Q: Internet stops working frequently on OS X Lion

Figured mine out.. at least for the last 24hours.

Tried all sollution suggestions and the only tactic that seems to have resolved the issue ( wifi says connected but couldnt load pages, switch on and off, which allowed a minute of internet connection working and then slow and unable to use connection at all...) was logging into router and changing channels to unused chanel number ( found what channels were unused or minimally used in system info app / under network,  in utilities).. works like a charm now!!! yay!!!!

~Z

Hello guys,

English isn't my mother language, so forgive for the poor grammar. I Love macs, but the lack of response from apple is really getting on my nerves, they should really admit the problem and work as fast as they can to solve it. But let's stop the complain and go straight to the solution.

I was having the same problem as everyone else. My internet sharing through AirPort (wi-fi) stopped working. If a uncheck and check again the sharing in system preferences it would work for about a minute or less and then even with a strong signal I couldn't acess the internet from a macbook or my android phone.

I tried several solutions that I found on the internet and none of them worked for more than 5 minutes, here's what I've tried so far:

- Write a shorter name for the wifi

- Changing the channel

- Deleting the airport and configuring again

- Change DCHP settings

- Updating OSX (I'm already with the last 10.7.4 Lion update)

But somehow it's working now, I've been connected for one hour now, wich is more than I had in the past. Here's what I did. I followed some steps from James_N:

1- Turn Off your AirPort and the Internet Sharing

2- Go to /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/ and make a backup copy of preferences.plist (In case of everything goes and you need to restore the configs)

3- Delete it OR rename it (this will reset all your configs, so you must do it all again)

4- Reset your system

5- Open the System Preferences > Network and add your ethernet and wifi connection (If they don't appear automaticaly)

6- Go to Security and Privacy > Disable Firewall

7- Turn the airport on, enable internet sharing BUT DISABLE ENCRYPTION (this is very important, I don't know why, but it seems to work without a password)

8- Search and add it again in your devices, it should work (at least it did for me)

I dunno if this will work for you, I really hope so, because this issue is very, very annoying. It did for me, that's all I can tell you guys. The only problem is that now everyone can connect to my network, if I use a password the problems starts again. I'm looking forward to a fix from apple. I think we deserve some respect after buying an overpriced computer.

Hello,

Have you ever installed kaspersky internet security  on your OS Lion?

I have the exact problem with intermittent lock up of Safari, Chrome, etc.

I have tried all of the suggestions in this whole stream + many others.

I finally took my computer to the computer repair shop and had a apple genius look at it.

He updated everything and said it worked fine in the shop for many hours.  He said if that didn't fix it I should get a new computer.   After I took it home it worked fine and then after many more hrs of reading discovered it was my airport locking things up.

If I turn my airport on and off, it will immediately make the internet work. This is really annoying and Apple needs to fix it.   I have found that all of the other pc's in the house and iphones work just fine over the internet and the only thing locking up is my IMAC.  Why would I go buy another Mac computer when all the pc's are working fine?

I'm tired of trying things.  Apple needs to fix this problem.  I don't think it is a hardware problem & i don't want to go buy something new that won't fix the problem.   Where are you apple?

One thing I did find to work that makes the repair last longer (don't know why).

Physically remove the airport. Put a paperclip in the reset and plug it in while holding it in.

It fixes the problem for a longer length of time, but doesn't last.

Sadly I have had this problem ever since "upgrading" to Lion. No other device has the issue its only my iMac running Lion. The only thing that works for a few minutes is renewing DHCP lease. Apple are becoming more and more uncaring so apart from the great look and feel of their products they are up there with the worst of Microsoft for bugginess. All they want is for us to keep buying. Period.

Here's another random fix to add: I was looking at the activity monitor and noticed parental controls was coming up, even though I haven't used it lately. I turned it fully off (under the settings button in parental controls), logged out again, and now all browsers are running noticeably faster, and not hanging like they had been.

I'm guessing there are multiple background programs that cause this problem, so different solutions will work for different people.

After trying all the good solutions everyone posted, I found my solution was completely different.  I had even upgraded from airexpress to apple tv.   My solution was our wireless mouse.  Even though it was the same one we always used for some reason it was the point of interference.   I tried a different mouse with the computer and the problem went away.  I threw the other one in the garbage and it is all fixed.