Mountain lion wifi problems

Okay, even Bob Allison's fix of moving WiFi to the top of the service order has not helped in the long run. It looked like it did for a while and then... nope. Maybe I was just getting lucky.

The *ONLY* thing that has consistently worked for me as a workaround to this is to open up a terminal window and type:

ping <IP-address-of-my-router>

and then let it run in the background forever. For whatever reason, that seems to keep the network stack active and things work. My hunch is that there's a bug somewhere in the power management of the network stack, that if the stack isn't kept active, something gets shut down but then isn't correctly brought back up when there is new activity. The active ping in the background keeps it from doing whatever it would normally do and therefore it keeps working. That's just my theory, and I'm probably wrong, but there you go.

Yes, that's not a real fix in any sense of the word. It's a big hack. Apple, it's abysmal that so many people can be suffering so badly on such a high priority component as WiFi and you haven't release an über-emergency hot-patch in the first week after Mt. Lion was released. That's just horrible product management. And given the widespread nature of the outtages, exactly how many people beta tested Mt. Lion for you? I find it hard to believe that this was so subtle that it would have slipped through the cracks. Worst case, look for all the people who have posted to this thread, then have your network engineering team contact 10 of them, fly engineers to their houses to do on-site debugging, and get this thing solved and an OS update released by Christmas. Why is that hard?

With every ML update, I'm hopeful that the fix is contained, but it never is. I've found myself using Windows 7 via Bootcamp more and more, particularly when I have work to do. Otherwise I'm interrupted every 5-10 minutes because the wifi dies. I'm not sure what's more frustrating, the issue itself, or the silence on Apple's part. Infuriating.

And many of the fixes don't work for me because I'm not using a router.

I've just tried this option - upgraded my D-Link's firmware to AF_1.65_R01. Initially it was throwing out superb stats and I thought I'd cracked it. It was even streaming HD YouTube clips when I was outdoors. I have a 2MB line and was pulling 1.76MBs dowload speeds and I was ecstatic.

However,,, I've just tested it again and have the following results: Ping: 28ms Download: 1,44MBs Upload: 0.40MBs. Its been fluctuating unremitingly for the past couple of minutes and displays extremes - from quadruple digits (1084) for pings to abysmal download speeds of 0.15MBs

I was hoping this wasn't an entirely Apple 10.8.2 software issue and that maybe updating the router would fix it. Apparently not.

My MB Pro is month old and I'm suffering the anguish of the ****** - to have this beautiful machinery on my lap, but to be unable to use it fully.

I hope Apple releases a patch/fix before the next IOS is released. Don't think I can wait till mid-2013 and keep my sanity intact

Just thought I'd post my experiences here as I seemed to have fixed my issues... (well... 12 hours in so far so good)

I have a iMac mid 2010 and since updating a couple of weeks ago to Mountain Lion have had an awful wifi connection. I tried various things I found on here and other sites, which, in isolation didnt fix my problem. What did seem to do it though was a whole bunch of them plus a re-install of Mountain Lion (though trying to downlload the installer again was fun!)

What I did....

reset PRAM

boot up into the utilities thing (command R?) and repaired disk, and repaired disk permisions

Deleted all wifi locations from the network preferences panel

Deleted all wifi passwords from the Keychain App

Trashed the SystemConfiguration folder from Library>Preferences

Then re-installed Mountain Lion (not a completely clean install... just the normal one)

So far so good... hope it helps somebody

I have a brand new MacBookPro with the same terrible wifi performance. I have tried literally everything on this thread except for a clean install, but there are already many individuals who have done that and it still did not solve the problem.

As I said in an earlier post, leave feedback to Apple. This is likely a numbers game...more people, more action to solve the problem.

This worked for me!

Now I am using my iMac in the 5 GHz signal from Time Capsule and doing backup copy normally.

I had tried with re installation of Mountain Lion 3 times and deleting all passwords from the Keychain, but the key is to delete the SystemConfiguration folder. Reset PRAM is not requiered.

I hope this could be the end of the problem until Apple solution is released.

Thanks johnboyuk!

johnboyuk: "glad it worked. Just to say - i did try deleting the systemConfiguration by itself but that didnt work for me in isolation - so it was that combined with some/all of the other steps that's the key"

It would be great if you could list the other steps that made it work with deleting the SystemConfiguration folder as I've typically tried a half dozen ideas all separately with no success. Thanks.

In my home I have a D-link Dir-655 router with which I don't have had any problems, in the office is a D-link WRT54G with which WiFi drops frecuently, reviewing the difference in the configuration I found that if you set the security as WPA2 I have no problem.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I have a brand new MacBookPro with the same terrible wifi performance dropping out on a Cisco WAP 4410N at work, but no problem whatsoever on my AirPort Extreme at home. I have tried literally everything on this thread except for a clean install, but there are already many individuals who have done that and it still did not solve the problem. I've even tried johnboyuk's plan of doing several steps all at once, but I still have the problem. The router is configured with WPA2 and no one else is having a problem. Anyone happen to be dealing with this unit by Cisco?

wclyffe:

This is what I did:

- Delete SystemConfiguration folder.

- Delete all wifi passwords from Keychain.

- Delete all wifi conections from Network Preferences panel.

- Re install Mountain Lion.

johnboyuk said that is necesary to delete PRAM, but in my situation it was not required. My problem was in an early 2009 iMac, with no wifi connection from Time Capsule in the 5 GHz band.

In any case, if you are re installing ML from App Store your Mac must be capable to detect the last wifi connection used and don't ask for a password to use it.

Thanks, as I think I'm ready to try this with the re-install of ML. What method did you use to lay your data, etc back after the install? I use Time Machine, but of course I'm worried it will lay the problem file right back on the computer.

The easiest fix for Lion wifi issues is:

1. Create a new user account.

When you have trouble connecting with wifi, log out from the main account you are using, then log into the new user account (you can name the new account "wifi fix". The new user account should be able to connect via wifi. If it does (and it always has for me), log out and then log back into you main user account. You should be able to connect to with wifi at the point. Yes, it *****...but it works.

Apple, please take notice. There has got to be some relatively simple reason why logging into a new user acount fixes the wifi connection issue.

I have a Macbook Pro early 2010 and tried the new user option mentioned above and if fixed my Wifi problems. Prior to this I was not able to activate the wifi at all. Now it works as well with my standard user.

re: creating a new user account

I wish this worked, but it does not for me. Both accounts are off the internet.

I can tell my router (access point) is tossing me off the internet, but I still have a strong connection to the router itself as I'm only 15 feet away from it. I can simply turn wifi off, then on in the Finder and I'm back in operation. Unfortunately, no one else in the office has a problem...just me running Mountain Lion on my new MacBook Pro.

I wish I could try that, but this is in an office where I have no control over the settings of the router, and of course, no one else has a problem at all. I notice that when I am backing up to the cloud I always get discvonnected several times in the process forcing me to turn wifi off and back on to re-establish a connection to the internet. It's ridiculous that this is even a problem on a brand new computer.