Q: Lion WiFi Connection Problem

torndownunit:  Like many others on this thread, I thought the issue was resolved, but some time later it came back. It was probably just the reboot or something that made it work for a little while.

So far I have been running Lion 10.7.0 without any drops at all.

AS I said on my previous post

I am using a netgear router and the problem was solved by logging on to the router and setting it to warless b/g mode and not wireless n

This fix has stood the test of time since setting the router I have not had one single drop … and the reconnects from sleep without fault

I have an 11” (oh missus) MBA using a Broadcom chipset

Hugh, my school uses b and g, but I was experiencing major disconnects. GoogleWiFi in Mountain View also uses a different protocol, and was getting a connection timeout when all other computers (windows 7, and mac os 10.7.0 were working fine).  It might be something to do with the signal to noise ratio, and how the driver handles error correction or something.  But the best solution for me so far with solid results was the revert to 10.7.0.

I might do a time machine backup and see if I can go to 10.7.1, but that will have to wait until after finals.  If you are on the developer program, can you try doing a time machine backup, install 10.7.3, repro the issue with n-mode on your router, and submit a bug to apple?  I am going to do the same.

I honestly do not think that this is an SNR,interference, or any other cross-related issue.

I have a background in RF engineering and believe that this is directly related to the airport card or the SW that drives it or a combination of the two.

Reading the posts I think there are two separate issues arising from the different chip sets but resulting in the same problem

The PC laptop connects to the same router using n without an issue

It’s only the mac that keeps dropping oddly enough the Wi-Fi card in the pc is a Broadcom

Its not just a matter of getting this working at home the purpose of baying a MBA 11’ was to use it on the move

I honestly do not want to call the care line this is not user error and I do not want a “fix” I want a laptop that works out of the box

What the **** is Apple playing at?

Cyclic, thanks I was curious about that.   I have been holding off swapping drivers because I didn't read any updates from people who had done it.  A lot of other fixes seemed to only work temporarily so I was curious about that one.

My latest updated, I tried this fix here: http://osxdaily.com/2011/11/06/lion-wi-fi-problems-solution-mac/ and have been running all day without a drop.  But, there are several other fixes that seemed to have the same effect, so I'll see what happens.

I have another idea.  So far everything is great with Lion 10.7.0 (I have the broadcom chipset).  If you want to test the current 10.7.0 kext with 10.7.2, run through the instructions for the Atheros driver earlier in this post, and instead of the zip file provided with the Atheros Snow Driver, try this one I grabbed from my clean installation, which has been working for the past 2 days without any drops:

Broadcom 10.7.0 Kext

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/52101672/IO80211Family.zip

Atheros Snow Kext with Utility For Driver Install
v3.2 Atheros Wi-Fi driver from Snow Leopard, to use on Lion

Unzip the kext file in the broadcom link above to the other folder created when you extracted the atheros snow kext (along with the utility extracted), and drag the Broadcom kext onto the utility.

Thanks, I am going to see how things go after the tip I tried in my last post.  If I run into issues again, I will give it a shot.

Yeah, I tried that tip in the link you posted about a week ago, and it worked for a little while then started failing again.

Cyclic I am on day 2 of that fix working now.   I am hoping I at least found a solution for the problem in my case.  Fingers crossed.

I'm sure all of you are as frustrated as I was with these issues.  Here's my experience, including an improvement on the keepalive scipt, which fixed the connection issues for me.

The issue:

• 2011 13" MacBook Air running Lion drops WiFi connection at home every few minutes
  • Will not automatically reconnect, must manually click on the network name to get it to reconnect.
  • For what it's worth: It has a stable connection at the local university (read: *lots* of access points).
  • The problem is not the home network: my 2007 MacBook running Snow Leopard continues to connect rock-solid to the home router, as it always has.

Solutions which did not work:

• The Apple Store, first and foremost.
  • Three visits and a new AirPort card, no fix.
  • They finally said this is a Known Issue with Lion.
• Changing router channels
• Creating a new network location
  

The solution which works for me:

• I'm running a slightly more elegant keepalive script, based on these instructions: (http://osxdaily.com/2011/08/08/mac-wi-fi-dropping-use-a-simple-keepalive-bash-sc ript-to-maintain-wireless-connection/)
  • Zero disconnect issues while the script is running.
  • My below changes allow the script to be completely unobtrusive.  It runs when you open the file, loads when you log in, starts minimized, and doesn't issue a prompt when you log out.
    
• Changes to the OS X Daily instructions in red:
  • Step 1:
    • You’ll need to know your wireless access points IP address before proceeding, it’s usually something like 192.168.0.1 or 192.168.1.1.
    • You can get this information from System Preferences > Network > Advanced > TCP/IP and looking for the IP next to “Router"
    • Make note of that IP and proceed with the following:
    • This IP will only work with your home network.  If you also have issues connecting to wireless access points while away from home, skip to the end and read my hint.
  • Step 2:
    • Launch the Terminal (located in /Applications/Utilities/)
    • Type the following command:

nano keepalive.command

• Paste in the following, be sure to replace the IP with your own routers:

osascript -e 'tell application "Finder" to set visible of process "Terminal" to false'
#!/bin/bashping -i 5 -n 192.168.1.1

• Hit Control+O, then hit enter to Save the contents of keepalive.sh
• Hit Control+X to exit from nano
• Step 3:
  
  • Back at the command line, we have to make the script executable, we do this with:

chmod +x keepalive.command

• Step 4: Allow log out without annoying prompts to close the terminal.
  • Click Terminal > Preferences > Shell
  • Prompt before closing: Select "Only if there are processes other than:"
  • Click the + sign, type ping and hit enter
• Step 5: Set the script to start automatically.
  • Click System Preferences > Accounts > Login Items
  • Find keepalive.command.  It should be located in your home directory.
  • Drag keepalive.command to your login items.
• Step 6: Test the script.
  • Open keepalive.command.  It should load a terminal window minimized to the dock.  The window should look like the top image at the OS X Daily link, with ping running every 5 seconds.
  • Log out and log back in.  The script should launch automatically, minimized to the dock.  You should now be able to log out without any prompts to close the terminal.
  • Hopefully, your WiFi connection is now stable because of the tiny amounts of data being constantly sent over the connection.  Ping, running 24/7, will use around 1 MB per month, so don't worry about excessive data usage.
• Hint: It's better to ping your own router while you're at home, but if you also have issues staying connected while away from home, create a second script with a different name and use Google's DNS IP, 8.8.8.8  This script will work from anywhere.

Thanks to Ahmet Toker and OS X Daily for this workaround!

(Sorry about the screwy formatting of this post, the forum is not displaying it properly.)

Despite beeing a patch rather a solution, I can confirm that pinging my router is the only solution that worked for me since the beginning.

However I can tell you that in my case a 5 seconds delay between pings was too long, the wi-fi drop suddenly appear in between. I had to left the default delay.

Thanks for the very technical and no doubt elegant keepalive script. Running a script to solve this problem for me is not what I would expect out of apple. I am posted to say I am having WIFI dropout issues since installing Lion on my 3 machines after going to the expense for the sake of an office of iCal sharing and iphone's / iPad being all on the same page. I now am having what seems to be an unresolvable issue with what once was a seemless set up. I am posting with no good advice but would like to flag this as a big issue for me.

Running a sciprt also saved a user I know. I wrote him a little invisible Applescript that pings apple.com every five seconds and seems to keep Lion's wireless alive. You can add it to your Login items if you like and log in and out, or just launch it manually and see if it helps. Note that to quit it, you need to force quit it using Activity Monitor. Open Activity Monitor, search for ping and pingApple, and kill them.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/17588807/pingApple.app.zip

This might be simpler for less terminal-savvy users.

As I keep asking/saying as people seem to post here with frustation, make sure you have called Apple Care, and reported the problem and indicated how many computers are affected.  If they don't have information on the breadth of the problem, they can't possibly develop a real solution.

Part of the problem, seems to me, to be related to dealing with WiFi RF issues correctly.  I think that there is a configuration problem with the number of failures, the length of time before failure is signalled being to short, or other similar control points.  If pinging the router really does keep it from dropping out, that would seem to mean that there could be a DHCP related timing issue as well.  Someone might try looking at the router for how long it will "lease" the addresses for, and see if that time has any relationship to how soon the network connection fails.

Writing a script that does something like

i=5

while [ "$i" -lt 10000 ]; do

     ping -c 1 192.168.1.1

     sleep $i

     echo slept $i seconds, trying wget

     wget http://www.apple.com || echo ==== OOPS at $i seconds  =====

    ((i=i+1))

done

and running that overnight or otherwise for an extended time to see if everyone gets similar numbers for when/if it eventually shows an OOPS message.

So, a more complete and working shell script would be

i=5

while [ "$i" -lt 10000 ]

do

     ping -c 1 192.168.1.1  # or whatever your router address is

     curl www.apple.com >/dev/null || (

          echo ===== OOOPS failed at $i seconds

          exit 1)

     if [ "$?" -eq 1 ]; then

          exit 1

     fi

     ((i=i+5))

done

Run this in a terminal window and see if it ever stops with an "OOOPS" message.

If it does, run it one more time and see if it stops at the same time.  If it's close, plus or minus 5-10 seconds, then post back here with you numbers.  If its not close, try running it overnight or sometime when you computer is mostly idle to see if we can find that it's an "idle" time issue.   DHCP may not be correctly asking for a lease renewal, but the known address is getting "removed" from use, and this is what is keeping things from working reliably. 

Check the length of time that you router "leases" address for via its DHCP configuration too.