Q: Wifi Constantly Dropping in Lion

I've got a CISCO Linksys WRT310N, it's a Wireless-N router, seems pretty modern to me, how often does Apple expect you to switch your wireless router? This is a total joke.

How often do you get software updates for your computer? Well your router has updates also, but no one ever updates their routers. Look... In the past year OS X Lion  has been upgraded several times... now it is os x mountian lion.  Seriously in the last year how many times did you update your router?  Contact the manufacturer, they will walk you through the steps.

Carlo TD wrote:

 

How often do you get software updates for your computer? Well your router has updates also, but no one ever updates their routers. Look... In the past year OS X Lion  has been upgraded several times... now it is os x mountian lion.  Seriously in the last year how many times did you update your router?  Contact the manufacturer, they will walk you through the steps.

In fact, there are countless ways that WiFi could be not working for you, including the problem that everyone is calling the Apple WiFi debacle.

However, some people whether affected by that, or not, have found that there are solutions which involve things which they can do themselves.

New routers out of the store, almost always need a firmware update, period.  Not many do this themselves, although they really should.  Hardware manufacturing and firmware content is almost never going to be in sync with the latest software revision of new hardware.  There will be software bugs, and hardware issues that software must work around (like the power management issue in the WiFi chipset for some Apple computers).

If you haven't updated the firmware, that might fix some things, if you are not being affected by the "Apple WiFi Debacle" problem.

Apple told me that Lion and ML were not compatible with a WEP key. While I knew this was not true for Lion, it seems to be so for ML.  Changing to WPA2 ( with my ISP's help ) solved the problem.

I wouldn't be surprised if it comes back.

Mountain Lion still drops wi-fi regularly on my brand new retina MBP. And everybody here who thinks it's my set up can shut the f up. I have a new generation Netgear dual band router that works perfectly fine with absolutely everything that I tried so far, including ipad and iphone. It looks like for MBP, good wi-fi connection is still rocket science...

adi9999 wrote:

 

Mountain Lion still drops wi-fi regularly on my brand new retina MBP. And everybody here who thinks it's my set up can shut the f up. I have a new generation Netgear dual band router that works perfectly fine with absolutely everything that I tried so far, including ipad and iphone. It looks like for MBP, good wi-fi connection is still rocket science...

If you have an Apple store close by, it might be a good idea to take your router and your MBP there, and say "See it doesn't work" to try and make the point that there is something Apple needs to address.  Make sure that you pay attention to whether it's happening when you are plugged into the wall, or on batteries.  Work out a demonstration, away from your house, that reproduces the problem, and then go sell it at the store!

It still seems that noone has found a way to put the problem right at Apple's feet that will cause them to fix it.

1.  The problem is NOT reproduceable on demand.  Sometimes it will happen all day, then go away for a day or week or month.  But when the problem occurs, it's a BIG deal, as the network is nearly unusable. 

2.  The problem occurs even with ALL apple hardware, including a brand new AirPort. 

3.  Here is a scan of my wireless surroundings:

/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Apple80211.framework/Versions/Current/Resource s/airport -s

                            SSID BSSID             RSSI CHANNEL HT CC SECURITY (auth/unicast/group)

                          LAGnet d8:30:62:35:c4:e7 -67  11      N  US WPA(PSK/TKIP/TKIP) WPA2(PSK/AES,TKIP/TKIP)

                          LAGnet f8:1e:df:fd:34:9d -39  11      N  US WPA(PSK/TKIP/TKIP) WPA2(PSK/AES,TKIP/TKIP)

                       deathstar 00:0f:66:11:7d:f4 -82  6       N  -- WEP

                        2WIRE202 c0:83:0a:94:1e:b1 -76  3       N  US WPA(PSK/TKIP/TKIP)

                 Wright Wireless 00:24:01:44:f4:ba -85  1       Y  US WPA(PSK/TKIP/TKIP)

                     LAGnet 5GHz f8:1e:df:fd:34:9e -48  149,+1  Y  US WPA(PSK/TKIP/TKIP) WPA2(PSK/AES,TKIP/TKIP)

Here is my connection status: 

/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Apple80211.framework/Versions/Current/Resource s/airport -I

     agrCtlRSSI: -53

     agrExtRSSI: 0

    agrCtlNoise: -84

    agrExtNoise: 0

          state: running

        op mode: station

     lastTxRate: 300

        maxRate: 300

lastAssocStatus: 0

    802.11 auth: open

      link auth: wpa2-psk

          BSSID: f8:1e:df:fd:34:9e

           SSID: LAGnet 5GHz

            MCS: 15

        channel: 149,1

I'm in the same small living room as the AirPort Extreme.  I believe the last time the problem occured was when I was connected on channel 11.  Right now I'm connected via 5.8 Ghz and no problems so far. 

One interesting side note, is that my MacBook Pro was running Leopard and Snow Leopard with no problems.  Even after my upgrade to Lion, it still worked fine.  Then when I swapped hard drives to an SSD, and did a fresh install of Lion, did the problem occur. 

Another interesting side note is that I bought a brand new mac mini running Lion Server, that had no issues with wireless, UNTIL I reinstalled. 

I'm not sure if it was the re-install that triggered the wireless problems, or just a coincidence. 

Either way, this problem has been VERY hard to solve.  I suspect the problem is a very low level one, that is driver related to a change in the Lion wireless driver.  My oversimplified guess would be due to the implementation of AirDrop. 

I have also seen this same problem on my clients computers, who are running Lion.  Never once seen it happen in an earlier OS...

Try copying data over WiFi.

For me it was more likely to drop if I used it for more than web browsing. If I was playing video from network it dropped several times in 20 mins, if I tried copying data it consistently dropped in under 20 seconds each time.

Disabling wireless security seems to help, I was previously on WPA2, now it's just open, no disconnections so far. A poor solution for sure. Apple needs to solve this quickly, this MBA is probably the most expensive laptop in its class.

@ jepzman,

You can save that apple script as an application using Apple Script Editor and then set it as a login item in System Preferences... I don't know much about these sorts of things but it seems to be working...

I think the problem, as usual, is no one's sure of the cause.

I haven't had a drop of Wi-Fi on any Apple product since Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.6 in 2008; Snow Leopard, Lion and ML have all been 100% rock solid for me on every network I've tried.

I upgraded from my 5 year old ibook to a Macbook Pro, what a mistake. I have had nothing but problems with my Wifi connection, my Macbook Pro Wifi will just drop out or stall.

My partners old Toshiba laptop (about 8 years old) works like a dream, no issues, no problems. We have just upgraded to Fibre with a Cisco/Linksy modem/router and i may as well be on dial up

I used a WPA2 password, any suggestions?

Was on the phone with Apple Care this morning and seems to have solved the issue. The Apple Care rep asked me to create a new Location in my network settings and add my wifi connection to that location. All of a sudden no more drops. Previously I had several preferred networks on the Automatic location, perhaps this confuses the OS. I also found out that the problem only manifested itself when wifi security was on.

That is one of their standard scripted esponses to this. Didn't work for me nor many others.

It has previously been suggested as a fix in this thread as well, along with many other ideas.... I guess you didn't read all 131 pages..... Some ideas have worked for some, so it's worth trying them all until you get a fix or exhuast the options.