Wifi won't turn on since upgrade to Lion

Hi essorkm,

Sounds like your problem was the same as mine. Seems like it may have been fixed in the 10.7.3 update which came out in Feb 2012. I haven't been using that MacBook so there have been no changes. As soon as I applied the 10.7.3 update the problem went away and airport continued to operate correctly. To be honest, I only used it for a few hours, but before wiresless would fail after about 5 or 10 minutes.

I'd be interested to know if 10.7.3 fixed it for anyone else?

Well, no idea, because when The Apple Store couldn't fix my wifi issues, they gave me a brand new late 2011 Macbook Pro 2.4ghz i7 🙂 Which rocks, coz I had the early 2011 2.0ghz i7 🙂 And oh yeah, they let me keep my old RAM and Hard Drive too 🙂 WHOOP! Everything's worked beautifully since then 🙂

The upgrade to 10.7.3 didn't fix my MacBookPro. I have reinstalled in twice now just in case something went haywire. It still disconnects after a short period of time and I cannot turn it on again. I've reported the bug and now I guess I wait. Ethernet works fine.

I'm about to purchase a USB wifi modem so I can use the thing off my desk.

I'm having the same issue with a late 2010 MBP17, worked fine with SL, after upgrading to Lion the problem started.

Tried SMC reset, Wifi works for about 2 min then nothing Wifi symbol shows connection on desktop System Preferences/Network shows wifi disabled. Once disabled, unable to enable again, except after reboot.

Tried other fixes in this thread, no result.

Updated to 10.7.3 wich I had to download with cable connection.

At first he wouldn't take the ethernet connecton, had to disable Wifi, reboot, immediatley disable Wifi again (enabled itself) and then the ethernet connection worked.

Update took longer than on other OSX devices I've recently updated from the same period but without the same issue.

Wifi connection seems to be OK now, tried some heavy downloads, before it would freeze after 1 or 2 min, now it keeps going.

Issue solved for me (I hope!)

I did another download of Lion from the App store. So far my MBPro (2008) is working fine with wi-fi. I noticed the file was larger than any previous downloads of Lion. It was also much faster and all done in about four hours.

It's been running now about two hours which is the longest connection in two months. Not brave enough to shut down and restart but I have put it to sleep and it came back just fine.

Fingers crossed.

So about 6 days later I finally get my MBP back from Apple with a new wifi card. Today, the problem starts again. I have to restart my computer every hour or so to get the wifi working (pressing the "turn wifi on" button results in no action by the computer). Even the ethernet cable doesn't give me a connection when it gives other computers a connection. The IT guy at my work thinks it must be a motherboard problem. But I have had my motherboard replaced before by apple when I had battery life problems. SO TIRED OF THIS. I bet when I take it back they will want to replace the motherboard, again. Another week at work without a computer to use. Another week of unproductivity.

happy for you spiritdave 🙂. let's hope they do the same for me. This can be my 7th visit to apple.

So cancel everything I said about mine working. This morning it's back to its old tricks. I can't turn it on one time, no hardware installed next time, continually rebooting and it comes back but only for a few minutes. All other computers on this wifi work just fine.

rachelnsw, I'm sure it's not your motherboard unless there is a built in redundancy for all of them at the same time Lion was presented to us.

I'm about to add to my myriad feedback complaints at Apple.

Hmm, I don't know. They've replaced the motherboard now (second time in the life of my computer, first change was for a battery problem). It seems to be working. To their credit- they said it could take 3 days and it took 3 hours. Fingers crossed. Do they actually do anything about these complaints?

I'm putting in an almost daily bug report on this. Eventually they might act but I'm wondering if we have to wait for Mountain Lion to fully remedy this bug.

It seems to me that it's the configuration below that is consistent with our faulty wi-fi.

Card Type: AirPort Extreme (0x14E4, 0x8C)

Firmware Version: Broadcom BCM43xx 1.0 (5.10.131.36.11)

This did the tric for me, nothing else worked! Thanks!

Alternative solution:

For those are a bit frightened to delete complete system configuration files. In many cases this "short version" will do the trick too.

• Switch OFF wifi on the affected machine.
• Delete all affected networks from the "known networks" list in System Settings
• Delete all keys pointing to these networks from Keychain Access
• Reboot
• Join network again.

hi to all

I have a late 2008 MacBook pro 5,1 with the same wifi issues.

my problems started with updating to 10.5.8, but luckily I found this fix

http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-10330451-263.html

this fix uses the original airport kext files, the drivers for the airport card. mine is a Broadcom 4311, and the kext file is found in the I080211family.kext.

the same exact problem then reoccurs when I install snow leopard and lion.

I have lion 10.7.3 on my mbp and I have noticed that the Broadcom 4311 kext is no longer in the IO80211family.kext.

could this be why I and so many others get intermittent wifi faults? how do you install older kexts and where can you get real apple ones?

I know this is no solution but it's what I have found digging around the problem

Same here, happened WiFi stopped working after Lion upgrade. Would com e back afte reboot/power up/down or two, but today it is refusing to come back no matter how many times I reboot. Late 2008 MBP 15" (unibody, 1st gen - still has a removable battery).

Info:

Card Type: AirPort Extreme (0x14E4, 0x8D)

Firmware Version: Broadcom BCM43xx 1.0 (5.100.98.75.19)

Same problem, with the same hardware, too. It seems to be a software problem!

Lovely. Just lovely. After logic board number 3 my computer's graphics are now playing up. I returned to my computer this morning to see lines all over the screen and a notice saying I had to turn off my computer and restart it using the power button. The mouse wouldnt work. The screen remained dimly lit after moving the mouse and pressing the space bar. After re-starting the problem persisted- lines all over the compuer, frozen screen, message saying to restart. It took 3 minutes to boot up. Keeps on happening. Doing a PhD and writing compulsory annual reports to people who give me money is not going to be easy on a computer that is riddled with problems. Why does Apple refuse to replace my computer? Surely they are spending more money on staff time and logicboard/wifi card/battery replacements? To think that my family alone has 4 apple computers, 3 iPads, 3 iPods, 2 apple TVs and 5 iPhones...It is a joke that I really regret- no more Apple recommendations.... *first world problems* Apologies for posting this complaint in a wifi section (a problem I initially had)- I just want big brother to see the series of problems i've had with this computer.