Q: Lion WiFi Connection Problem

My problem started with a late OS update of Snow Leopard (10.4 or 10.5), but it was infrequent and not serious. Since updating to Lion, it has become both frequent and serious. Until Lion, the dropping incidents mainly stopped the loading of webpages on either one or the other of my networks.

I have two Airport Extreme Base stations, and each network is on a different one. But, it doesn't matter which one I am on, I drop connections.

If I change to the network that had not been in use, everything works. In Snow Leopard, when this happened, the Airport icon remained unchanged (full solid gray arches). It never dimmed.

With Lion, I am dropping the connections frequently, the arches on the Airport icon become a pale gray or even disappear entirely, but sometimes there is a line in the middle. On the other hand, sometimes it drops and the Gray arches remain solid. And, if I switch to the other network, I am again connected.

I have changed channels, moved my base stations to the extent I am able (both are connected by Ethernet), unplugged one base station to see if it is interfering with the other, etc., and although there is an extremely slight improvement with the repositioning of the base stations, it is slight indeed. In reality, nothing seems to help. This requires an Apple fix.

My other Apple devices seem to work fine so I believe it is an OS problem.

Hello all,

I have just got off the phone from Apple, and my ISP about these issues we are having with Lion dropping its WiFi connection all the time.  Apparently its to do with the channel your wireless router is transmitting on.  The guy at Apple said that of the 12, apple products are made to work with 4.  These are Channel 6, and Channel 11.  I forget the other two.  The way to fix it is to go into your router and change the channel from Auto (as mine was on) and set it so that it broadcasts on one of those channels.  Its been an hour now and i havent had my WiFi drop out once.

If you dont know how to change your channel, do what i did.  I phoned my ISP and asked, they talked me though it and now everything is working great!!!!  Fingers crossed anyway!

Good luck

I'm glad this worked for you.  my router is set to channel 11 and Lion won't even begin to talk to it.

I feel sure the problem is deeper, way deeper than a simple fix like this.  Sad to say.

My issue is finally fixed.

Seemed to be a channel issue, I randomly picked new channels and suddenly, both my macs connect right away. I also changed IPV6 to link-local only which didnt seem to help. I left it at that changed the channels updated the settings on the time capsule and that was all that was needed. Very strange thing how it seems certain channels work and others dont...

It seems like we are all treating different problems as the same...which Apple also clearly needs to be aware of.  At any rate, the issue I'm having is that I'm always able to maintain a connection, as per my Wifi status, but it's like network traffic isn't allowed to pass through.  iChat drops, Safari can't load pages, and even access to network drives/resources fail.  It'll sometimes recover in 5 or 10 seconds, sometimes it'll die for a few minutes.  The quick fix to disable and re-enable wifi.  This is all on the 2.4 GHz C2D Mid-2010 Macbook Pro.

I tried setting ipv6 to "Local Link Only" and seemed to clear it up for a day or so, but now it's back to its old games.  If this doesn't get resolved in the next day or two, I presume I'll be forced to go back to Snow Leopard until Apple gets their act together, as this is nearly a showstopper for me.

Thanks for all the suggestions, so far...keep them coming.  It's nice to know that the user-base is being tasked with solving Apple's problems. </sarcasm>

I had no issues with SL and wifi.  I upgraded my iMac and Macbook's to Lion and then within a day noticed the symptoms many are complaining about with ONLY my iMac.  (The Macbook Lion build, my countless iPads, iPhones, and other WiFi enabled devices have all continued to wifi flawlessly.) 

I spoke with Apple, researched on the internet, and tried all of the remedies suggested (except I did NOT try a rebuild/fresh install of Lion), all without resolution.  Some of those remedies suggest "rebuilding" the wifi profile, including "forgetting" my home network.  I did that several times, and sometimes the problem cleared up for hours, and sometimes only minutes.  Then, a bit of lightning struck me...I realized that when I "forgot" my home network and went through the rebuild steps, I was never asked for my wifi password.  That told me that the procedure to "forget" the wifi network wasn't complete, so I started to research that aspect.  I looked in KeyChain, and I found 2 entries for my wifi network.  I deleted both of them.  I don't know why there were 2 or how they got there.  They had somewhat significantly different create dates, but I (*embarrased*) didn't write them down for further analysis, i just deleted them.  The next time I went through the connect to wifi steps I was asked for my wifi password, and I am on DAY 3 of wifi bliss (it works.)  When I inspect keychain there is only 1 entry for my network, not 2 as there was during the times I was experiencing the wifi drops.  Maybe, just maybe, there was a re-authentication process and the 2 entries caused a problem.  I really don't have the technical wherewithal to verify that...

I dare not suggest this is *the answer* because I think there could be many contributing environmental issues after the upgrade  However,  I have not seen the inspection of keychain for wifi password "conflicts" elsewhere so I thought I would offer this up to the community.

Davrich 1984,

I have had Apple products for about four years or a bit more, and until something goes out of Apple Care, I call them or visit a Genius in the store whenever I cannot figure something out myself.

Regarding this issue, I hope your WiFi continues to work with the changed channels. In my case, it did not.

And, I not only talked to a friend who does IT work, but l also talked to people at Apple Care, several times, and we changed channels, etc. The guys were extremely knowledgeable, and they really tried to help. It is clear that they are very good at what they do and very concerned about fixing whatever problem they are presented. Had the WiFi disconnects been something that could be fixed without work by the Engineers, they would have known what to do and their suggestions, including changing channels, would have worked for me and all others who called.

I very much appreciate the fact that, unlike what happened when I called my ISP provider, each person I spoke with at Apple regarding the WiFi worked with me for a great length of time before asking me to test it a while to see if what we did made a difference; and, each told me to call back if I needed more help.

Unfortunately, the fixes did not work, which makes it clear that this is an OS problem the Engineers need to work on, and I suspect they are doing so. Major OS problems cannot usually be fixed at home; they require an update. Let us hope Apple seeds the next update to Lion quickly and that it solves this problem.

I only encountered something this bad twice before. One was a MobileMe problem that the Apple Care people turned over to the Engineers to resolve, and they did so. The only other time Apple Care people could not talk me through an issue had to do with the 10.6.4 update, and that problem, which caused abject misery for anyone doing graphics, involved the relationship of the OS (10.6.4) with NVIDIA which Apple had been using till this year. Apple seeded the update rather quickly and that resolved the problem.

In any case, at this point my WiFi problem is not fixed. I have changed channels several times and it is incrementally better, but only incrementally. I am waiting for Apple to fix whatever is causing this.

Regarding the number of channels: There are only a few channels (1 through 11) for the 2.4 gHz, and a number more for the 5. The problem is not that the other channels that Apple products can use don't work, but that they tend to arch over and therefore overlap and interfere with one another so it is best to use channels that are not too close together. The other two that are good for the 2.4 gHz are channels 1 and 3.

O SX Lion: The world's most advanced desktop operating system RECEDES even further.

What SaraSM described was EXACTLY same with my iMac 2011 27 model.

After I got the HDD replaced (Apple HDD replacement program) the wifi frequently drops.

It's quite noticeable when the machine goes 'Sleep' and it wakes up.

I've tried many ways including what Apple support suggested but didn't get help.

I'd like to know the solution as it's pretty annoying.

WiFi will not turn on MBP (sometimes)  after installing Lion.  Spent well over an hour on the phone with Apple and they state that I have a hardware problem on my MBP.  So I partition my hard drive and reinstalled Snow Leopard and wow WiFi works great.  Restart with Lion and no Wifi.  Restart with Snow Leopard Wifi Works.  Apple still insists it’s a hardware problem. 

Yes.  Apple's response to Lion issues has been irresponsibly slow.  I guess they're too busy rolling around in all that cash they have.  This is by far one of the most vexing issues.  It takes several minutes to find a wi-fi network if it finds one at all.  I have to reboot frequently and when it finally finds them, it never remembers which one is mine.

Cupertino is in denial. They are well on their way to becoming the first Trillion Dollar Company in America. They do not believe there is a wifi issue (i was on the phone with them, again). They say that if any individual customer has a problem they should call tech support and they will tell you how to resolve it.  If the person you speak to does not offer a solution, ask for their supervisor, and if they don't solve your wifi issue, ask for their supervisor, and on and on and on and on. Lion may very well be the Vista of apple os's, but Cupertino claims that their tech support apple care has solutions for all of your wifi issue in Lion. They may be so removed from their customers they actually think their apple care can help you fix issues they say do not and cannot exist.

That said, good luck with all of your problems that DO exist, that apple says does not and could not exist, and if they did, their apple care will help you fix them all.

I don't know one person who had Lion and no wifi connection problems.  I've get everything Apple and now nothing is usable.   Lion is a flop.  No doubt they are aware of it now but the question is how could they not know this before it was released.

Everything I have is apple.  Since switching to Lion everything has connection issues.  This *****.

Dustpile wrote:

 

I don't know one person who had Lion and no wifi connection problems.  I've get everything Apple and now nothing is usable.   Lion is a flop.  No doubt they are aware of it now but the question is how could they not know this before it was released.

If you are unwilling to note my experience and that of the majority who have no Wi-Fi issues, drop by your friendly Apple Store and note that all of their portables are running Lion and are connected via Wi-Fi.

I don't discount you're having issues, as are others, but it is by no means universal.

I have just had a session with support. We established a test account, tweaked the software and waited. When the test account failed I rang back and we tweaked some more.

I am now waiting to see if the connection, on my original account, is stable.

Most but not all, of the tweaks I had tried following suggestions on this thread. I have not given details because it seems sensible to contact Apple if you are having problems. Waiting time was less than 3 minutes for each of my calls and I received a follow up email with a reference number (which they had already given me) saying that apple wanted the problem solved. The service wast most impressive and will be even more impressive if it works.

The techie I talked to denied that there was a big problem. I assume they keep track of the reason for calls so if you have a problem and you haven't called I strongly suggest that you do.

I am puzzled that there has been no mention of a problem in the wider Apple community. I have mailed TUAW to suggest they look at post on the topic. Maybe there is only a relativley small number of us having problems and maybe tech support will sort the problem. I'm hoping.

Incidentally, even if you machine is not entitled to free support Lion will be.