Q: Lion WiFi Connection Problem

This bug bit me after DP3 and I reported it to Apple. It is still present in 10.7 and I have tried all the suggestions here and a few others. It is occurring on a MacBook 4,1; installing 10.7.2 actually made it worse. I have tried clean installs, PM resets, prefs. keychains, antivirus off—you name it. Nothing reliably fixes it.

Today I was working at a major telecom maker where they build wireless measuring instruments and have a first class fast wireless network using the latest Buffalo AirStation Base Stations in every room. It bit me soon after I logged in with the WEP password; the connection was OK at first and then disappeared after 30 minutes or so. When it disappeared the MB had lost its DHCP-provided IP, netmask, router and DNS settings.  After that, ALTHOUGH the wifi icon was showing the strongest signal ( I was 2 meters from the BS) I could not connect and the MB had an internall provided IP address. It ws as though the MB and BS had stopped handshaking but the MB "thought" it was still connected.

Embarassing to say the least and not a good ad for Apple in this company's tech section.

Next I visited a legal office where they use Aple Base Stations and it connected perfectly first time and stayed connected for 1.5 hours.

So is the reason some of us are seeing this and others not due to an eclectic mix of Apple model, airport chip and base station wireless controller?

I am not sure, but with 6000+ views, I guess that more than 100 people posting here have this problem and Apple needs to get the 10.7.1 patch released.

When it happens next, I'll try running Wireshark to see what it shows.

I appear to have a similar problem on my MBP since I upgraded to Lion. AIrport sees the network and connects but drops the connection at seemingly random intervalls. Each time this happens I have to go back to the Menu bar (AirPort indicator is completely grey) and re-select the network, which is still there at full signal strength. No anti-virus constantly running and no problems at all with wireless before Lion.

Samoth

Yeah everyone has a trick to try. Most do not work. Not for everyone.

But one thing i did notice... after I installed Lion, it was a while (hours) before I did a restart of my system.

Up to the restart point, Wi-Fi never failed of dropped. After a manual system restart, the WiFi issue began shortly.

So if you installred Lion and have not yet done a manual system restart, you may not see this wifi dropping issue yet. Once you restart your system, you probablly will see or have this issue.

I wondered if people having this dropping wifi issue had ever restarted their system manually since installing Lion? And was that when you started seeing this bug, after a manual system restart?

Sorry I do not have a solution or "fix", other than maybe using a wired internet connection if that is possible in the meantime, and not wifi until apple sends out a fix for this bug.

And this is a Lion bug that only apple can properly address.

Same thing happened with my iMac.  I am so sick of resetting the router that I unplug it and connect directly to the cable-modem.  But that would mean right now only my iMac is internet accessible. X-x 

The router works as long as I do not switch on my iMac...but once I switch it on...it will strike off the wifi connection in 30 mins time.

wifi is indeed doing strange stuff on lion. and it looks like it didn't change after dev preview 4.

i have a mac mini 3.1 with lion, and i share my pppoe internet connection, over airport, with my iphone and with laptop on windows. everything worked just fine on Snow Leopard. Now, i can't access some sites on the iphone or the laptop (yahoo mail, for example). i can do that allright on the mini over the wire, however. i tried switching the wi-fi channels and finally got yahoo mail to work, but some sites i still can't access.

i hope i was clear enough - has anyone had a similar problem, and if so, has anyone solved it ?

thanks

Having same issue as many with WIFI on late 2009 MBP. Did the lion install and hadn't restarted it until a couple days later. WIFI was working fine and once I restarted I can't turn the WIFI back on. "Wifi: No Hardware Installed" is all I get. Extremely frustrating as everything was working perfectly a few days ago.

Called up Tech Support and they tried all their tricks but couldn't get it fixed. When I suggested it might be the Lion upgrade she talked to her "senior manager" and assured me that the manager said there is NO WAY it could be the lion upgrade that's causing this issue....I beg to differ. Now going to the Apple store today and hoping it isn't a total waste of time.

Fix it soon!!

I made the same experience! The problems started when I did the first reboot of the system...

This is my temporary fix:

Reboot my Airport wireless router.  For some reason that seems to fix the issue on my Macbook Pro and my connection stays stable for a few days.

Well - I just started in 'Safe Mode' - and guess what: In 'Safe Mode' my iMac tells me that there is no wi-fi-hardware!!! This is a Lion-Bug which needs to be fixed asap! I`m not going to discuss or try out on things like "third-party-components" and "clean installation vs. upgrade" any more - I´ve just spent enough time on this!!! One of the most important reasons for me to change from Windows- to Mac-World was that I didn`t want to experience things like this any more...

I`ll have been a Mac-User for the longest time when an update is not appearing very very soon!

Had the same issue, this is what i did, i connected an ethernet cable, did a software update, cleared the cache, unpluged the router, pluged it back, and then i rebooted my macbookm, it works fine.

Had the same WiFi issues on thew 2011 iMac.

We have the same problem at home with our two MBP15" machines. The strange thing is the problem only occurs when connecting to our DSL line that has an Airport Express connected to it. We have a second DSL line with a Cisco 877W router and I haven't seen the problem on that network (yet). Also at the office with a Juniper Wifi network I haven't seen the problem (yet).

What I've also seen on the Airport network is a popup saying my IP is in use by another machine. This is impossible as all machines are using DHCP, this problem has never showed up under SL. Also lots of times my Airport network shows as two identical networks in the available network list.

After reading all the post in this thread, I think everyone has the same general problem, just different machines / routers / configurations..   

I myself have a MBP 15" late 2009 model and did an upgrade to Lion w/o clean install. The first time it boot up after upgrading, my wifi didn't work. I had to manually connect to my router (SSID off / WPA on) by typing in name / pw, however it didn't work the first couple times. I decided to restart it and then try again. This time it did work, but after that, everytime I put the computer to sleep / shut off / dc from the network, I have to MANUALLY connect to the network again (typing all the info in again). This is a bit annoying after a week........

Yes I tried everything this thread suggested, and no it didn't help.

Just add me to the list of people experiencing the same problem and nothing fixing it. This driving me insane. When my wifi signal does settle down it's incredibly slow. Prior to the upgrade it was very fast.

Also my mac in general seems to have slowed down a lot. So far, not impressed, and kind of regretting upgrading.

I have the same problem since I installed lion. Yet it is only to the airport express which I use with the stereo and not with the timecapsule.