will encourage more contributors to use this system.

This does require you to make the appropriate entry within you Profile but you only have to do that once.

This has the effect shown below, the actual output being of course what you have made available.

Unfortunately the solution which is making you so happy right now will work for everyone.

That is probably due to the equipment in use.

I can say in my case the solutions you are presently advocating did not work in my case, my solution has been described above.

Given the number of NEW Mac Units, suffering dropping WiFi, that have been supplied with Lion preinstalled it seems the best option is to give the problem back to Apple.

Sadly this means taking the trouble to return your Mac.

In that position I would return it and ask for a replacement and if the replacement failed repeat the process over and over, asking for compensation for my time, trouble and travelling expenses.

If enough people do this the situation will be resolved quickly.

It would also be a great help if folk finding a solution post full details [including the Mac equipment information] PROVIDED IT REMAINS SUCCESSFUL FOR MORE THAN 1 MONTH.

In my case a reported SUCCESS of a solution lasted 6 weeks before the issue returned.

Good luck to you and all others who are trying to overcome the problem.

I hope those who have been ‘awaiting and update’ to resolve the issue have not been holding their breath.

Just a thought...  There must be some common thread running through all folks' problems with the wifi dropout.  Some of you seem to have constant drops.  In my case it only happened after I woke my mac from sleep (it would not automatically re-connect).  The reinstall of 10.7.2 "fixed" mine... for 5-6 days... and then the problem returned... but ONLY on waking after sleep.  I do not have drops as long as my mac does not sleep...  My current solution... I changed the energy settings so my mac "never sleeps" and the problem no longer affects me.  The underlying issue is still there, though.  I specifically did not change or even check my network and wifi settings when my problem "seemed" to be resolved after re-installing 10.7.2.   Sooo... the issue seems to return after something changes as a result of use (some sort of cache holding recent settings???) that the user does not normally touch.  I have tried ALL of the posted fixes exactly as noted in the past... but still no long term resolution of the true issue.  This should not be ignored by Apple.  It's not minor, partiularly for novice owners who are not accustomed to poking around in their computer settings and/or using the terminal to diagnose and change settings.  Maybe the next update will take care of the problem... maybe not.  Other than this issue, Lion has worked wonderfully for me.  Too bad the problem continues to nag us all.

Is there a thread where only the results that worked are posted?

My Wifi is dropping again after i returned it to apple and got a new mac book pro. I was hoping that it will work now, but I will return to an apple store on friday.

I tried to fix it, but nothing worked. I'm really ****** of, because with my macbook white (late 2007, os x leopard) everything worked ver well!!

IF they havn't any conclusions I'm trying to get an compensation. Let's see what happens.

Software  Mac OS X Lion 10.7.2 (11C74)

Graphics  AMD Radeon HD 6770M 512 MB

Memory  4 GB 1333 MHz DDR3

Processor  2.7 GHz Intel Core i

27-inch, Mid 2011

iMac

still working great not even one drop and i was punishing it hard to see would it fail,so still working great and i just reset the pram and this morning the smc .and i hope it keeps going ,best of luck to all

If more users can be encouraged to follow your example suitess, we may see some comonality between affected equipment.

May I ask if your Mac had Lion pre-installed from new, or did you start off with Snow Leopard?

Cheers, Frog

I actually have the same machine as suitess so I am just pasting his specs:

Software  Mac OS X Lion 10.7.2 (11C74)

Graphics  AMD Radeon HD 6770M 512 MB

Memory  4 GB 1333 MHz DDR3

Processor  2.7 GHz Intel Core i

27-inch, Mid 2011 iMac

Mine has been running without drops for about a month at his point.   The issue with isolating the cause is that I tried every fix on this forum before one stuck.   Some had some success (less drop) some did nothing.

What I THINK finally did it was:

- Changing router channel

- The 'setting a new location and renewing DHCP' fix

- The erasing old network data from keychain fix

- After that, restarted from recovery partition and repairded disk and permission.

I did all of these the last day I worked on the problem, and things have been fine since then.

Even if you attempt all 3 of those fixes, there is nothing in any of them that should conflict with each other?  So my hazy memory as to which one finally did it shouldn't be an issue lol.

I've done all of these over the months. Now all is OK, except that every week or so I start losing WiFi connection when my iMac awakes from sleep. I can restore reliable WiFi for a week or so by rebooting. It turns out I exactly agree with drband's comments above:

"The underlying issue is still there, though. I specifically did not change or even check my network and wifi settings when my problem "seemed" to be resolved after re-installing 10.7.2. Sooo... the issue seems to return after something changes as a result of use (some sort of cache holding recent settings???) that the user does not normally touch. I have tried ALL of the posted fixes exactly as noted in the past... but still no long term resolution of the true issue."

"Apparently something changes as a result of use. . . . ."Yes! And once I reboot my iMac all is well for a week or so until the problem recurs, and then I reboot again, and then . . . . . .

Thanks to everyone who has provided helpful tips, including torndownunit, but I think drband has the unsolved problem analyzed correctly.

Ya, I am not claiming my fixes will work for everyone.  Froggy suggested we start posting out system, and what worked if anything.  Which I think is a good idea, so I reposted a summary with my computer model added.

Lion preinstalled I had snow leopard on my previous mac and never had any problems with it.thanks

This is a text i copied from an outside site and i thank them its not mine but it may help here and it will save some searching around all the credits are to apple .Is your Mac acting just…odd? Stuff like drives not appearing, screens not adjusting correctly, Bluetooth problems, AirPort non connecting? Maybe your fan is running non-stop or your battery has said that it is 50% charged…for two days…and your MacBook is plugged in. Yeah, these aren’t problems that simple rebooting often fix. And while doing stuff like fixing permissions can fix some strangeness, this is strangeness on a deeper level. This is hardware strangeness. The good news is that, you’re only a few key presses and reboots away from things (hopefully) being back to normal.

First, before I get into the hows, whys, and wherefores of resetting the SCM and PRAM, remember…while these are generally safe things to do (and the instructions are freely available on Apple’s support section), make sure you have a recent back up and critical stuff is backed up on an external drive or USB key or something.

Also I’d disconnect all drives, speakers, external displays and keyboards before you try this stuff. It’s a good step to make sure nothing interferes with the resetting process.

Now on with the show…

Resetting the PRAM

Since the dawn of Macs we’ve had what is called the PRAM—parameter RAM (you can say it like pee-ram or pram, doesn’t matter)—which stores stuff like this (fromApple support):

• Status of AppleTalk
• Serial Port Configuration and Port definition
• Alarm clock setting
• Application font
• Serial printer location
• Autokey rate
• Autokey delay
• Speaker volume
• Attention (beep) sound
• Double-click time
• Caret blink time (insertion point rate)
• Mouse scaling (mouse speed)
• Startup disk
• Menu blink count
• Monitor depth
• 32-bit addressing
• Virtual memory
• RAM disk
• Disk cache

Yeah, this is kind of “core” stuff and sometimes strange values get written there or corrupted or something and weirdness ensues. Even back in my beginning tech support days, zapping the PRAM (we were too cool to call it “resetting”) was one of those “okay let’s see if this helps” if the solution to a problem wasn’t obvious. Hey, sometimes it did work. Sometimes the PRAM does get wonky, hence why you need to reset it now and again.For the record, I don’t just reset my PRAM for kicks and giggles. I think I needed to do it over a year ago…and yes, it did fix the problem.Here’s how to reset your PRAM:

1. Shut down your machine. Yes, all the way down, not sleep or logging out.
2. Press the power button and then press command-option-p-r. You have to make sure you get those keys pressed before the gray screen comes up or it won’t work.
3. Hold those keys down until your Mac reboots again and you here the startup chime.
4. Let go of the keys and let your Mac reboot normally.

When you log back in, you’ll probably will have to adjust your mouse speed, time and date/timezone, and a few other things, but otherwise you should be good to go. Back in the day, we would often let the PRAM zap several times (like 2 or 3) to make sure it was clear. Sometimes, in fact, the machine needed that kind of kick in the pants to clear everything out. However, today’s Macs seem to be good to go with a one shot zap, so no worries there.Resetting the SMCThe companion to the PRAM is the SMC (system management controller) and is only for Intel-based Macs and it stores/manages/controls a lot more interesting things than the PRAM:

Fans
The computer’s fans speed up quickly and remain at high speed.
The computer’s fans run at high speed although the computer is not experiencing heavy usage and is properly ventilated.Lights
The keyboard backlight appears to behave incorrectly (on Mac computers that have this feature).
The Status Indicator Light (SIL) appears to behave incorrectly (on Mac computers that have an SIL).
Battery indicator lights, if present, appear to behave incorrectly (on portables that use non-removable batteries).
The display backlight doesn’t respond correctly to ambient light changes on Mac computers that have this feature.Power
The computer doesn’t respond to the power button when pressed.
A portable Mac doesn’t appear to respond properly when you close or open the lid.
The computer sleeps or shuts down unexpectedly.
The battery does not appear to be charging properly.
The MagSafe power adaptor LED doesn’t appear to indicate the correct activity.System Performance
The computer is running unusually slowly although it is not experiencing abnormally high CPU utilization.From Apple Support

Although Apple suggests reseting the PRAM first, I’ve found that often reseting the SMC does the magic. Truth be told if I’m resetting one, I usually just go ahead and reset the other as well. Heck, if your Mac is being strange, just give it the full on kick in the pants, don’t go half way.The instructions for resetting your SMC depend on three things:

• Does your device have a removable battery?
• Does your device have a built-in battery?
• Does your device just run off power from the wall?

If you have a MacBook, MacBook Pro, etc that you can remove the battery from here is what you do:

1. Shut down the computer (again, full-on off here)
2. Disconnect the MagSafe plug from the machine
3. Remove the battery
4. Press the power button for 5 seconds and release
5. Put the battery back in and reconnect the MagSafe cord
6. Turn your machine back on with the power button

For MacBook Pros, MacBook Airs, and MacBooks where you can’t remove the battery on your own, here’s what you do:

1. Turn off your machine (really, you knew this was coming at step one)
2. Keep the MagSafe adapter plugged in.
3. Press at the same time shift-option-control (on the left side of the machine) and the power button
4. Let go
5. Turn your machine back on with the power button.

Note that you keep the MagSafe in for MacBooks that have the built-in battery andout for MacBooks where you can pull the battery out.For Mac Minis, Mac Pros, iMacs, and Xserves (really on a server?):

1. Shut the machine down
2. Unplug it from the power
3. Press and hold the power button for 5 seconds
4. Plug it back in and turn it on.

That’s it. Really. Lots of steps for something that will take, oh, 10 seconds to do. However resetting the PRAM and SMC are often not only the cure for Mac wonkiness, but also the only solution to problems with AirPort, batteries, and power.

Now, remember…just back up that Mac so when your Mac does start having a bad day you’re not in an absolute panic.

with thanks to life guy