Q: Lion WiFi Connection Problem

A full clean install doesn't help. I have tried. When I don't install 10.7.1 my wifi is working great. After installing the update the wifi problem starts. I have another Macbook pro with the same install file which is working fine. It has to do with some of the wifi sets in some of the macs.

The same for me. I solved intriducing manually 192.168.1.1 into the Server DNS field under DNS tab. Hope is usefull

My posting to this thread will sound so off-the-wall that I hesitate even to post it. But here goes:

A very unstable wi-fi connection is the identical problem that has plagued me since upgrading to Lion. It would drop-out and I was constantly having to go through that darned disconnect/reconnect cycle. I experimented with every modification of settings that I knew of - channels, ports, DNS, WPA etc - everything I could think of and all without success.

However (for me and I can offer no assurance that it will work for you) I appear to have solved my problem simply by connecting a very short ethernet cable into the ethernet port on the back of the iMac. No, the cable doesn't connect to anything else. It's just plugged into the port and the other end lies forlournly at the back of the desk.  My current desktop is a 27" iMac 2.93GHz Intel i7 with 8GB RAM

Like I said, don't ask me to explain it.  I skeptically trialled this crazy solution for a few days - and over those few days the wi-fi connection was 100% stable. But I still didn't believe it. So I unplugged it. Within 12 hours the wi-fi connection was back to its old unstable self. So it got plugged back in again and lo and behold, it's once again 100% stable.

I've been around Macs since 1986 - but this, sure as the sun rises, makes no sense to me. But it's working. So for the moment, if it ain't broke, I'm not going to fix it! 

I was having intermittent problems with Wifi not working well on Lion and I tried everything I have seen suggested before stumbling across a solution.  It was the security protocol that was causing my problem.  Whether it was WEP, WPA or WPA2 it caused the same issues: slow connections, streaming video would stop after a couple minutes, my 32 mbps bandwidth was getting me nothing.  So the solution?  I added a secondary router setup as an access point with no security protocol enabled.  To secure it I turned off the broadcast ID and enabled MAC address control just for my machines.  This is also a solution to the crappy FIOS router issue as I can have a dual band N router serving up my massive FIOS bandwidth!

mgreernz,

No luck with your sulution here. Still, pretty interesting. I can see why you hesitated to post it.

MacZwik, I just reinstalled and will see how it works without updating to 7.1.

It looks like Apple is seeding 10.7.2 from the app store so we are pretty SOL for rollback.  Any ideas for getting the dmg for 7.0?  It is hard to believe that apple has yet to acknowledge this issue, and the latest 10.7.3 dev build doesn't fix this.  What now Apple?  Is this the beginning of the quality we can expect from Apple now that Steve is gone?  Step it up Apple... don't start slacking now.

These kinds of comments need to be aimed at Apple support, not here in the discussions.  If you aren't talking with Apple support about your problems, you are doing nothing which will ultimately benefit you or anyone else with these problems.

Apple can only use the information that they have at hand to manage this issue.  They need everyone who has this problem to be talking to Apple support.  Regardless of the outcome of your initial call, you will have added a tick to the count of people having the problem and this will provide a lot of feedback about the nature of the issue in terms of scope.

People should continue to post information on workarounds that have worked for them here, as others will be able to try those and get some good from it.

Cyclic wrote:

 

What now Apple?  Is this the beginning of the quality we can expect from Apple now that Steve is gone?

It has been said many times before: These problems already existed years before Steve Jobs died, years before Steve Jobs resigned as CEO and years before Lion was released. They even existed before Snow Leopard was released.

I've bought my first Mac in 2009, when Snow Leopard was only a few weeks old. I've always had the problem of AirPort dropping its connection. Even before I bought my first Mac, people were having this same issue on their Macs running Leopard. I don't know about Tiger, but Leopard, Snow Leopard and Lion all have this same issue.

You never experienced this issue when running Snow Leopard, but that doesn't mean it all started with Lion. I know it, because I've been struggling with this issue from the moment I've bought my first Mac and started using Snow Leopard. Just search on these forums and these forums and you'll see this problems already existed years ago and it has never been solved.

I've managed to "solve" my problem a few times (by deleting .plist files and resetting my router and access point), but the problem always comes back after a while. A few days ago I did the following:

- Reset PRAM and NVRAM;

- Reset SMC;

- Boot from official Lion USB key (available at Apples webstore);

- Delete current partition on hard disk;

- Create new partition on hard disk;

- Install Lion.

My connection is as stable as can be at the moment. I haven't experienced a single drop, but I'm sure it's only temporary. As has been mentioned several times in this thread, when you think you've finally solved the problem, it just comes back after a few days or weeks. I've had this same experience several times now. I changed to another channel on my access point and thought I solved it, but after a few days, it all started again. I deleted .plist files from my Mac and reset my router and access point and after a few weeks everything was still completely stable. Well, a few weeks later it started again. Later on I made my network visible to others (I always used a hidden network) and stopped using Mac filtering and everything was fine again, but after a few days the dropping started again. Note, I was still running Snow Leopard at that time. Like I said, it's not a problem with Lion, but a problem with Mac OS X in general.

Do I expect Apple to fix this issue in Mac OS X 10.7.3 or 10.7.4? No. I don't know about Tiger, but I know the problem already existed in Leopard, but it has never been solved. I've always experienced this problem since the day I started using Snow Leopard, but it has never been fixed. The problem is still present in Lion and I don't expect it to be fixed and expect this problem to be still present in Mac OS X 10.8 (whatever that version will be called).

check this, if it helps... It seems it has helped a lot of people...

http://osxdaily.com/2011/11/06/lion-wi-fi-problems-solution-mac/

I did open a ticket with apple, and they mentioned what you are saying: they do not read public forums.  Sometimes people use public discussions like this to vent their frustrations, which often raises similar frustratuions with people that potentially have more power to voice their same issue in the media or news.  When you have no other option but to share your experience with other Apple users on an apple forum, then you have probably exhausted all other options.  Tune out if you don't like the discussion.  If you search google for Apple Wifi Issues, I am sure you will find this thread at the top.  I have tried every possible solution with the same result.  I did not have this problem in 7.0.  I am heading to the apple store right now to have them put 7.0 back on my Mac.  Finals are here and I don't have time to debug poor quality of a corporate dev.

Cyclic,

I am with you 100% on this one. When you have spent weeks working with Apple Support, and you still don't have a fix, these forums provide an outlet for venting frustration. Misery loves company, and the many (who knows how many) who are suffering woth this problem are without a doubt in misery.

If there were a better mechanism to shame Apple with, I would gladly adopt it.

Interestingly, when Apple's new Thunderbolt display had problems, everyone bitched both to Apple Suppprt and in these forums, and they released a fix. Worked like a charm. So we know they can acknowledge that somethig they make is broken. We know they can fix it. Now they just have to apply that logic to this problem.

C'mon Apple! We know you're listening.

Thank you, and a bit of useful information that I received when I went to the Apple store to tell them that I was having this issue; genius said that he saw 30 or so Macs that day and none of them had any WiFi issues; assuring him that there were many blog articles and forum discussions regarding the WiFi problems; explaining that other mac users at starbucks, with older versions of os x, were not having trouble next to me, and windows users were also not having trouble; exclaiming to the genius that WiFi was failing in many different locations -- school, home, and starbucks, he still insisted that it could possibly be my hardware, so after testing the hardware and finding it to be fine, he thought that it must be the OSX image; of my wits end, I asked him to put a copy of 10.7.0 on a USB key, since the OSX version on the app store is only 10.7.2, and out the door I went with a USB key ready for install, which I installed immediately at the starbucks, and found that my WiFi was working, thus far, for the past 5 hours at starbucks and home, the wireless is working; noticing some minor slowdowns, but nothing like the complete stalls I had with 10.7.2, yet; posting back here if something comes up.

robbertvdd, I appreciate your post but for a lot of this it's specifically a Lion issue.  I just bought a new imac with Lion and am having constant dropped WiFi issues.  My older Macbook running Snow Leopard is sitting right beside me, and has no issues with dropped signals whatsoever.  It never has.  There are a lot of other people seeing the same thing.    So there must be something specific going on with Lion that is causing SOME of us our issues.

Cyclic,  I notice on the last page of the thread you mentioned you had some success switching to the Snow Leopard driver.   But there are 2 posts since then saying you had to make Apple Store support trips.  Does this mean that solution did not work?    I have tried pretty much every other tip except swapping the drivers.