Q: Wifi Constantly Dropping in Lion

All I did was change the channel on my Airport to 4 and I have had almost no drops in a week. Try that.

Hi,

I was having the same problems with MacBook Pro and iMac after upgrading to Lion. I called Apple and what the tech ran me through has now worked for 24 hours with no issues with my Airport Extreme and both my Macs. This includes in and out of sleep, start ups, constant connections, downloads, etc. NOTE: I am running a Windows machine that suffered the same issues so in my case, these seems to clearly be a router issue. This may or may not work on on other routers than the Airport Extreme and only those people using an Apple OS (so you can access the Utility Folder in Applications).

1. Unplug the router

2. While holding the reset button down with a peper clip end plug it back in until the front light is solid orange.

3. When it starts blinking orange, open up Airport Utility in the Utility folder in applications.

4. Completely re-setup your router, choosing WPA2 for security. You can name the router whatever you want.

5. Wait for setup to complete.

6. Link your computer to the new network.

One other thing, if that still doesn't work, Apple told me to look at your avaialble networks to see if there are a lot avaialble. If so, you may be getting some interference from one of the other networks. Apple suggested changing the from Automatic to enter your channel manually, and try random channels until you see fewer or no more other networks other than yours. to do this, go back into Applications>Utilities>Airport Utlity>YOUR ROUTER>Manual Setup. Then navigate to the Wirless tab and switch from Automatic to selecting a different channel. I did this and it seems to have worked for me. Hopefully these steps might work for others.

Well, tried this solution: Go to System Preferences > Network > Create a new location in the dropdown menu (any name will do) > restart computer.

Didn't work. Next day it dropped the signal again. In my case, it is pretty easy to get the signal back; I just turn off WiFi and turn it back on. But it is a nuisance.

I really think all the solutions on these boards are a waste of time (no disrespect to those who suggested them). We can reset PRAM and SCM and rename this and that all day long, but until Apple fixes the problem in the OS, it will persist.

I've had little successes with some of the suggestions, but nothing that actually lasted. The WiFi signal would drop at the most inopportune times. I thought of reinstalling Lion, but I just went back to Snow Leopard. I'm loving my Mac again.

I'm going to wait for Lion to mature a bit before I install it again.

Indeed. A proper solution to this wifi debacle has to be given. Do try changing your wifi channel from automatic to channel 3 so as not to suffer from constant frustration.

We must insist on having this issue worked out. People can't go around with their macs asking for people to change their routers channels to 3 or 4 everywhere we go. Basically our machines are now locked to the wifi routers we can modify, can't access public wifi networks at uni, libraries, at clients offices or anywhere for that matter since the signal keeps dropping.

Apple basically turned our portables into desktop machines. Completely unacceptable.

the same here:

update to 10.7.1 helped nothing, but one iMAC which hadn'd had the prob before now has WiFi drops alle the time too.

Very bad work has been done. Beta-status of SW for customers to get sad...

same, 10.7.1 fixed nothing for my early 2009 MBP with Airport Extreme...

Sure way to get it to drop is to do a big download, it breaks it within 30 secs, then takes 2 mins to sort itself out again... wired and non Lion wireless devices are fine during the 'broken wireless' period

Please fix asap Apple...!

I have been having MAJOR problems with my wifi since upgrading to Lion. The speed was constantly going up and down, up and down. The speed graph just looked like mountains.

After waiting for the first update, which didn't do anything to help, I tried some other things.

I proved there was no fault with my wifi router/connection etc by speed testing on a windows machine.

In the end, the thing that seems to have cured the problem is resetting the PRAM

For anyone who doesn't know how to do this, boot your mac and at the grey screen hold down option/cmd P and R all at the same time.

The machine will then reboot.

This seems to have fixed all my wifi issues since updating to Lion. I'm not impressed with apple that this has had to be done though.

Hope it helps other people out there anyway !

Just to be certain that we're on the same page--what I was referring to was not a loss of Wi-Fi connection; my computer is still connected to my home AirPort network, and I can see the other computers and printers and servers, and interact with them. In my case, the problem is, or was anyway, that the connection to the Internet would drop. And I suspect that it had to do with the Network portion of the OS software. Someone suggested that rather than allowing the DHCP assign an IP address dynamically, (which is when my connection would drop, due to the loss of the IP address,) I assigned an address manually. Since doing so, my connection has remained constant. Knock wood. Thoughts?

same here...

Having issues here too, but changing wireless channel from auto to 3, helps me out.

Very disappointed.

After two weeks traveling, I came home last night and immediately installed Lion 10.7.1. But what a disappointment: After falling asleep, the internet connection was gone again. No improvement compared to 10.7.0. Could recover the connection through the "Network maintenance" dialogue in Safari.

I tried then the following, which obviously helped some people in the forum:

First this hint published by charles260:

1.  Unplug all cables from the iMac, including the power, for 10seconds, and then plug them back in. 2.  He then made me locate the Cmd, Alt, R and P keys and told me that I shoudl turn on the iMac and immediately hold down these keys and keep them held down until the iMac had made the 'power-on' chiming sound three (3) times in a row. 3.  Then release the keys and let the iMac start up as per normal.

 

Second this hint published by anthonyfromNJ

1. Open Network Preferences 2. Click Advanced 3. Remove ALL of the Preferred Networks (should be completely empty when completed) 4. Ensure that Remember Networks is checked 5. Click OK 6. Select your network in the Network Name dropdown menu 7. Ensure that Ask to join networks is checked 8. click Apply 9. Restart your computer

 

Since then, the problem seems solved. No more dropping wifi connection after falling asleep. iTunes, Time Machine on a TimeCapsule, Safari, appleTV (V1.0), ... all works well.

I am among the more unfortunate, apparently.  I have tried everything suggested on this forum and nothing has worked.  I have to wake up the connection by using a Windows in Boot Camp, and then usually I can get on using my other Mac operating OS X only.

2009 iMac with 10.7.1 here.

Upgraded to Lion shortly after available ... didn't notice any wifi issues ... about the time I loaded the 10.7.1 update, I started having major issues with my router, which finally went completely belly-up in two days ... bought a new Linksys E2500 and installed ... then noticed that after Sleep or start-up from Shutdown, my wifi connection would not come up automatically. The icon would scan but never hold the link. If I went to the top bar icon, clicked on it and let it scan and then I selected my router, it would connect and pretty much stay connected.

So, been looking here for a few days, and decided to try the anthonyfromNJ hint that you, StefanSze used. It has seemed to do the trick. I have restarted and sleep/awake a couple of times and the connection resumes correctly. The chief difference here is that NOW I have the "Ask to Join Networks" checkbox checked (as described above). Before, I did NOT have this checked. When I looked under the icon, several of the neighboring routers would show up before. They are NOT there now.

I am fairly ignorant of wifi and router issues, so I'm just going to take the money and run here, hoping this will keep working as it seems to be now. Hope the others here find this helpful.

Zapping the PRAM on my new iMac did the trick for me. No drops in 2 days. And I was having at least 8 a day.

Steve