Lion WiFi Connection Problem

Jul 27, 2011 11:40 PM in response to lrogersinlv

Hello All:

I'm too suffer the Wifi problem with Lion. Yesterday i do the SMC reset of my iMac 27" and wifi connection seems to be stable (at least during 2 hours) I'm downloaded the xCode without networks outages. I'm hope to test with more detail/time today in order to assure that the SMC reset resolve my problem. I'm keep you informed.

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putnik

Level 4

1,179 points

Jul 28, 2011 12:30 AM in response to lrogersinlv

To add my tuppence worth...

I have had massive wifi problems in the past, with Windows 7 and Snow Leopard, but not one problem with Lion.

Almost all of these have been down to the router firmware requiring an update for the wireless "N" standard. Maybe my present good fortune is therefore to do with my new BT Hub 3 which is of the latest standard.

DNS issues can be a problem too. I believe Safari uses DNS caching which some older routers cannot cope with. You could try another browser or do as I had to for two years and listen to internet radio, to prevent connection drops. (There is a more sophisticated solution involving pinging the connection at regular intervals).

Changing to Google DNS can improve page loading times for ISP's with slow connection speeds in third world countries like the UK. Page swiping with Safari in Lion is horrible with a poor refresh rate from your ISP.

In System Preferences>Networks, put WiFi at the top of the list. In the past, changing the "Location" from "automatic" to a named one, has helped. But again, I have no problem with the standard setting...

In "Advanced", remove obsolete networks and put the current one at the top too.

There have been Keychain and Preferences problems too. For example, old passwords being stored, both in the Login and System sections. In SL The Library>Preferences system folder needed to be regenerated to correct plists. I note there have been big changes in this folder with Lion (no wonder they have hidden it). Perhaps the problem is in the migration of these parameters to Lion by some people?

I'm not sure if any of this is helpful. If it worked in SL but doesn't now in Lion, I suggest checking settings and re-booting the router.

Somebody must know more than I do about this subject?

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Jul 28, 2011 12:59 AM in response to putnik

Since people with brand new factory installs on the new MBA and mini seem not to be having problems and it looks like only upgraders, in the end, I decided to go one step further than before (thanks to security of Time Machine) and I nuked and paved the hard disk with a repartitioning and multipass erase after booting from a Lion GM installer on a USB stick.

A clean Lion reinstall with NOTHING else on the HDD seems to have fixed the problem for the last 12 hours. I am not yet convinced but tomorrow I will be travelling around various offices using both open and protected wifi connections. If it holds up all day, it seems like this might be a bug that flares with upgrades but not with new clean installs. Note that simply doing a reinstall over by redownloading Lion from Apple's servers is not the same as a disk repartition and clean reinstall.

Let you know what happens tomorrow.😕

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putnik

Level 4

1,179 points

Jul 28, 2011 12:57 AM in response to nipper123

Yes, mine was a clean install using an SL clone on an external disk, wiping the laptop HD first.

It points to the migration process, plists and keychain entries etc. But I expect it will be correctable without needing to go the whole re-install route😉

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Jul 28, 2011 1:16 AM in response to Nicholas Burke

That's depressing news.😢

Mine is still connected fine after about 16 hours but I won't believe it is OK until I've tried connection to 5 or 6 base stations tomorrow. So don't rush into anything yet guys.

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Jul 28, 2011 2:02 AM in response to nipper123

You are right--it does not fix it completely but here is another data point.

I walked down my street with MB in hand until I found a FON access point in the list of available networks. First time I tried access I got the dreaded exclamation point but then I ran the diagnostics and the second time I got to the login screen and managed to get on for a few seconds. I hastily made a note of the DCHP provided IP, snm , router, etc., and changed from DHCP to manual with those same settings. Now I can get onto that FON base station every time.

So this problem is not solved by a nuke and install but the problem seems to be associated with DCHP handshaking as wireshark indicated yesterday.

Apple needs a bug fix.

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fallyhag

Level 1

0 points

Jul 28, 2011 2:16 AM in response to lrogersinlv

iMac and Macbook:

Installed Lion last week and ever since my Wi-Fi keeps dropping out. It is easy to re-connect but if I am downloading something then the lost connection will interupt. Not great! This Wi-Fi issue seems linked to the Lion upgrade. Fingers crossed for a fix soon 😟

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putnik

Level 4

1,179 points

Jul 28, 2011 2:33 AM in response to Nicholas Burke

Maybe I did not make myself clear, I said "But I expect it will be correctable without needing to go the whole re-install route". Yes, that means don't go wiping your drives just yet! Whatever the solution may turn out to be.

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Jul 28, 2011 2:37 AM in response to lrogersinlv

I have exactly the same problem - all well with Snow leopard, internet switching off after installing Lion.

Fortunately my iMac is next to the router so I have switched off the Wifi port and connected with an Ethernet cable - now all is well and another iMac in the building, still on Snow leopard, plus my iPad and iPhone are all working happily on WiFi.

It's amazing that Apple have not issued a statement about this yet.

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Jul 28, 2011 2:37 AM in response to putnik

It is not just this community, go to twitter and search for "lion wifi". There are hundreds and maybe thousands ofpeople posting the same issue, so some poor Apple code jockey is pulling long nights and weekends to get a fix out.

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Jul 28, 2011 2:59 AM in response to Dogcow-Moof

Well, William, first I suggest you search twitter for "lion wifi" and read the thousands of tweets about it. Then look at the number of visits here—now 11,000+— and then believe us when we say we're not imagining it. The thousands of people with the problem are a much bigger sample than your "multiple platforms" for sure and their experience of the bug should be believed by Apple!

If I have time this W/E I will take this MBP into an Apple Store and let a Genius waste 3 or 4 hours trying too. Then s/he can file a report too.

I am working at Japan's biggest manufacturer of wifi measuring equipment tomorrow on million-dollar test sets that are used in wifi R&D labs worldwide so I'll ask one of the engineers there to test the handshaking with the R&D base stations and to take a look at the wireshark output.

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Izwan I

Level 1

0 points

Jul 28, 2011 3:24 AM in response to nipper123

Well i actually just bought the new MBA 13 inch last weekend and has not been able to use my home wi fi connection. It dropped every few minutes. The wi fi is working fine with my Ipad and Window based laptop.

So the problem is there even with a new MBA with Lion pre-installed....

Convinced my wife to get the MBA for her home laptop. Not a happy camper at this point.... hopefully a fix would come soon!

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Dogcow-Moof

Level 8

36,569 points

Jul 28, 2011 3:30 AM in response to nipper123

nipper123 wrote:

Well, William, first I suggest you search twitter for "lion wifi" and read the thousands of tweets about it. Then look at the number of visits here—now 11,000+— and then believe us when we say we're not imagining it. The thousands of people with the problem are a much bigger sample than your "multiple platforms" for sure and their experience of the bug should be believed by Apple!

If I have time this W/E I will take this MBP into an Apple Store and let a Genius waste 3 or 4 hours trying too. Then s/he can file a report too.

I am working at Japan's biggest manufacturer of wifi measuring equipment tomorrow on million-dollar test sets that are used in wifi R&D labs worldwide so I'll ask one of the engineers there to test the handshaking with the R&D base stations and to take a look at the wireshark output.

That would actually be quite helpful.

I never said that it wasn't happening, but that I haven't seen it across around fifteen machines I've tried it on, nor have any of the few hundred engineers with Macs I work with.

That's also why I said to contact AppleCare - because it's not a generic problem where every machine does it with every router; there's a specific combination of machine and router that is proving problematic and it's uncertain whether it's Lion that's at fault or a router firmware issue.

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Jul 28, 2011 3:39 AM in response to nipper123

Since upgrading my iMac to Lion, I am also experiencing wifi drop outs on connection, the weird thing is the wifi indicator on the top bar shows a strong signal. It seems to occure more on Apple Safari 5.1, as I dont remember it every occuring on Apple Safari 5.

Today I tried to log on to reply to this chain of messages using Safari 5.1, having clicked the link 'Sign in' the browser called the page, but Safari displayed a message about 'no internet activity or access on https://daw.apple.com/<etc>. The page refused to load to give me the logon, I could go back and reload the previous page but each time I tried it to sign in, it failed. I switched to Firefox and it worked 100% first go. When I tried Safari again it also decided to work. However this Safari page not found problem happens a lot, and not just with this forum, sometimes I get it when just accessing Apples home page, sometimes yahoo, and I even had it do this when I was doing a Paypal transaction, the result being the payment failed and I had to go to Firefox to make the purchase. In Outlook 2011, I get issues with no network connectivit to the mailboxes, and the error logs report DNS problems.

I never had this problem on Snow Leopard which is what this iMac shipped with, even after upgrading my Mac Mini (which was on Snow Leopard and never had any issues - and it is located 2 feet from my wifi router!) I am getting the same errors above. Any PC on my network is fine and my router has been checked when the problem occurs just in case.

Its mega annoying when it happens, and sometimes the Safari browser bar (URL) even changes to a local drive mapping. I agree this needs to be fixed as in Lion, as if it did exist in Snow Leopard, its far worse now in Lion.

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Jul 28, 2011 3:53 AM in response to lrogersinlv

I went to network preferences, assist me, network diagnositcs, sometimes this would restart the wifi and it would work until it crashed again. Last time I tried it, it popped up with an error log as follows: interesting it says this error log will be automatically fowarded to apple in the pop up.

Just out of curiosity, I was reading that the diagnositc tool is new to Lion. I then thought hey I wonder if the diagnositc tool was there apple started playing with the wifi code vs what they had in SL. I have no idea, just guessing. I am at the mercy of apple.

Process: Network Diagnostics [1257]

Path: /System/Library/CoreServices/Network Diagnostics.app/Contents/MacOS/Network Diagnostics

Identifier: com.apple.NetworkDiagnostics

Version: 1.1.4 (96)

Build Info: NetworkDiagnostics-96000000000000~50

Code Type: X86-64 (Native)

Parent Process: launchd [174]

Date/Time: 2011-07-28 20:39:10.132 +1000

OS Version: Mac OS X 10.7 (11A511)

Report Version: 9

Interval Since Last Report: 360017 sec

Crashes Since Last Report: 2

Per-App Interval Since Last Report: 1486 sec

Per-App Crashes Since Last Report: 2

Anonymous UUID: 315535BB-CC86-4CC4-84EF-4B0181EFED67

Crashed Thread: 5 Dispatch queue: com.apple.root.default-priority

Exception Type: EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGSEGV)

Exception Codes: KERN_INVALID_ADDRESS at 0x0000000000000000

VM Regions Near 0:

-->

__TEXT 0000000103536000-0000000103538000 [ 8K] r-x/rwx SM=COW /System/Library/CoreServices/Network Diagnostics.app/Contents/MacOS/Network Diagnostics

Application Specific Information:

objc[1257]: garbage collection is OFF

Thread 0:: Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread

0 libsystem_kernel.dylib 0x00007fff93d2667a mach_msg_trap + 10

1 libsystem_kernel.dylib 0x00007fff93d25d71 mach_msg + 73

2 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x00007fff8b28f29c __CFRunLoopServiceMachPort + 188

3 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x00007fff8b297a04 __CFRunLoopRun + 1204

4 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x00007fff8b297216 CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 230

5 com.apple.HIToolbox 0x00007fff8c53a4ff RunCurrentEventLoopInMode + 277

6 com.apple.HIToolbox 0x00007fff8c541c21 ReceiveNextEventCommon + 355

7 com.apple.HIToolbox 0x00007fff8c541aae BlockUntilNextEventMatchingListInMode + 62

8 com.apple.AppKit 0x00007fff8a612191 _DPSNextEvent + 659

9 com.apple.AppKit 0x00007fff8a611a95 -[NSApplication nextEventMatchingMask:untilDate:inMode:dequeue:] + 135

10 com.apple.AppKit 0x00007fff8a60e3d6 -[NSApplication run] + 463

11 com.apple.AppKit 0x00007fff8a88c52a NSApplicationMain + 867

12 com.apple.NetworkDiagnostics 0x00000001035375c4 0x103536000 + 5572

Thread 1:: Dispatch queue: com.apple.libdispatch-manager

0 libsystem_kernel.dylib 0x00007fff93d2667a mach_msg_trap + 10

1 libsystem_kernel.dylib 0x00007fff93d25d71 mach_msg + 73

2 libsystem_kernel.dylib 0x00007fff93d19ab0 mach_port_move_member + 131

3 libdispatch.dylib 0x00007fff8eddb4e0 _dispatch_kevent_machport_disable + 25

4 libdispatch.dylib 0x00007fff8eddb5c5 _dispatch_kevent_machport_resume + 168

5 libdispatch.dylib 0x00007fff8eddb8a6 _dispatch_kevent_release + 148

6 libdispatch.dylib 0x00007fff8eddb178 _dispatch_source_invoke + 237

7 libdispatch.dylib 0x00007fff8edd7fc7 _dispatch_queue_invoke + 71

8 libdispatch.dylib 0x00007fff8edd8124 _dispatch_queue_drain + 210

9 libdispatch.dylib 0x00007fff8edd8250 _dispatch_mgr_thread2 + 47

10 libdispatch.dylib 0x00007fff8edd85ba _dispatch_mgr_invoke + 839

11 libdispatch.dylib 0x00007fff8edd719e _dispatch_mgr_thread + 54

Thread 2:: Dispatch queue: com.apple.root.default-priority

0 libsystem_kernel.dylib 0x00007fff93d266b6 semaphore_wait_trap + 10

1 libdispatch.dylib 0x00007fff8edd9c12 _dispatch_thread_semaphore_wait + 18

2 libdispatch.dylib 0x00007fff8edd8e02 _dispatch_barrier_sync_f_slow + 137

3 com.apple.SystemConfiguration 0x00007fff89828aa8 SCDynamicStoreSetDispatchQueue + 498

4 com.apple.framework.CoreWLAN 0x00007fff9028b2f5 -[CWInterface dealloc] + 81

5 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x00007fff8b267800 CFRelease + 176

6 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x00007fff8b26bf92 __CFBasicHashDrain + 450

7 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x00007fff8b267946 CFRelease + 502

8 libobjc.A.dylib 0x00007fff893fc03c (anonymous namespace)::AutoreleasePoolPage::pop(void*) + 434

9 com.apple.CoreFoundation 0x00007fff8b2906a5 _CFAutoreleasePoolPop + 37

10 com.apple.Foundation 0x00007fff8bdaf0d7 -[NSAutoreleasePool drain] + 154

11 com.apple.framework.Apple80211 0x00007fff8fcb0c58 ACNetworkCopyBroadcastScanResults + 639

12 com.apple.NetworkDiagnostics.bundle 0x000000010596aba4 copyWirelessNetworks + 28

13 com.apple.NetworkDiagnostics.bundle 0x000000010596ab03 0x105967000 + 15107

14 libdispatch.dylib 0x00007fff8edd690a _dispatch_call_block_and_release + 18

15 libdispatch.dylib 0x00007fff8edd77e9 _dispatch_worker_thread2 + 255

16 libsystem_c.dylib 0x00007fff93a903da _pthread_wqthread + 316

17 libsystem_c.dylib 0x00007fff93a91b85 start_wqthread + 13

Thread 3:: Dispatch queue: com.apple.root.default-priority

0 libsystem_kernel.dylib 0x00007fff93d27d7a __recvfrom + 10

1 com.apple.CFNetwork 0x00007fff926275d5 CFNetDiagnosticPing + 891

2 com.apple.NetworkDiagnosticsUI 0x0000000103544ce1 -[NDStateController pingRouter] + 219

3 libdispatch.dylib 0x00007fff8eddb2f1 _dispatch_source_invoke + 614

4 libdispatch.dylib 0x00007fff8edd7fc7 _dispatch_queue_invoke + 71

5 libdispatch.dylib 0x00007fff8edd77b0 _dispatch_worker_thread2 + 198

6 libsystem_c.dylib 0x00007fff93a903da _pthread_wqthread + 316

7 libsystem_c.dylib 0x00007fff93a91b85 start_wqthread + 13

Thread 4:: Dispatch queue: com.apple.root.default-priority

0 libsystem_kernel.dylib 0x00007fff93d27d7a __recvfrom + 10

1 com.apple.CFNetwork 0x00007fff926275d5 CFNetDiagnosticPing + 891

2 com.apple.NetworkDiagnosticsUI 0x0000000103545177 -[NDStateController pingInternet] + 111

3 libdispatch.dylib 0x00007fff8eddb2f1 _dispatch_source_invoke + 614

4 libdispatch.dylib 0x00007fff8edd7fc7 _dispatch_queue_invoke + 71

5 libdispatch.dylib 0x00007fff8edd77b0 _dispatch_worker_thread2 + 198

6 libsystem_c.dylib 0x00007fff93a903da _pthread_wqthread + 316

7 libsystem_c.dylib 0x00007fff93a91b85 start_wqthread + 13

Thread 5 Crashed:: Dispatch queue: com.apple.root.default-priority

0 libsystem_c.dylib 0x00007fff93ae24f0 strlen + 16

1 libsystem_c.dylib 0x00007fff93a6d0d9 vsscanf_l + 238

2 libsystem_c.dylib 0x00007fff93a51978 sscanf + 168

3 libsystem_info.dylib 0x00007fff8bd28f02 ether_aton + 103

4 com.apple.framework.CoreWLAN 0x00007fff90281009 -[CWNetwork(Deprecated) bssidData] + 43

5 com.apple.framework.Apple80211 0x00007fff8fcb1e30 __ACNetworkPrivateCreateFromScanRecord + 177

6 com.apple.framework.Apple80211 0x00007fff8fcb0bb0 ACNetworkCopyBroadcastScanResults + 471

7 com.apple.NetworkDiagnostics.bundle 0x000000010596aba4 copyWirelessNetworks + 28

8 com.apple.NetworkDiagnostics.bundle 0x000000010596ab03 0x105967000 + 15107

9 libdispatch.dylib 0x00007fff8edd690a _dispatch_call_block_and_release + 18

10 libdispatch.dylib 0x00007fff8edd77e9 _dispatch_worker_thread2 + 255

11 libsystem_c.dylib 0x00007fff93a903da _pthread_wqthread + 316

12 libsystem_c.dylib 0x00007fff93a91b85 start_wqthread + 13

Thread 6:: Dispatch queue: com.apple.root.default-priority

0 libsystem_kernel.dylib 0x00007fff93d27d7a __recvfrom + 10

1 com.apple.CFNetwork 0x00007fff926275d5 CFNetDiagnosticPing + 891

2 com.apple.NetworkDiagnosticsUI 0x00000001035452c8 -[NDStateController pingServer] + 147

3 libdispatch.dylib 0x00007fff8eddb2f1 _dispatch_source_invoke + 614

4 libdispatch.dylib 0x00007fff8edd7fc7 _dispatch_queue_invoke + 71

5 libdispatch.dylib 0x00007fff8edd77b0 _dispatch_worker_thread2 + 198

6 libsystem_c.dylib 0x00007fff93a903da _pthread_wqthread + 316

7 libsystem_c.dylib 0x00007fff93a91b85 start_wqthread + 13

Thread 7:: Dispatch queue: com.apple.root.default-priority