Q: Wifi Constantly Dropping in Lion

wifi guru,

as a test, to eliminate the wireless router as a problem, i shut down my imac (with lion installed) and only ran my mbp and iphone 3gs.  i haven't lost connectivity at all since doing so at around 5:30pm.  i'm going to continue to run with the imac off for the rest of the night to eliminate router as the culprit.

I cannot believe that Apple would start using lame excuses like weak signals and interference. "Go buy one of our N routers", stand on one leg and rub your tummy... OMG...

the forums are flooded with wifi issues since Lion was installed!!  Do they actually think there was some coincidence of a solar flare up or something that coincided with the release of Lion, or could it be, no...that Lion actually has a fault that is so widespread that it embarasses the testing team at Apple for having not caught it during months of testing?

I can't imagine any other reason than a fault with Lion (except solar flares). 

You guys that are complaining and using "ping" to keep the connection up and "weak" connection, check my previous posts... It's all about beacon interval of the router.  The EXACT same problem was exhibited primarily on 802.11a (5ghz) and 802.11n (also using 5ghz).  802.11g uses 2.4Ghz and what it looks like is it's not as picky on beacon interval.

Set the beacon interval of your wireless AP from 100ms to 50ms.  Check your wireless router/AP documentation on how to do this.

If you change this you will know within 10 minutes if you've resolved your issue.

wifiguru

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

This did NOT work for me.  100ms was too high, you may have to set this to 50ms for a solution.  Please modify your "check first" post in case this may help some folks.

Thanks!

TheAmdMan,

If "ping" works (and it appears it does for some people, including myself when I tried it the day Lion came out and my Wifi kept dropping while I was downloading from the App Store), isn't it a more suitable "fix" (or at least as good) than changing the beacon interval? 

Realistically, the beacon change is suitable for your home network, but what about the thousands of public wifi places?  Think maybe I could get the manager of our local McDonalds to change the beacon interval on their access point? 

Really, these are all temporary hacks, and none are suitable as a fix.  There is something wrong with Lion.  Period.  SL worked with every wifi (a/b/g/n), every brand, and with no particular settings.  Now, with Lion, the planets have to be aligned for it to work.

Obviously, tinkering ad nauseum with our wireless routers and AP's isn't the fix.  I hoped Apple would be more on top of it, but obviously, in between blaming other issues, and then asking those affected to submit detailed, time consuming reports, a fix may not be as close as I'd hoped!

Darryl,

I installed SL the day it came out (with Lion I at least waited until day 2 ) and it had the exact same problem with beacon interval, so it didn't work 100%.  Period.  Never had that problem on my iMac, never had it on any Windows laptop.  What I realized is it was specific to 802.11n (5Ghz only) and my AP, I modified the beacon interval off of a hunch and that fixed it.  Somewhere in between 10.6.2 - 10.6.8 Apple fixed it and I was able to go back to 100ms.  Now all of the sudden it's back in 10.7.  Not sure if Apple follows the development style other companies (one team works on one release another works on the next, etc.) if they do I can see how the fix got missed from the 10.7 release.

For me I do work from my laptop at home, I don't want to initiate a ping every time I walk in my house, it's annoying.  So changing the beacon interval was a solution.  Now two aspects of where I live, the airwaves are very noisy (which you won't find at a coffee shop) and my AP is a non-standard brand.  So just because you have the issue where you most use your laptop doesn't mean it will be seen everywhere.  As I said I also have a separate 802.11g network (Cisco AP, not Linksys I mean a Cisco 1142) and it works fine no beacon modifications required.  The Cisco is a little higher power than my other AP so the Apple guys could theoretically be correct in terms of signal strength/noise causing the issue but the real problem is they have the sensitivity setting too low on the MacBook wifi..  BTW not on the iMac wifi, it doesn't have a problem at 100ms......... which makes it even more annoying.

So I have a 2011 MBP on Lion that isn't seeing this issue, but a 2010 Macbook on Lion that is seeing the issue of no HTTP traffic after waking, ping and UDP traffic work.

WiFi is fine on iPad, iPhones, iPods, and AppleTV..... Wow, I own too many apple products...

I found a solution for my Macbook, hope this helps someone else, but before I give the solution, I'll list everything I tried.

1. Rebooted Macbook

2. Rebooted Time Capsule

3. Rebooted Airport Express

4. Removed all previous WiFi network settings.

5. Disabled Passive FTP Mode

6. Rebooted Macbook again

7. Added static DNS entry in network settings

8. Turned of 802.11n on Time Capsule

9. Rebooted Time Capsule

10. Tweaked Network Settings in Chrome and Safari

11. Completely removed cache in Chrome and Safari

12. Rebooted Macbook

13. Bought a Netgear router

14. Set Netgear to 802.11b

15. Rebooted Netgear router

16. Rebooted Macbook

17. Almost threw the Macbook in the oven..

So my solution.....

Took CD out of slot and wifi started working after waking from sleep.  Everytime I opened the lid, the CD slot would go crazy, so I figured that since my MBP didn't have a CD in the slot I should take it out of the Macbook, and now HTTP traffic passes every time it wakes.  Weird, but it works.

I love Lion for the speed, but the WiFi issue has really tarnished that "it just works" reputation Apple is known for.

Just tested this theory on my MBP.... I put a CD in.... put it to sleep, woke it up, and WiFi wouldn't work....wow.....

The CD/DVD could explain the problem I was having with Lion (before I reverted to SL). I took my 2011 MBP to the Apple Store (without a DVD in the drive) and the tech could not replicate the Wifi issues I was having. When I got home, the Wifi seemed to work fine until I installed some program from a DVD and I left it in the drive.

I'll reinstall Lion tomorrow and see whether the DVD was the culprit.

Thanks a lot benboyd5 for the tip.

My problems are not related to a disk in the optical drive.

The only thing that changed between a stable WiFi connection on Snow Leopard and a non-stable WiFi connection on Lion is installing Lion.

I am using an 802.11n network and since downgrading my wireless to 802.11G I haven't had a disconnect.

Neither are mine. And while I very much appreciate all the suggestions made here, I agree with those who have pointed out that workarounds should not be necessary. The problem is clearly endemic to Lion.

Agree with Sheila2. MacBookPro 2011, installed Lion and now have random WiFi dropouts from Airport Extreme 802.11n., after waking from sleep. Problem always resolves by running Safari diagnostic on connection, but is a nuisance.

I discovered that I can duplicate my wifi drops by leaving either itunes store, or safari connected to the internet. I then put the MB Pro 2.2GHZ dual core i7  (OSX 10.7) to sleep, then instantly wake it up and......voila no internet connection. Amazingly the airport extreme 802.11n 4th generation version 7.5.2 (latest) still indicates wifi on.  The easiest way to regain the connection is to run network diagnostic in safari and then restart safari.....voila connection restores This is definitely a problem within Lion as I have another computer (a lowly pc) connected to my network with no wifi drops.  How does one report this glitch to Apple as this is a real pain when downloading large files because you have to constantly ensure the computer doesn't go to sleep?

24" iMac Intel Core 2 Duo - 4Gb RAM - It worked fine with Snow Leopard and then I installed Lion -- all else the same, WIFI no longer worked. IPad, iPod, IPhone, and Apple TV connected OK.  It worked OK with an ethernet cable connected.   No matter what I tried, I just couldn't get WIFI to work on the Lion machine.  I spent an hour on the phone with Apple Support and was sent a capture data utility to gather information about what was happening.  After running the utility and emailing the resulting file (20 Gb) the technician said that he would have to have the engineers look at it and call me back.  In the mean time, my son got on the computer and reconfigured the wifi and it worked fine.....until I restarted the machine.  It is back down and I'm trying to get the attention of the technician that I talked to before to continue down the road that he was leading me.

Other issues....I can't believe that Front Row was taken away....that was one that I liked.  Also, I'm not sure but it really seems that the computer has slowed down.  Makes me a believer that I'll never upgrade again until the dust settles.

Turns out 802.11G didn't help. Woke up this morning and WiFi was disconnected.