Wifi won't turn on since upgrade to Lion

First of all, my apologies if i make alot of gramar/spell errors, english is not my native language.


Yesterday i've upgraded my Snow Leopard installation to Lion on my late 2008 macbook pro and from the beginning i am unable to start my Wifi/Airport card. The menu bar shows the wifi icon but with no signal bars. When i click the wifi icon and press 'Turn wifi on' nothing happens. System profiler shows the airport card and when i look in Console i can see that the system recognizes the wifi card and acknowledge it's mac address.


What i've tried so far:

- I've created another user account

- I performed a clean install on a second harddrive, same problem

- i rolled back to Snow Leopard and the airport card functions as it should be, this rules out a hardware failure

- I've deleted all files in /library/preferences/SystemConfiguration and rebooted

- I've created a new location with only the Airport card under System preferences - Network

- I've made the airport card inactive and active again


I did found some strange messages in Console but they are not very clear: http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/718/screenshot20110721at102.png/

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7)

Posted on Jul 21, 2011 3:07 PM

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278 replies

Jul 26, 2011 3:13 PM in response to AMMOCAN

Well yes, sometimes it does work to just search for my network again. Like it did now and at the moment I'm on my Wi-Fi connection, but it doesn't work all the time. It's realy strange ... And when I reboot it won't have WI-Fi anymore.


Plus I already checked with my provider and normally there is nothing wrong with the modem or the connection. In the advanced settings off the network preferences I also tried some stuff I found on the internet. But it's always a solution for a short periode.

Jul 26, 2011 3:18 PM in response to AMMOCAN

Well, the thing is that we're unable to turn on wifi in the first place. The triangle icon on the menu bar just stays white as it's in off state. After deleting the /library/preferences/SystemConfiguration folder the wifi icon goes on but it can't find a network but debug info shows that the card is in off state. When i go back to SL everything works fine so it would be really weird if it turns out that this is a LAN or WAN issue.

Jul 26, 2011 3:39 PM in response to kevinrobers

By doing a clean install do you mean you erased your hard drive and then installed just Lion on it?


If so, then that is most likely why you are probably having issues, as Lion isn't intended to be a stand alone OS. Meaning it is intended to upgrade from v10.6.8. Even though you can install Lion on it's own it does leave out a lot of files that would normally be there if you installed it on top of v10.6.8.


I would bet that the majority of issues that people are having are due because they didn't install Lion on top of v10.6.8. I do know that I have installed lion on my MBP 5,3 on top of v10.6.8 and have had no issues, but I did install it on my older MBP by it's self and although I have no Wi-Fi issues I did have some differences when compared to the other install.

Jul 26, 2011 3:52 PM in response to AMMOCAN

Yes on the first two questions. When i reïnstalled SL to upgrade to Lion from a clean install i did not reset my network or network settings because everything worked. You suggest that i reinstall SL, fully update it, reset my netowrk settings and then update to Lion? That's actually something i could try...


Just to be sure: by resetting my network you mean deleting the content of /library/preferences/SystemConfiguration or did you mean resetting my modem, router etc?

Jul 26, 2011 4:02 PM in response to kevinrobers

Yes, reinstall SL > Update completely > reset your Network completely by removing your network from Network Preferences and reset both your modem and router and set up a new network. Once you have established a new functional network, then upgrade to Lion.


When upgrading to Lion try this:


Once you have the Lion OS X Install App on your system right click on the file and select 'Show Package Contents' then click on the 'Contents' folder. Find the 'InstallESD.dmg' file and drag it to your desktop. Once this file is on your desktop make sure you don't have anything opened or running. Double click on the 'InstallESD.dmg' file, which will mount the installer, then double click the Install Lion Icon and follow the directions that follow. This should install Lion and then after the install make sure you run an update again. After this you should not have any issues hopefully.

Jul 26, 2011 6:26 PM in response to AMMOCAN

None of these issues are going to resolve the problem. It is most likely a driver or firmware problem with our broadcom wireless chips.


The fact of the matter is that the majority of us ARE having trouble with Lion and late 2008 Macbook Pros and NONE of us had trouble with 10.6.8 (which by the way, you have to have in order to install Lion which you questioned earlier). When reverting back to 10.6.8 and using the same configurations from our routers/network setups, we are able to turn WiFi on without any problem.


It is clearly an issue with Lion. If you indeed have the same exact hardware, then you are an exception within this thread.

Jul 26, 2011 6:28 PM in response to jacen2141

By the way, a friend uploaded his System Configuration folder to me so that I might replace my folder with his. He is currently running a 2010 Macbook Pro and Lion and having no trouble at all. When I replaced my System Configuration folder with his and rebooted, my WiFi comes back immediately and asks me to select a network and I can connect fine. For now, this seems to be working with no ill effects.


This also leads me to believe it's a problem with the driver/firmware of the wireless chips.

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Wifi won't turn on since upgrade to Lion

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