Slow internet after Lion OS X Upgrade

Hi - One more thing! I got home and tried this on my wife's computer. Mine's still running mock speed so problem solved. Hers reacted faster but not fast enough so I tried this. Try one last thing! Do shutdown and boot into safe mode. If unfamiliar, turn Mac off. Hold shift key, then turn on computer but continue to hold shift key until the line starts to move across screen. Lion won't show safemode but you'll be in it. That will cleanup some files. Reset your PRAM...

at...

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1379

Then change that DNS in advanced network settings from 8.8.8.8 to 8.8.4.4 since 8.8.8.8 didn't work for you. ... I tried 2 different routers. Fast and no problem on either. Worked for my wife's Macbook Pro so we're both up! Might want to play with the DNS settings ... Hope everyone reads this......

alls0rts wrote:

I installed wireshark (using ports) last night and so when the WiFi failed at work I ran it up on the interface. It did seem to show some external traffic making me think its not totally dead - as the ping failure might suggest. But then I know I can access some web pages all be it very slowly as if packet loss is occurring.

To me that seems to be the right track.

I can, certainly, only talk about my own network and wifi infrastructure and setup, but maybe this will lead others here on a track to solve there own WiFi issues.

Setup:

DSL-Modem / Airport Extreme / Clients (MBPro 2011, MB 2008, 4xExpress, 1 PC WinXP) All connected wireless to the network.

Story:

Before I purchased the Extreme, my wireless was delivered by an older 802.11g only router with no reasonable problems.

The trouble start exact at the moment the Extreme took over.

I'm working with wireless systems since 1999 and for that I know, that wireless networking has it's challenges and was never a real "just plug and play" technic.

So I did quite similar monitoring as alls0rts and additionally monitored the radio conditions with a wifi tool.

First finding was, that the packed loss and the unwanted traffic was time correlating with the radio band switching between the 2.4 GHz and 5GHz 802.11n and the compatibility mode for older 802.11a/b/g systems.

The Airport Extreme uses by default the same SSID and Security Key for the 2.4GHz and 5GHz to ensure, that the client may at any time switch to the band with the best performance.

For that the nearest attempt to solve my problems was to set a different SSID for the 5Ghz net and connect the clients to a dedicated SSID

Result was a noticable better conection. Fare away from a optimum, though.

Monitoring again confirmed that packet loss and unwanted traffic decreased but it shows also, that the "extreme n capable" clients still switching band.

The reason for that was found in the System Settings of one of the Apple clients. There is this "Remeber networks this computer has joined" thing and the default set "Ask to join new networks", where the secret is in the small printed text: "Known networks will be joined automatically"

These two settings, together with the fact that both networks share the same security key (stored in keychain) let the client eventually change the band if the radio (bandwidth) fade a bit.

For that, I delete one of the networks in the list, to make sure, that the client connect only to the wanted SSID.

Suddenly I had a fast running wireless, but only for a time. After an hour or so the trouble start again.

I took a look on the System Settings and, surprise surprise, the former deleted SSID showed up in the known network list again.

So I deleted all "home" SSID's again from the list and set up a new location "home". Then joined the preferred network and voila, fast running network again. Unfortunately only for a limited time, though.

Looking again on the settings made me mad. The former deleted network had reappeared again in the new location.

At least, what solved my problems:

Delete all unwanted networks from any location

Delete the keys of the unwanted SSID's from keychain.

Uncheck the "Remember networks this computer has joined" on my separate "home" location.

Uncheck the "Ask to join new networks" (Not sure that this is needed)

Hard reboot (power of) the client.

Rejoin the preferred network

The result is (for me) a fast working wireless without trouble. The unwanted network traffic and the "bad packets", e.g. DUP ACK, where vanished away.

As I found also unwanted network traffic on the 802.11g net from neighborhood networks and interferences that let the 2.4Ghz fade sometimes.

For that, as my situation allows that, I disabled the 802.11g on the Extreme, by setting 802.11n only (2.4 GHz) - 802.11n only (5GHz).

That provided me with bandwidth between 300 MBit/s for the Expresses and the Windows machine and 450 MBit/s for the new MBPro.

Conclusio.

It seems that there is presumably a problem with the multiband and mimo ability either of the Extreme, the Airport Cards or the technic as such. Not a real fault at all I think, but a hustle that leads to several issues with Internet or file transfer, e.g. Airtunes streaming.

It seems also, that there may be a issue between the "automatically known network", the security key sharing for the two radio bands and keychain.app.

Also the compatibility mode for 802.11 a-n capable wireless networks can cause problems.

The industry idea of delivering wireless solutions on a "all system and protocols should be able to join the same network wirelessly, regardless from which century the are" is a fine one, but produce some challenges, corners and glitches.

Lupunus

Addendum

Aside of the Lion and "with my older Animal everything worked well" attempt, look around as well in the Windows as in the Linux world and you will find a lot of similar complaints about lousy Internet, drop out's and so on with new wireless equipment or networks geeting unresponsive after upgrading the operating system or major updates.

And, guess what, a lot of them only rant and blame the respective vendor for there problems, crying for a miracle-update-fix instead looking for solutions.

I haven't read through the whole discussion, but once I upgraded to Lion the internet connection I was using basically stopped working. I could occasionally load a page but that was it. At the time I had just moved to a new place and was leeching off of an insecure network which worked perfect before upgrading to Lion (I was planning to get my own internet and felt bad for leeching*). After I got my own connection, without doing anything Lion connected immeadiately and everything worked fine. I don't know if this helps somehow.

The fault we are all experiancing is intermittent. I don't beleive that simply changing the DNS server to a google one cures the problem, more that you were simply lucky. That said, desperate for a fix, I have tried changing it a couple of times without luck :-(

lupunus wrote:

First finding was, that the packed loss and the unwanted traffic was time correlating with the radio band switching between the 2.4 GHz and 5GHz 802.11n and the compatibility mode for older 802.11a/b/g systems.

Great investigation, At home I have an older linksys wireless router offering just 802.11a/b/g and a newer one which also offers 802.11n. While I have not tried your suggestion as yet, I have found that simply reseting (switching off, count to 10, switch back on again) the older WiFI router when I observ the issue seems to make it work again.

Time permitting I shall try your suggestions, I will need to investigate some WiFi monitoring tools/software.

alls0rts wrote:

I have found that simply reseting (switching off, count to 10, switch back on again) the older WiFI router when I observ the issue seems to make it work again.

I' had a another finding in an early stage of the troubleshoot. At the moment the problem (drop out) starts, one or even all Apple units disapear from the Airport Utility.

Instead switching the router off/on, in my case switching off/on the wireless on the client brought back the connection as well as let reappear the items in Airport utility though.

However, this was on my configuration with the all in one AEBS as router.

I had the old b/g router sort out at the moment I fit the AEBS into the network.

Lupunus

Hi,

An further update. Booting to safe mode as described earlier worked and internet speed was back to 16 MBps and issues seemed resolved. But then restarted and the internet was back to snail speed again. So it must be something to do with some drivers that are not loaded in safe mode. Next question is what !!!!. Anyone got any idea on how to figure this out ?.

TIA

jedizippy wrote:

Hi,

An further update. Booting to safe mode as described earlier worked and internet speed was back to 16 MBps and issues seemed resolved.

16 MBit/s or 16Mbyte/s?

Even in save mode, all network drivers are loaded.

If there is a difference between save mode and normal boot, the disturbance comes from a different application .

Do you use Parallels or Fusion?

Lupunus

Just to add my two pence, I'm a student and have just moved into a new house with a different router to the one I had at home. At home, the internet speed was fine, no problems what-so-ever. At uni however I'm getting incredibly slow speeds compared to everyone else on both iMac and MacBook. Thankfully I also have a netbook that runs Crunchbang (Linux) that runs at normal speed. No other housemates have a problem because they all run either Windows or Snow Leopard and under.

That leads me to believe that this is an issue with Lion and certain types of routers, the one that worked fine was a BT Homehub and the problem router is a Sky broadband one. I read in another discussionthat it could be Lion being aggressive and the router interpreting it as a DoS attack which seems probable.

Also, I read above that Apple suggested a clean install, the iMac was upgraded to Lion and the MacBook was done with a clean install and the problem is present in both.

Nitesshadow -

I agree with your observation. I too found that if I am on certain LAN's I have better speeds. The only thing that I found consistent is, the LAN that is slowest is the one that is at home, even though I have a "trunkline" connection. I'm suspicious of OS Lion and if it plays well with the DHCP server on the home router well.

The only solution that worked for me was swapping out my DNS address with googles DNS public address.

Go to the System Preferences >

Click on Network icon >

Click the Advanced... button >

Click on the DNS tab >

Last step, remove the DNS address (192.168.2.1 or 192.168.1.1 or etc...) and add either 8.8.8.8 or 8.8.4.4.

Here's more info -

The Google Public DNS IP addresses (IPv4) are as follows:

• 8.8.8.8
• 8.8.4.4

The Google Public DNS IPv6 addresses are as follows:

• 2001:4860:4860::8888
• 2001:4860:4860::8844

Here's the linke to google for instructions and explination on their public DNS server address. Download this page in PDF

- Seattle

genefromissaquah wrote:

The only solution that worked for me was swapping out my DNS address with googles DNS public address.

Last step, remove the DNS address (192.168.2.1 or 192.168.1.1 or etc...) and add either 8.8.8.8 or 8.8.4.4.

Hello,

your hint may (at least temporary) work for you. It's based on a error and a massive misunderstandings of networking rules, though.

For that your DNS and connection problem at home is NOT a Lion problem but a problem with a wrong configuration of your Belkin-Router and/or the network infrastructure (client's) too.

Let me explain why in (more or less) simple words:

First: In a local network all connected stations and the providing access point(s) have to be in the same (local) domain.

On Mac's this (local) domain name is set by default to "local" e.g. for an easy use of Apple's "Bonjour-Service" or "Airdrop" with Lion.

On Windows machines this domain name is (depending on version) set by default to e.g. "workgroup"

Second: Each computer in a network have a name for user convenience because computers "talking" to other computers always use numbers to address each other.

Humans tend to have problems in using complex numbers like 23:de:3e:fx:gh:4h to address a computer.😉

Therefore a short name like "fubar" and a full name (name@domain) like "fubar.local" (on Mac's) is used in networks.

These names make the station easier addressable in a network e.g. for local file sharing.

Third: The default name resolving server in a local network should be the main access point (Router) if this access point is (as in most cases) the bridge to the Internet and serves the local network.

If this server can't resolve a name it query's the next instance, a DNS server from your ISP. If the ISP's name server have no matching entry it will query the next instance and so on up to one of the ROOT-DNS Servers.

If you (as you do) set on a local machine a external DNS Server address in the first place of the list, ALL name resolving query's get send to this server, including the local name resolving query's like "who is genes-iphone.local"

You may eventually imagine that Google's DNS Server is not pleased getting such querry's from all over the world.

Fourth: The rules and regulations allow up to 3 DNS Server entries in the settings. The first entry have to be the main name resolving server in the network and 2 spare entries are allowed. This entries get used one after another top down. For example, if the first entry give no response to a name resolution query, the query is send again to the second entry in the list.

All entries in that list exceed 3 are ignored by default.

In your case:

As one could see on your screenshoot, your Internet Bridge and main access point (router) is in a different local domain. All other stations (if Mac's) are in the domain "local"

If you have two local domains in your network e.g. "belkin" and "local" name resolving trouble is programmed. This could lead to a disassociation of station for timeout too.

For details see ->http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_Name_System#Operation

For all that wrote above you should at firsthand:

• Change the domain name of your Belkin-Router to "local" or if that is not possible (e.g. as on some BT-Boxes) change the local domain name of you Mac's to match the local domain of the Belkin.
• Remove ALL entries from the list of DNS-Servers on your local machines and "renew" the DHCP settings to get a correct entry there.
• Eventually, if your ISP's DNS Server tend to have cut off's and Internet Addresses get (temporarily) not resolved, set ONE spare entry in the list e.g Google's.

After all the above is done, your problems should be solved.

If your problem persist, you should perform a proper troubleshoot in your network.

AND ... you SHOULD NOT give false advise to others to break the rules and protocols of networks.

Cheers - Lupunus

lupunus,

Excellent breakdown.

Hi

Like most on here, had vvvv slow internet after upgrading to Lion.

Gave uptrying to "share internet" which was a breeze with SLepoard.

I sorted my wifi issue ( Sky router UK) by changing channel fro 11 to 6, tried 3,4 and 5 but 6 works a treat.

Folks,

Adding Google's DNS server addresses does solve the issues with FireFox and Chrome taking a long time to open any web page. By the way, there is no need to "swap" the DNS addresses. You can have many DNS server addresses and to make sure that all of OS X Lion keeps running smoothly, you can manuall add the IP address of your router to the list as well, just in case you come across an obscure OS X Lion function that does not like using a remote DNS server.

I will also try to manually add the DNS addresses of my ISP's servers, the only challenge here being that if and when they change their DNS servers, which has happened once or twice in the past or so years, I may encounter problems and will then need to rememeber to change this again. It is unlikely Google will ever change the address of their DNS servers.

I keep hoping that Apple is taking a look at these forums and doing something about it. I also reported the problem on the FireFox community support forum and will post the solution soon. One of the two should take action on this issue that is affecting a lot of users.

Hi - Just out of curiosity, if you changed your router setting and it works, that's fine. You don't have a laptop with multiple locations. It seems many are doing different things, some simple, some complex and it works! Very confusing!

I as other, changed my DNS setting and did the same for my wife. I used the public Google setting for this reason ... We both have laptops and we move to various locations. The original problem after the Lion OS upgrade was it caused slow slow slow internet browsing on all 3 of my browsers in all various locales. Same identical situation with my wife. Made me think that the router setting had nothing to do with it.

My main point and conclusion is without getting technical just this: Both computers, now, for 4 weeks are working fine with not one slowdown or problem unless of course it's the site. All I did was change to Google 8.8.8.8 and secondary DNS is 8.8.4.4 and my 2 laptops now cooperate with Lion. Quite simple, works for other, yet not for all. I'm also getting negative feedback from high tech guys on this forum saying that shouldn't work. But it does!!!

Nothing is definite in life, right? I know ... someone is thinking death and taxes ... If you changed router settings, you're stationary, that great too. If DNS changes work, great also.... Hopefully the next upgrade will help everyone if it ever comes out ...lol ...