Q: Wifi Constantly Dropping in Lion

wifiguru, My router is set to wpa2. I'm really not going to do a bunch of debugging and changing wireless settings, since that will not lead to a solution. Everything worked flawlessly in before my Lion upgrade, and is broken in Lion. The only thing that changed is Lion, and Lion has broken wireless (over N) for my mac air. This is not a "draft N" router, I bought it just a few months ago.

I've submitted a bug to apple. I don't think there is anything any of us can do but wait for them to fix the problem. I work in the industry. From 50,000 feet, is obvious Apple broke this code, they don't have an immediate fix or workaround, and their tech support doesn't have a clue. Tech support can help you if you've configured something wrong. They can't help you if Apple broke the underlying code.

What I have found that works for me and this was driving me nuts,  is I removed everything from the network list and then recreated my Wi-Fi connection and it has worked for over a day now without dropping off my network.  I do think there are multiple reasons for loss of connection but this was my solution.

I think when the upgrade from SL to Lion there were changes to the "Network" area and some configurations did not transfer over nicely.

Ran Onyx last night, woke up and wifi was disconnected. I'm starting to think the workarounds won't work for me. Wish I had an ethernet cable long enough to run to my computer.

@rjvaughn There are definitely things we can do to help them to help us: be specific in describing the issue you are facing and somewhat patient on the resolution.

If you are not afraid of opening a terminal (you can type "terminal" in Spotlight), type this when your WiFi works (I strongly advise you to copy-paste in order to avoid typos):

ping `route get default | awk '(/gateway/){print $2}'`

This should continuously send enough traffic over your WiFi link to keep it opened.

If this workaround works for you, then report this fact back to the forum - it will help Apple look in the right direction.

There are things we can do to help them djiti - I did them all last night as the support guy at Apple had asked - providing a full description, a system report, mobility info, the kernel log, system log and wifi log from a session having reproduced the problem.

Their answer?

My neighbours are too close to me, try using a different channel.  This despite the fact I have already tried using a different router channel and it didn't work and I stated as much in the email!

If the problem is neighbours too close on the same channel, why did it work in SL just fine. There has been no recent change to my environment or my neighbours.  There has been only one recent change - I installed Lion, which has an issue.

Which Apple should be big enough to admit and, in due course, correct.

maltwom, I sent them all the same logs and reports. The guy I communicated with replied that he had seen some interesting things in the logs, that he was going to file a bug report and pass everything on to the AirPort engineering team. So, I take it that they are investigating the issue.

I changed the security settings of my router from WAP/WAP2 to WAP, deleted the Wi-Fi Network from my preferred Networks and added it again with WAP only.

Since then my Macbook Air has been finding the network and has not dropped it either.

Hope this may work for some of you too.

For what it's worth, adding 8.8.8.8 to the DNS list seems to have given me a faster connection as well as one that's more reliable. Though I can't say it's a pure test, since I'm also running something in the background using Terminal: ping `route get default | awk '(/gateway/){print $2}'`

Definitely seems to be a problem in Lion, though.

I migrated from SL to Lion the first day was available and since then I have continuos Wifi dropping out, as reported from the most of the people in this discussion. Checked out router is fine, high level signal at iMac, only few meters from router, I have iPhone and a Windows laptop working very well with wifi conn. Last night DL OnyX and ran it in a dummy way, additionally left ping on google on terminal window: this allowed me to stay connected longer, but I noticed somehow random slowing down on visiting webpages, not really the same performances I previously had with SL. At the moment the new OS doesn't worth at all the money spent!!. Hope Apple will come out very soon with a free patch for this annoying failure. I've had 21.5 iMac since April 2010 and until Lion upgrade (or downgrade I'd say), I was really satisfied.

Bye

Hello all,

For what its worth, my problems with Wifi seem to be connected with Time Machine (I'm also using a Time Capsule). I was able to eliminate the problem after disabling Time Machine and could reproduce it as soon as I turned it back on and completed a backup.

Needless to say, Time Machine is off and my wifi is working properly.

see my recent reply to fallyhag. this seems to do the job for the dropping connection issues. i realize other people here have related but different issues, like not being able to connect at all.

my new iMac arrived in june with snow leopard and wifi worked fine until I upgraded to lion at which point it drops the connection (generally when I return to computer after some period of time or after screen dims from inactivity or it wakes from sleep)

I reset my airport extreme router and this problem occurs on 5 Ghz channel as well.

The this problem is 'easily' fixed by turning off/on wifi but of course is terribly annoying.

I trust Apple moniters these forums and is aware of the problem and working to fix it with an update..

Same here. Got a new iMac i7 in June with SL - all fine.

After upgrading to Lion, very frequent drop-outs of the wifi connection (time capsule).

If Safari or iTunes are open, significantly more drop- outs.

After drop-out during sleep, there is no chance for the Mac to wake up. Only way to start is a forced restart by holding the power switch.

After using Macs since 1984, I am surprised to expience a real Windows-feeling in 2011 ....

Tried most of the suggestions in this forum, no help.

This is a bug in Lion. To be fixed asap. Please.

posting in the hope that apple are aware of these posts and are working on a solution and that every extra voice helps get the fix required out to the public. 

I have a 2006 imac, 2009 mb and a 2011 mba.

imac is still on snow leopard, everything is fine, wakes up from sleep with airport connected and no issues, happy. =)

mb upgraded from snow leopard to lion, airport wont reconnect after sleep, looks like it is connected but when i open safari i get connection error, easy to fix with network preferences tab, but really quite annoying.

mb formated, clean install of lion, same issue as above, not happy jan. =/

mba came with lion, everything is fine, wakes up from sleep with airport connected and no issues, happy. =)

clearly it is not a problem with my actual network or modem router as EVERYTHING else still works fine, even on the mb once i go into network preferences and (manually) reconnect airport.

Mr Jobs fix it please.............. yesterday. =)

this may help -

I had massive problems with my wireless connection. I have a 2nd generation Airport Extreme BS running wireless network. Under Snow Leopard, it was an 802.11n only network. Lion fails to see the network and I have had to alter the wireless settings to 802.11n (b/g compatible) before Lion would connect.

This has seen a decrease in the transmit rate from 300 to 130 (at best), with a massive increase in transfer times for large (50 – 150mb) files on the network.

OS X Daily lists a number of solutions but none worked for me: http://osxdaily.com/2011/07/22/wifi-dropping-in-os-x-lion-fixes/