Updated to 10.7.3. Wifi drops constantly.

I installed 10.7.3 on two iMacs (one older machine and one new)... These are strictly for home use and both seemed to work fine... then I installed on my Mac Book Pro... Note that all 3 machines were running 10.7.2 just fine. That was Friday night... I just got the Mac Book back to functional... Ended up having to wipe out my hard drive... (I use this for development... luckily I had the important stuff backed up)... As soon as the 10.7.3 install completed I lost all connectivity with my Airport router... The Mac Book would boot up fine but without a wireless connection. Claimed there was no wi-fi hardware installed. To make a long story short... I ended up late last night reinstalling Leopard (the Mac Book originally came with Leopard )... This got me back to being able to connect to the internet... Next I upgraded to Snow Leopard and all of its updates. I now have a functional machine with development tools installed. I don't think I will be upgrading it to Lion again anytime soon. At least not until we get a sure fix released.

I have the same problem with my MacBook Pro. If I lost connection it says wifi is off and I cannot turn it back on. I have to restart for another few minutes of good connection.

Other times I get the no hardware installed message.

All this after the 10.7.3 upgrade. Previous versions of Lion seemed to be working much better.

Toon.B,

Did you ever install an older Snow Leopard driver on your Atheros machine running Lion ? If you did, then that will break WiFi in your 10.7.3 install. This is why you never install hacks/ older OS drivers on a newer OS. These hacks get broken when Apple updates their OS. Here is a way I found to fix the issue:

On a "Good - Unaltered" Lion system. Go to a terminal and copy and paste these lines (exactly):

cd /System/Library/Extensions/IO80211Family.kext/Contents/PlugIns/

sudo tar -cvzf AirPortAtheros21.kext.tar AirPortAtheros21.kext

sudo mv AirPortAtheros21.kext.tar ~/Desktop

You should now have a copy of the drivers for your "Good - Unaltered" Lion system. You are going to need to place the AirPortAtheros21.kext.tar on a USB key (or whatever) and move this file to the iMac (which will not load 10.7.3 correctly).

Place the AirPortAtheros21.kext.tar file on the iMac's Desktop and open a terminal. Again, copy and past each of these terminal commands into a terminal:

sudo cp AirPortAtheros21.kext.tar /System/Library/Extensions/IO80211Family.kext/Contents/PlugIns/

sudo mv AirPortAtheros21.kext AirPortAtheros21.kext.orig

sudo tar -xvf AirPortAtheros21.kext.tar

sudo touch /System/Library/extensions/

Reboot your iMac.

Download the combo update on the iMac: http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1484 and install it.

Hopefully now your wifi should be back.

Thanks for your reply wifiguru,

I didn't realise there were Plugins like the AirPort21.kext-plugin within the IO802111Family.kext

I saw that someone on another thread just posted your exact same solution, claiming it was suggested by someone at Apple...

Going back to your question : No - I never had to hack my IO802111Family.kext before, since all previous versions of 10.6 and 10.7 didn't give any problems with my WiFi-card, and there is no problem in 10.7.3's Rescue Mode either, just in the regular operation of 10.7.3

That is why I am also hesitant to try your solution ; I have it working now, according to the version numbers I have the exact same IO802111Family.kext installed as a regular 10.7.3, and the IO802111Family.kext that comes with both the regular 10.7.3 update and the 10.7.2 combo update caused problems on my Mac...

it took me quite a while to get me here, and I am more afraid of your suggestion breaking things than being convinced of the added value...

...but maybe you can convince me...

FYI - I've just checked all version numbers :

What I have installed now (ported from 10.7.2) :

IO80211Family.kext (v4.1.2)

- including these Plugins :

AirPortAtheros21.kext (v4.3)

AirPortAtheros40.kext (v5.0.2)

AirPortBrcm4331.kext (v5.1.3)

AppleAirPortBrcm43224.kext (v5.0)

IO80211NetBooter.kext (v4.1.2)

What the regular 10.7.3 installer installs, but doesn't work on my Mac with Atheros AR9280 (I checked these version numbers om my MacBook Pro with OSX 10.7.3 running smoothly) :

IO80211Family.kext (v4.1.2)

- including these Plugins :

AirPortAtheros21.kext (v4.3)

AirPortAtheros40.kext (v5.0.2)

AirPortBrcm4331.kext (v5.1.3)

AppleAirPortBrcm43224.kext (v5.0)

IO80211NetBooter.kext (v4.1.2)

...that's right, that's exactly the same as what's installed now...

same plugins, same version numbers...

and still the 10.7.3 install doesn't work, and the 10.7.2 install has no problem whatsoever !!!???

And to complete the picture...

What was installed on my Mac with Atheros AR9280 by the 10.6 installer and did work then :

IO80211Family.kext (v3.2)

- including these Plugins :

AirPortAtheros21.kext (v4.2.5)

AirPortAtheros9388.kext (v4.2.6)

AirPortBrcm4331.kext (v4.3.3)

AppleAirPortBrcm4331.kext (v4.2.3)

AppleAirPortBrcm43224.kext (v4.2.8)

IO80211NetBooter.kext (v1.0.3)

(Yes... I also noticed that for some reason there is both AirPortBrcm4331.kext (v4.3.3) and AppleAirPortBrcm4331.kext (v4.2.3) ; despite the slight variation in the name, they appear to be the same .kext in 2 versions...)

But still... please enlighten me with your insight on why the installment that I have right now would not be auto-upgraded with 10.7.4 - I'm cusious to know/learn...

(let's hope 10.7.4 will be out soon and include a fix for this)

@CodyFromSC & Iclcv,

Your situations and hardware sound identical to mine. I managed to hose the MacBook Pro networking completely by taking the scheduled update. After trying all of the arcane remedies, without success, I simple grabbed another coppy of Lion from the AppStore (10.7.3) and did a full install over OS X. No need to stuff about with the drive, just get it on there.

FWIW, I didn't lose any data, app support info or any of my licensed apps in the process, although I was initially worried I might. The reinstall process seems to deal with the fact that you have OS X installed in a fairly intelligent manner. Aside from having just a phone to move the OS from my other Mac to the stricken machine, the process was painless. Now everything is fine again.

I think the workarounds here are commendable but really it is not acceptable that this situation has arisen in the first place. It's been over a week now since 10.7.3 and as a new iMac user I am very surprised that the much vaunted Apple brand can't sort this out.

@i.campbell

I wish I could have been as lucky... I tried pulling another copy from the App Store, tried the Combo Update from Apple support page, tried the restore from my Time Machine backup.... Each "seemed" to work but nothing I did brought the wi-fi connection back... Always ended up with the "no hardware" message. This pretty much wasted my whole week-end. Reminded me of the times I spent years ago upgrading from different Windows versions... I do have a stable Laptop again running Snow Leopard with all my development tools installed and running fine. I just can't take another "chance" on a bungled Lion upgrade until I read across the forums and see that a valid fix has been released. I have to be able to "hack some code during the week" in a portable manner! :-)

I have the same problem.

After update to 10.7.3 when I wake up from sleep, my iMac 2011 doesn't connect automatically to wifi.

I have to connect manually.

With 10.7.2 works fine.

iMac 21" 2011

Mac OS X 10.7

I had the same problem and tried many solution that I found on the net. finally, it worked after the following procedure

- Delete preferred network

- Remove wifi connection (I did not touch the Iphone or any other connection)

- rename the location name "Automatic" to something else

- creating the wifi connection back and putting it up in the top of connection list

- adding my preferred network without chaning the network name and passport.

I still don't know what the problem was, though

MBA 13" (min 2011)

I just tried this, it didn't work for me

Apple has withdrawn the basic 10.7.3 update, whichever way you will upgrade now will get you the 10.7.3 combo update ; read more about htis on MacNN.com

http://www.macnn.com/articles/12/02/04/apple.fixes.lion.upgrade.issue.with.combo .switch

In this thread there are two kinds of problems :

1- the (Atheros) AirPort-card is not recognised by 10.7.3, even after restart ("WiFi: no hardware installed" error)

2- the AirPort-card is recognised, but the connection to known networks is 'wobbly' ; AirPort disconnects very often, and is not able to reconnect most of the time

If your problem is -1-, then try the 10.7.3 combo update again (be sure to fix your .kext-files first by using the above mentioned procedure using the Terminal), if that doesn't fix things, try the combo update again, if that doesn't fix things, try the .kext-replacement procedure I have explained in my first post in this thread

If your problem is -2-, do not mess with your .kext-files (if you already did that, repair your .kext-files first by using the above mentioned procedure using the Terminal, and install the combo update again),

then start out by erasing all known WiFi-networks from your AirPort system preferences, shut down your Mac, wait at least one minute, then start up your Mac again, and reconnect to the local WiFi-network...

...if that turns out to be as problematic as before try starting up in 'Rescue Mode' and reinstall the combo update (again)...

...if that doesn't fix your problem, you probably do not have an alternative : a reinstall of 10.7 Lion from the AppStore...

Got the IMac Lion 10.7.3 for Christmas 2011... More than a thousand bucks. So! ...constant disconnections from the wire less internet.. Great! A system that does not hook up to the internet once it goes to sleep... I have to correct it manually every time. This is what 2 hours with an Apple Tech got me today. If Apple really cared they would have an update that would fix this well.... Like my husband said ...'They are on to their other projects & since these have all ready sold this system they aren't dealing with it to seriously'... he is no authority but he has a point!... sometimes market deadlines I guess create bad products... I get to suck it up but I am thankful to the Apple tech that took a couple of hours to help me check through things... he couldn't fix it... told me that Apple is aware of it & will eventually get a better update... ( I could tell he felt stupid), I did the combo update for 10.7.3 before I talked to him & it it improved the problem because it had gotten worse to, ( no exageration), disconnecting every 30 - 60 seconds... seriously.... what a lousy machine I've gotten dealt... I noticed I've received zero apologies from Apple... (poor tech it's not his job), Apple is doing a great job at screwing up a christmas gift. Where are those genius's? Really a system that can't stay hooked up to the internet ! my ancient Mac was doing that & that's exactly why my husband got this new Lion version... buyer beware the fix it is a lot to slow in coming... Apple owes me a better apologie instead of oh! They'll come up with an update... (how many years?)

Are you using Bluetooth keyboard and mouse or USB?

I've noticed if I disconnect my wireless mouse and keyboard, the problem goes away! Wi Fi connects to the network right away. As soon as I reconnect the wireless peripherals the problem reoccurs.

@lenny491

That's a good observation. I noticed similar behavior while using wireless mouse and/or the trackpad... completely disconnected them both and went back to a "normal" mouse and keyboard... While it may not be related... things seem a bit more stable during use. I still use a wireless keyboard n my Mac Book Pro but I had to revert it to Snow Leopard after an aborted attempt of using 10.7.3 (clobbered my system wireless completely - none of the suggestions listed in the forum and at other places restored my wi-fi)... 10.7.2 worked fine on the Mac Book... wish I had it back but I'll settle for Snow Leopard and a system I can still use for development until a "real" fix is provided. IF the Mac Book dies I'll have to revert further to a Windows 7 machine (for Java & C++ development).

@CodyFromSC

I think it is related though. I've tried this on 3 Macs and it's all the same thing. And by the way during use there is no problem with WiFi connection.