Q: Lion WiFi Connection Problem

"First to say is that this is not a user forum. This is a tech support forum."

If you look right on the front page there is NOTHING about this being tech support at all. Because it is NOT. The very description of this area is that it is for talking to other USERS not tech support.

That said, please take a pill and stop being such a jerk in your replies.

This forum is meant to be for users to post their knowledge of things they did to fix something, or to offer advice to someone who maybe new to Mac OS/X and needs knowledge from someone who has more experience or knows what they are talking about - with an allowance to discuss and chat and learn if something unknown, new or maybe a correction to a problem is discovered. The only way it could be seen as a Technical forum, is if someone from Apple or who knows Mac OS/X inside out 100% as an engineer or a software developer who knows the Mac Wifi code.

A lot of us here may have a more advance knowledge of PCs, Mac's, Computers, networks, wi-fi issues, software bugs etc, but that doesnt make us total experts across the whole field and there is always something new to learn even with the depth of knowledge we may have.

Lupunus however is coming across as someone who knows it all, and whilst that may not be his/her intention, it is certainly alientating people or readers of this thread. You may not be intending to portray yourself in this way, but this is how I and I am sure others are reading your replies and suggestions.

A lot of users of this forum have Apple Macs from various years of purchase and different hardware builds that were built and shipped to customers globally, some may have different makes of hard-drives, different network cards/chipsets, different memory configurations etc, but generally speaking I would think most Mac users are using their computers as bought and shipped, and whilst updates have been applied from Apple via Software Update, we depend on Apple to supply the correct software patches and fixes when a new OS/X is released.

Some use Atheros chipsets (my iMac) some use Broadcoms on their wifi configuration, Apple themselves are totally aware of their hardware builds and specifications from factory, so when a new OS/X is released it is up to them to pool resources in their factories and via beta testers to make sure that any new version will perform and run the same as under a previous OS/X release, We all expect updates/hotfixes to be released after any new major release, however to state its NOT Lion that is the issue is a statement that holds no water or any substance, if its the wi-fi driver thats the problem and it worked under Snow Leopard but keeps dropping in Lion, then its clear the wi-fi driver for that card has not been tested in Lion prior to release or has issues and a new driver is needed. This means its part of the Lion upgrade process and clearly a new driver should have been released as part of the Lion upgrade, so therefore its Lion - since this problem didnt exist under Snow Leopard.

Everyone has different issues, some fixes work, some dont for others, but you cant keep preaching to all users saying it works, as they have obviously tried all the fixes posted here and many others and had no luck.

When it comes to routers and hardware, I agree there are a lot of different makes and models out there, but if all users PCs are unaffected, and the Apple machine worked on the previous OS/X version, it should work on the new OS/X version, you should not have to go tinkering and changing your router settings to work round the problem. If it worked before then it should work now, therefore the software is not behaving as expected.

Sorry for the long reply, but I am getting fed up of the 'Lupunus' knowing it all or I know attitude.

My situation: Mac PowerBook 2.53GHz Intel Core2 Duo - Vintage 2008

Current version 7.1 Lion

1. Teach in a school that just added WPA/WPA2 wireless; previously unsecured wireless.

2. Last year worked - Snow Leopard and unsecured network

3. Am only Mac in building (My own computer) - all other laptops Windows based; plus 3 years old.

4. Was offerred opportunity to join network with key.

5. Problem: I can get on the network....then after a few minutes, very few...dropped; strong wifi signal; good Signal to Noise ratio per Network Diagnostics in Library Core Services; without warning - dropped.

6. I click icon and am right back on; but drop after 1-3 minutes - tough entering grades by resetting icon so much.

7. IPad2 stays online

8. Regardless where I am in building - near access points; still dropped without warning (A good signal - not degrading first).

9. Have set up separate location, have set up different DNS, have reset SMC, have deleted all wireless networks and put one in just for school, etc. etc.

10. And two hours with AppleCare - without a solution but to talk to my IT network specialist for a solution (Problem - he is responsible for school computers troubleshooting; not someone's personal computer(problem).

11. Older laptops (Non MacOS) on system do fine.

12. Please Apple engineers - patch us a solution - soon.  This is a win for the "Dark side"....until you find a solution, for those of us out here....trying to carry your flag.

Signed, Owner of an IMac, PowerBook, 2 IPads, and Shareholder of AAPL

Message was edited by: jft512

Hello to you all followers of this thread. I would like to give my contribute, hoping to clarify a little bit the situation. As firmware/software developer it happened to me to work in a team dealing with wi-fi on a router. The engineer that worked on the wi-fi explained me a lot of things regarding the Wi-fi problems. So I can tell that:

(1) Every time the Wifi driver is updated is because the device driver is updated. The device driver could (and normally that's true) be a firmware to be uploaded into the Wifi chipset every time you power on the Mac. Jumping from Snow Leopard to Lion we have a new driver for Wifi for sure.

(2) The Wi-Fi world is a huge mess. There are the standards to follow, but every chpiset producer and every brand implements those standards with errors or misunderstandings. To make a single chipset work with ALL the others can be a real nightmare; for sure I can tell that sometimes you have to be compliant with most of the chipsets/routers but also sacrifice something older.

(3) The Wi-Fi devices on air can be also be obsolete and buggy, can give you disturbances on other channels. And sometimes Wi-Fi frequencies are used - for instance - by some burglar alarms. I've seen all there things.

(4) The customer that receives at home/office a new Mac/Pc/router or whatever device has a probability, for the previous reasons, to be upset different from zero. This is normal, happened to me, too.

I've read many suggestions on this thread that can help, try with all of them. But very often the only solution is to find the "old" or "incompatible" device and replace it. Or find the external reason to the problem.

The customer can correctly raise an exception here and say "With SL no problem and now what?" The customer is always right and I'm with you. But keep in mind what I said. We're not in the world of Ehternet cables, we're now in the air, with too many causes to make it wrong.

Said that, I can't exclude a bug in the driver, but according to my experience, the new driver is better, normally, and tested with a plethora of devices. Better sometimes means that it can work worse with other, more buggy, chipsets.

Thanks for your patience reading this umpteenth opinion.

My mac is still connecting so replacing my old router did the trick. I know it sounds too simple but for me it worked . Now if could only have my mac recognize my printer it would be perfect. It did for a week and then just stopped. There is always something..........

Alright, as many have already expressed, I am having wifi issues. I have had my MB Air for almost two months now, with Lion OS on it the entire time. I had never had a problem with connecting to wifi until now. I am studying abroad in Madrid, and the wifi in my host-house is giving me grief. I have been looking all over trying to come up with a solution, trying more things than I can even remember. I am not very tech savvy, so I right now I think that I messed something up in my attempts to fix the problem. When I go into System Prefs/network I get the message: "Wi-Fi has the self-assigned IP address..and will not be able to connect to the Internet." I have tried assigning my own IP address, and this makes the WiFi circle green--making me think that it can at least recognize the wifi yet it still will not connect. There is no router number, so I don't think the computer can find the router. If anyone has any advice/idea of what is going on here..please let me know. I can get wifi on my iPod touch, and on the MB Pro I'm on right now, as well as a PC, but just not on my Air which doesn't seem to make any sense to me.

Thank you!!

ptmcd13 wrote:

 

When I go into System Prefs/network I get the message: "Wi-Fi has the self-assigned IP address..and will not be able to connect to the Internet." I have tried assigning my own IP address, and this makes the WiFi circle green--making me think that it can at least recognize the wifi yet it still will not connect.

The automatic self assigned IP-Adress tells you, that the wireless of the Mac is working, have found a wireless network but has not received a IP-Address from that network.

First try to bring yo back to Guest-House wireless.

On System Settings --> Airport

Switch OFF Airport

On System Settings --> Airport --> Advanced

Go to section TCP/IP and set "Configure IPv4" to "Using DHCP"

Then go back to section "Airport"

On there delete all network entry's corresponding to the Guest-House wireless from the list.

Click on Apply

Close System Settings

Reboot the Mac

Rejoin the Guest-House wireless when it shows up on the Airport symbol. Eventually you have to set a passwort.

Cheers - Lupunus

My 2 cents:

I've solve the connection problem by downgrading wifi kernel extensions. Now my late-2009 iMac runs SL drivers and everything is definitely OK...after two months of struggling connections...

I hope Apple will release an update soon, anyway.

robygen wrote:

 

My 2 cents:

I've solve the connection problem by downgrading wifi kernel extensions.

That may be an alternative working way. But this is

a) not a task for the inexperienced

b) not for future, as the SL support may end sooner or later and the files eventually are not longer useful or available after future releases of Lion.

It's, in any case, not a reasonable way for the "common" user.

But, anyway, thanks for the hint, it will be useful on some extraordinary situations.

Are you able to post a "how to" with sources for the more experienced users?

Cheers - Lupunus

For the uninitiated "more experienced users."  Copy-pasted from this thread: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2644274?start=465&tstart=0

"Download the IO80211Family.kext file taken from the 10.6.4 update here:

http://hotfile.com/dl/111337068/eee082f/IO80211FamilyKext_10_64.zip.html

Then, you can follow tenortims instructions:

1) As root, cd to /System/Library/Extensions, rename IO80211Family.kext to IO8021Family.1066 (or anything else to back it up), and copy in the replacement IO80211Family.kext that we extracted from 10.6.4.

2) Download, install and run "Kext Utility" (Google it, it's at Insanely Mac). It should ask for your password, run, and fix up the kext permissions and caches.

3) Reboot. You should now be on the new (old) driver/firmware. Verify by running "About this Mac" -> "More Info" -> "Network" -> "Airport". As stated, the newer firmware is 2.1.14.5, the working firmware is 2.0.19.10.

To recap, the IO80211Family.kext file ver. 2.1.14.5 or above *does not* work with some Atheros 5416 cards. This means that if you have this card and are experiencing difficulties with the 10.6.5, 10.6.6, 10.6.7 10.6.8 update, you will need to replace the newer IO80211Family.kext file with the older ver.2.0.19.10 one.

The downgrade of the IO80211Family.kext file to the 2.0.19.10 version (taken from the 10.6.4 update) worked for me under Snow Leopard 10.6.4, 10.6.5, 10.6.7 and 10.6.8 on my 2007 Macbook 13.3 core 2 duo with a Atheros 5416 card. I have yet to upgrade to Lion 10.7 and see if it works for that too. "

Thanks for that.

But, to make it clear to all without a Broadcom Chipset:

JesterDTHO wrote:

 

To recap, the IO80211Family.kext file ver. 2.1.14.5 or above *does not* work with some Atheros 5416 cards. This means that if you have this card and are experiencing difficulties with the 10.6.5, 10.6.6, 10.6.7 10.6.8 update, you will need to replace the newer IO80211Family.kext file with the older ver.2.0.19.10 one.

Here is a guide (in italian...but I think you can easily translate it)

http://miaplacidusedaltriracconti.blogspot.com/2011/08/problemi-wifi-con-os-x-li on-la.html

It's similar to the guide posted by Jester. Kext utility makes the backup of lion's 80211 kext by itself.

I know this is not THE solution.

But it's A solution.

Scanning this thread this sounds like the best advice I have seen - esecially for non techies. I have taken your advice and will see whether today the problem is fixed. Sure hope Apple fixes the problem soon, Why are they so quiet on the problem?

I think the only solution from apple would be to add a continuous ping to stabilize a wifi connection, not something that is likely to happen.

I just gave up on having a wifi network till something easier fix-wise comes to light. got enough to do without having to fiddle with a bad wifi network. decades old ethernet cables still work. simple tech is good tech.

I do believe that apple people hear rants and raves from the support forum. just my two cents that big brother actually watches every once and awhile.

How many of you are having the problem where it loses WiFi, It says WiFi off?  It is grayed out where you click to turn it on so you can't.  The only way is to reboot, some times twice.