Lion WiFi Connection Problem

William,

Assuming that you are an Apple engineer, this is really not the way, from a PR point of view, to deal with an issue like this.

As one of the many sufferers who know beyond doubt that this is a bug with Lion, whether you can or cannot replicate the fault is not the point (and people will tend not to believe you).

The thing I want to hear is that whilst you are unable to replicate the fault, the sheer volume of posts and complaints about Wifi connectivity with lion indicate that something is going wrong and that Apple are committing their very considerable resources in investigating the problem.

Tell Steve J. that most Apple users are Apple fans and that we are not planning a massive international class action to sue Apple for every cent it has - we just want to get on with our lives and, in many cases, our work - yes, many of us having this problem are dependent on our iMacs, etc., for our livelihood.

This seems to suggest that every release version of OS X suffers from internet connectivity problems - strangely, I don't find that thought very comforting - was I supposed to?

William, as Lion is the OS X that you are currently launching, it is a Lion issue, don't patronise us with such nonsense.

As I have never had a single internet connectivity issue with SL since going over to Macs 2 years ago, this would suggest that the SL problems were resolved - one can only hope that the Lion problems will be resolved quickly.

Please bear in mind that all of the people reporting this problem are Apple customers who have paid good money for this clearly defective product.

Not comforting at all. I think the forum is for exchange of information and ideas between users. In this respect I was looking for commonality between problems reported over a long time span. If you just want Apple to solve the problem for you, perhaps you should speak to them?

hi fallyhag,

somebody else suggested this earlier in this thread for people having the issue with dropping connections. Go to the Utilities folder, which lives inside your applications folder, and start Network Utility. Press the Ping button and select 'Send an unlimited number of pings'. as a network address just any www.xyz.com you know works and hit Start. i've been doing this now for well over 24h without loosing the connection at all. before my connection dropped every few minutes or sometimes even within seconds.

hope that helps.

Internet radio is more fun🙂 But I seem to remember it finally got solved with a router firmware update after many months. Was it that Safari uses a DNS cache system and the ISP's were seeing it as an attack?

Curious if this is happening with anybody else...None of these ideas have been a proper fix for me yet, but some have worked better than others. I've had the most success with Trashing the System Configuration Preferences folder, Deleting Keychain Access passwords for airport, Deleting ethernet and (the other) access options, moving airport to the top of the Set Services Order, using DCHP with manual address....******* tedious....anyway, the first time I did all this I had a stable connection for about 24 hours before it crashed again. Now when I try doing this same set of procedures it doesn't work AT ALL. It's almost like the iMac has learned my tricks and refuses to let me do that anymore. So what was once an acceptable workaround is now a dead end. Is this happening with anybody else?

Also, I'm sure the irony hasn't been lost on anyone but I find it hilarious/proposterous that when Apple does get around to offering an update that will fix this we'll be expected to download it...but how are we going to download it if we can't access the internet!!!

Further to my last, I've noticed that my drop outs (post Lion install) occur after i have left the iMac for a period of time. Whenever I go back to it the WiFi is always disconnected. Maybe an issue connected with power save modes?

Just another update, for some reason, mine seemed to 'recover' quite on it's own. After days of connecting directly via the ethernet, I tried again the WiFi, by disconnecting and connecting them back again, ensuring that my iMac is not connected via the ethernet (leaving WiFi as the only internet access alternative) and all of a sudden it's working, been using for hours now and so far it didn't cut off.

My time machine is however still a little buggy. When I tried to run it (in the hopes of reverting it back to Snow Leopard) it refuses to.

Every attempt has been made, believe me.

I think I did understand the purpose of the forum but thanks for the clarification.........

The volume of correspondance on this issue and the amount on the web should be sufficient to get some sort of an encouraging statement from Apple - it appears that in this sense they are just as bad as MS.

I'm very disappointed, I expected better from them : I have been a manufacturer, I'm realistic, I don't expect nothing to go wrong ever but it's the way it is handled that is important. The fact is that customer service in the IT field is consistently atrocious and has been ever since I first became involved in buying computers and software in 1983.

Yet here I am still buyimg, even early adopting - more fool me?

marwoodevents wrote:

William,

Assuming that you are an Apple engineer, this is really not the way, from a PR point of view, to deal with an issue like this.

If you re-read the AD Terms of Use, you'll see that Apple Employees identify themselves as such.

I'm just a user like you who spends his own time trying to help fellow Mac users with their issues.

However I also have been in the industry for almost three decades now, so I know a lot more about debugging, diagnosis and difficult technical issues than you might think.

I realize how frustrating it is when you're having an issue - I've been there myself - but I also know that since I have no issues with the machines I use nor do hundreds of my co-workers who've also upgraded to Lion and use Wi-Fi daily at work, home and in coffee shops and hotels, there's something unique about your systems that is exacerbating the issue, which is why I've said all along I hope AppleCare is collecting data to be able to track this down and root cause it and direct the appropriate party to fix the issue. That may be Apple - if it's a Mac OS X bug - or a third party if it turns out it's a firmware bug on the part of a router or chipset vendor.

A product isn't "clearly defective" unless the issue is root caused to something you did; stating that Snow Leopard or any other device works isn't sufficient to point the finger at Lion, but at present we simply don't know.

Just to add to the cacophany, since I installed Lion, my 13" MBAir 2010 gets wifi connection errors every time i wake it up from sleeping. I end up turning off wifi, then turning it back on and that seems to fix it. Once, I tried the on-board wifi assistance but that asked me for all sorts of usernames and passwords that I've never attached to my wifi access. Then it got hung up and I ended up just turning the wifi off then on again.

This is definitely a bug in Lion since I use Chrome and the connection errors come up. Just hope Apple sends an update with a quickness.

john

Did you try the Ping setup? Samoth Lharts described the procedure for you. If it's loss of DNS, forcing a continuous data stream works well, as an interim solution until the vendor(s) pull their (collective) fingers out.

Yes. Just tried this and it seems to work, to an extent. Big files have a very variable download speed an wi-fi still needs an occasional nudge .. but less so.

I still wonder if updating my router would help - has anyone tried this?

HI William

William Kucharski wrote:

I realize how frustrating it is when you're having an issue - I've been there myself - but I also know that since I have no issues with the machines I use nor do hundreds of my co-workers who've also upgraded to Lion and use Wi-Fi daily at work, home and in coffee shops and hotels, there's something unique about your systems that is exacerbating the issue, which is why I've said all along I hope AppleCare is collecting data to be able to track this down and root cause it and direct the appropriate party to fix the issue. That may be Apple - if it's a Mac OS X bug - or a third party if it turns out it's a firmware bug on the part of a router or chipset vendor.

I do understand your comments above, however I have had no reason to even look in this forum for this issue until I upgraded to Lion. My router is the same one that was with this very same iMac when i was running Snow Leopard and using Safari (shipped versions until I moved to Lion) so until I had moved to Lion and 5.1 I didn't have or never saw this issue appear enough for me to log it.

However since upgrading the issue has been enough to cause my Safari to lose connectivity with my router or report no interernet connection or even flip to a local URL path and folder when I hit the reload/refresh browser icon. The problem here seems to be more Safari 5.1 related since I dont seem to get the problem anywhere near as much with Firefox, Opera, Google Chrome or even Camino.

Chris

putnik wrote:

Internet radio is more fun🙂 But I seem to remember it finally got solved with a router firmware update after many months. Was it that Safari uses a DNS cache system and the ISP's were seeing it as an attack?

That could be one reason if that is a proven/known cause, was this fixed or updated in all versions of Safari with Snow Leopard (prior to upgrading to Lion?)