Q: Wifi Constantly Dropping in Lion

Thanks for the tip. The dual pinging (to the Router & my ISP's IPs) showed the same results.

It turns out that my Lion-equipped MacBook and Mac Pro loses the Internet connection about once each day, during periods of inactivity. I have pulled the Ethernet cable from the Mac Pro to connect via WiFI. When the Internet lose occurs on the MacBook, turning WiFi off and on again re=establishes the connection. Not so with the Mac Pro ... the big machine needs to be restarted to regain connectivity.

Somehow, I became worthy of having Apple assign me an Engineer and a Case Number. We talk and email each other about 3-4 times a week as I try various configurations and activities. Apple has send me a couple of Apps to run and log data to assist in finding out waht's going on. The most recent App ("LogMan.app") was only written by Apple last week. It generates a text log file that can be forwarded to Apple for analysis.

So while the WiFi and Internet dropping still occurs with Lion, the good news is it seems that Apple is working to locate the bug in 10.7.3. Since they haven't found it yet, we can assume Mountain Lion will have the same issue.

Well this might be longest running 'non-problem' Apple has ever had. I've been following it for awhile now and have tried everything people have suggested (except throwing it through the window) and I'm no nearer a fix for the dreaded wi-fi drop.

The thing is, it's now unpredictable instead of just not working. Sometimes it happens after being woken, sometimes it happens on startup but then again sometimes it doesn't. And sometimes it just drops and then reconnects (this might be new). I noted this with a streaming music station and initially thought it might be the broadband or the streaming server but by chance I happened to notice the wi-fi ikon in the menubar go momentarily grey. Is this Lion? Who knows?

wbowles, I agree with you. Sometimes mine connects and then again no. I would say it is about 80/20 the 20% being the connection.

I lalso have a pc, and it is connected all the time,with no drops.

george

Big Red Dog wrote:

 

Somehow, I became worthy of having Apple assign me an Engineer and a Case Number. We talk and email each other about 3-4 times a week as I try various configurations and activities. Apple has send me a couple of Apps to run and log data to assist in finding out waht's going on. The most recent App ("LogMan.app") was only written by Apple last week. It generates a text log file that can be forwarded to Apple for analysis.

So while the WiFi and Internet dropping still occurs with Lion, the good news is it seems that Apple is working to locate the bug in 10.7.3. Since they haven't found it yet, we can assume Mountain Lion will have the same issue.

Finally!  Enough reports have been submitted with enough people talking to the Genius Bar people and the Apple Care telephone support people to raise some eyebrows, and get the attention of Corporate Apple!

Hang on, it has been a long rough ride, but I'd guess that Apple is paying enough attention to finally be able to work on a root cause, and then some kind of resolution.

Depressingly I thought I would have a try at calling Apple about this problem, only to be told that my telephone support has expired.  Rather than pay £35 for a single call or £275 for 3 years to tell them about the problem, how do I log a defect with them to add to the list of people with this issue?

Well clearly there is something seriously amiss with Lion and no doubt Apple is finding it extremely difficult to locate the problem. However, I do think Apple have an obligation to its customers. I've got a brand 'new' (2011) imac and the wi-fi problem has been with me from day 1. I too did everything Apple support told me to do but no go. Short of installing 40 feet of ethernet cable from the router, I'm stuck with the dropouts.

Bill

Thank you very much for the tip, resetting the SMC did the trick. It works great since, without any drops from WiFi

Zohar Blau wrote:

 

Thank you very much for the tip, resetting the SMC did the trick. It works great since, without any drops from WiFi

 

It hasn't gone... it's just resting.

Never mind, let it rest....if I need to repeat the procedure once a week or so I'm OK with that. Before it was terrible, every several minutes or so it was dropping...

I hope they will find a permanent fix for that though.

Okay, how do you reset the smc, also where do you find it?

Thanks

georgefromcoffeyville wrote:

 

Okay, how do you reset the smc, also where do you find it?

Thanks

Had zero effect for me, but who knows.....

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3964

It was posted here on this thread.

How you reset depends on the hardware you own.

I have a Mac Mini, so the solution instructed on the KB you posted said I need to shut down, take out the power cord for 15 secs, put it back for 5 more and power back on.

It worked fine for me

It was posted here on this thread.

I have a Mac Mini, so the solution instructed on the KB you posted said I need to shut down, take out the power cord for 15 secs, put it back for 5 more and power back on.

It worked fine for me

I've found a fix!  Not sure this will solve everyone's issue but for me it did.  My iPads and iPhones were constantly droppping the network and then were "unable to join" even after resets, power cycles, and forgetting the network..  I am using an apple extreme (gen 2) router and I adjusted the WPA/WPA2 group key to expire every week.  It was previously set to 1 hour and since moving it to 7 days, no issues on any wireless device.  Hope this helps!

V

WBOWLES

     Skip the cable ... all 40 feet of it.  It will make no difference. My Mac Pro is only 10 feet from my router and connected with Internet-hardwired (RJ-45 terminated) cable.

     It suffers from the same problem as every Lion-based Mac, including my WiFi connected MacBook.

     I actually disconnected the cable to see if the Mac Pro would perform any better with WiFi.  NOPE!  Problem persisted.