Lion WiFi Connection Problem

that's odd that your washing machine doesn't work...

Can't confirm.

Java seems to be my problem also, I was attempting to install, uninstall, massage... Don't have a fix.

all devices use DHCP and all have different IP, the assignment depends on "first come first served".

ok, I did it. Let's see now if it will be stable.

Yes, mountain lion. should I keep it on until wi-fi fails? How long that log can be?

A reboot fixed the issue for me...

As I already wrote above I have an iphone 5 which is capable (in theory) to transmit on the 5GHZ band. The phone of the guy was a small one, but I don't know which model (it was not a tablet).

gphonei

It's a 13in 8,1 MacBook Pro (Early 2011)

I'm actually running ML rather than Lion, but the problems are the same.

In my case I had no problem with ML and wifi until an upgrade in, I think, December of 2011. I've tried many of the suggestions, some a little esoteric, in this thread without success. I have changed my router and tested Linksys, Netgear, D-link, Huawei and my current TP-link. I've tried usb wifi adapters and the built-in adapter and nothing has worked.

Now before I give up with a sigh and go back to Linux, I'm wondering if anyone has tested a re-install from original disk and found that the problem goes away. Of course you'd have to disable automatic updates, but I'd rather have a version that works even if it doesn't have all the latest gizmos.

//James

Thanks for the idea, Freediverx01. Whilst I have regularly moved and resized partitions in Windows and linux, I've always been a little shy about it under OS X. Or I might put my clean install on a usb stick and try from there.

Regards

//James

I have the same problem with all my apple products and started after I use Linsys router. My friend has the same problems. I called linksys and they say it's my hardware not theirs. Any suggestions?

At the moment there are 2631 replies to the OP, so this is a problem which has exercised a lot of people for a very long time. Here's my story.

I was a happy user of a MBP inherited from my son for about three years, at which time it gave up. I bought a Mac Mini which also worked to my satisfaction until 12:14 on the 18^th of October, 2011. I know the date because I have looked up the list of software updates, and that was the last OS X update in late 2011. From that date my Mac Mini has regularly dropped the network, causing a great deal of frustration.

I have an old Dell laptop running XP, my wife has an Asus running Windows 7, I have a HP running both Windows 7 and Ubuntu linux, various guests have run Windows boxes, iPhones, iPads and Android machines, and an old MBP, probably with leopard as the opsys, and all of them have been able to connect to the network, simply and easily, as soon as they have been given the key. But not the Mac Mini since October 18, 2011.

I have tried a Linksys router (all machines except the Mac Mini worked perfectly), a D-Link router (same thing), a Netgear router (same again) and a TP-Link router, the newest, which has had its firmware updated to the very latest. Same story again: all machines work perfectly, except the Mac Mini.

I like the Mac environment. I think the Mac environment is the way computers should be made. But I don't have time to mess about trying to connect to the internet five or ten times a day nor trying all the arcane suggestions one has seen in this thread.

As a last resort before scrapping the Mac Mini and going back to my second-favourite opsys, linux, I borrowed an Airport Extreme from my local Mac shop. Suddenly my Mac Mini works. So now I'm faced with purchasing an Airport Express for 2-3 times the price of any other household router or scrapping the Mac Mini. I'm certainly not going to keep the Airport Extreme, which costs 6-8 times more than any other household router.

Now I think I can be forgiven if I smell a rat here. I may be accused of being a conspiracy theorist. But it seems strange to me that none of the big name router brands has worked with my Mac Mini since October 18, 2011 although no other machine available to me has had the least problem. Something, reason tells me, is rotten in the state of Denmark. And it won't do to suggest that only Apple uses the official specification for 802.11n in their computers and routers and that all the big name routers use defective variations. I don't believe it.

It wouldn't surprise me if I get a lot of replies to this post, suggestions on more things to test and things to try. I don't have the time any longer. I spent most of the last 30 years of my working life building and running computer systems, mostly varieties of UNIX, but now I'm a pensioner, and a computer to me is a tool, and no longer a toy.

A friend, an old lady in her eighties, who uses an iMac has asked me to service her machine. She's running Leopard, and my first thought was to bring her up to date. My second thought was to check what she uses for router. I think she said she had got one from her ISP when she changed recently. If so I don't dare update her opsys. The one she has works. The one I would install probably wouldn't.

As for me, at the moment it's looking good for linux, since that machine has 8 GB of memory and runs like lightning. My poor Mac Mini only has 3 GB and I spend an appreciable part of each day looking at a beachball. If I didn't have to invest in an Airport Express, I might have increased the memory in the Mini.

One of the important details here, is that you are talking about different OSes which means that there are different default settings/behaviors of the WiFi stack, and more specifically different drivers for the hardware, which can deal with specific "router problems" in particular ways.

Microsoft has been dealing with "bad routers" for a long time, and have made specific "retry" and "reboot" and "restart" behaviors a common thing, to work around "problems". I won't argue that this is a good/bad thing, I just want you to note that some "problems" are worked around in the OSes by them having particular strategies for dealling with failings of the wireless router/network due to any number of problems.

Should Apple be better at doing that too, perhaps so. But practically, we do know, that Apple supports their equipment and software as a "complete solution" space, and when you introduce "someone elses box" into the picture, you might experience something unexpected because practically, Apple doesn't feel obligated to be testing against everyones "everything". In the PC market, there are a lot more "people" and "business" doing repeated testing of all kinds of things, in their use of "the boxes".

Another point, is that specific models of the brands that you cited, are known to be "terrible" routers, while other models have much better designs. So, it's still a toss up, on whether you can really say that you've proven that there isn't a problem with the router.

It won't do, Gphonei. No matter how much you proselitise, you can't get round the fact that all these different OSes with their different settings, all of them can connect without problems to my "bad routers". As to Apple, with their market share, they can't expect that people will automatically buy an Apple router to build into their network, not even for company use, and certainly not for home use, so, yes, they should be adjusting to the routers on the market. It's not that hard - Microsoft can do it. And don't forget that most people get their routers from their ISP, at least here in Sweden.

Besides, the HP which I have, is a 4540s. It contains the Atheros wifi circuit board which I understand is the current circuit board of choice for Apple. Indeed, that model is the favourite machine for use as a Hackintosh because of its similarity to the Mac configuration. And besides, we know Apple can do it. Our iPhones and iPads have no problem, so why the computers?

You don't say that you upgraded that Mac Mini to any newer OS, so I am going to guess that it's running Leopard. Is it a powerPC based mac mini or an intel based mac mini? Since Leopard, the transition to Mountain Lion, on my intel core II duo iMac (24"), I've noticed a lot better performance with 4GB (instead of 2GB) and a more modern 7200 RPM 1TB drive that I've put in it. Time and technology move on, and as OS "base" code has increased in "size" and "data" use, there is less RAM for applications, and you may be experiencing the beach ball because of paging/swapping going on as well.

I was using Mountain Lion at the time Apple broke wifi. I upgraded to Lion in August 2012, in the hope that Apple, who had not by then fixed the broken wifi in ML might have tried to fix it in Lion. I have an old ML installation disk somewhere, and I have considered reinstalling my Mac Mini (which is an Intel btw) and turning off automatic updates. Maybe when I've made the transfer to my linux box I'll spend a rainy day trying that.

Now here could be an interesting fact. I did what I said I would in the last paragraph of my previous message: I installed Snow Leopard on a USB stick, and boot from that. One thing I noted quite quickly is that the connection, to my TP-Link router is of the type Airport (as opposed to Ethernet, Bluetooth, etc). When I boot from Lion, my connection (via Airport Extreme) is of the type Wifi, and Airport is not one of the options. I don't know, maybe they just changed the name in Lion.

Also when I start Airport Utility in Lion, the TP-Link router is not found even under Other Wifi Devices.