Mountain lion wifi problems

Try this, it worked for me. If you are currently using WEP on your wireless network, go into your router settings and change your wireless setting to WPA 2. I did this after talking to Apple Support, and after doing this, it has worked perfectly.

Paul

I have only Hughes satellite service unfortunately. I am not surfing at all but I appear to be using up all of my daily allowance. I have already been shut down by Hughes for exceeding download allowance.

Does anyone know whether something is running online in the background that I can't see and, if so, how to shut it off?

BOB,

YOU ARE THE MAN!!!

After months of messing around with PROMs, Wi-Fi router settings & channel settings, Mac MTU & channel settings, Router FW updates, the simplest fix of all...your fix... has ACTUALLY fixed this issue.

I don't need to change from 2.4GHz to a 5GHz network, I was already running WPA2.

N.B. - If any one is running WEP, you should just consider disabling it altogether as it is very easily crackable. Don't believe me. Google it. If your router doesn't support WPA2, then it is time for a new router. If your mac doesn't support WPA2, then it most likely can not run Mountain Lion.

Basically, it seems that Mountain Lion (upon coming out of a sleep state) looks at the "service order" list and attempts to connect using the first thing in that list. In this case, the default order is: 1.) Bluetooth DUN, 2.) Firewire, 3.) Ethernet, 4.) WiFi.

To be honest, from a probability standpoint of consumer usage, I would quite confidently say, that list is almost inverse.

The absolute most common method of internet / network connection for almost any device running OS X 10.8.2, should be WiFi, then Ethernet, and as a stretch, someone using Firewire to move some files via Mac-to-Mac direct connect.

With more an more Mac Book Pros and Mac Books out there, perhaps some poor entry-level programmer thought that Bluetooth DUN (Dial-Up Network) protocol should be THE most important and hence primary connection menthod. Not sure about you, but the last time I used a dial-up script it was for ADSL when I lived in Taiwan... 9 years ago.

Bluetooth DUN, which is not be confused with using your phone as a "WiFi Hotspot", which IS becoming quite common with people moving to 5GB data plans as well as shared family data plans, is probably helpful for the 0.001% of the Mac computer owning population that lives in areas where dial-up (via cell phone) is the ONLY method for getting on the internet. I am thinking, serious "3rd world" action or very remote sites within N.A. where you only have a cell connection with voice service only (no EDGE, GPRS, 2G, 3G, 4G/LTE).

This may be a cause as to why some folks are seeing some random improvements when they take Bluetooth devices (include Apple's own Magic Mouse) out of the range of the Mac.

So, there is something that happened in Mount Lion and that something is it obey's (unconditionally) this "service order" list and since WiFi was not listed first (by default), it will tell the network manager to just keep trying to make a connection via Bluetooth DUN while your WiFi taskbar symbol at the top just keeps looking to re-establish the last connection it had, but is unable to see anything - because the network connection has now been handed over to the Bluetooth device in your Mac which keeps looking for someone to put in a PIN into their Bluetooth cell phone to establish the connection.

I believe this same solution will solve other issues reported with Ethernet connections. Just move Ethernet to the top of the "service order" and when your computer comes out of sleep, it will re-establish the same Ethernet connection with the same DHCP or hard-coded IP address it had before going to sleep.

I sure hope this message makes it out to others that have been plauged with this issue.

If my continued testing results in anything other than pure success, you can believe that I will be back here to make an update to this post.😉

Best Regards,

Dave

The only thing that has worked for me in the months of having this problem (wifi frequently going in and out) is turning off Bluetooth. I tried it after the last few posts that seemed to imply BT being the root cause, and the solution seems to have stuck...so far. Thankfully I don't need BT for anything. I'm glad I finally found a solution, but it's still inexcusable for Apple to remain silent on a widespread issue that cripples such a basic function.

To everyone that is experiencing wifi issues, I concur -- it is beyond frustrating. I am writing this on a July 2010 iMac which had the same fail-to-connect from sleep issues beginning with Lion. Finally after months of manually reconnecting, Apple published a fix. I waited until 10.8.2 was out before moving to Mountain Lion and I cannot believe that I was this stupid to do so. I thought surely, Apple could not make this same mistake again, right?

My wifi will not connect / stay connected /randomly drops. I have tried numerous suggested "fixes" and none work. I have been using Apple computers since a Mac II I began with around 1990. I have put up with decades of all the derision of being a Mac user, having to buy compatible hardware and software mailorder, until of course Apple got wide-spread cool and $uccessful with non-computer products.

The very company that wants my entire digital life on iCloud servers can't keep my internet connection alive when they publish new OS software. I am unbelievably dissapointed. I guess Steve was serious when he said “We’re going to demote the PC and the Mac to just be a device.”

I am writing this on a July 2010 iMac, connected via Ethernet cable.

I agree with Austin, changing to WPA didn't solve the issue, as i was already using this encryption and tested other encryptions too on router. BTW i'm using Linksys E1200 with the latest firmware 2.0.04.

Agree also that Bluetooth maybe not be the cause, works for some time, then slows down… but it helps for now.

(I will test Firefox more, but be aware of Google Chrome, it almost killed my CPU.

I can't remember if i was on a website with flash, or several tabs, but the temperature went to 100o Celsius on the CPU. Uninstalled it and everything back to normal. Now i always keep activity monitor on, when fans begin to make noise, i open and see which application is demanding to much processing of CPU. Hope they have fixed it, it was my preferred browser.)

OK, so I ended up replacing my access points with Airport Express and Time Capsule. It was the expensive route, but I wanted the Time Capsule anyway. Everything now works well.

But I shouldn't have had to do that. To repeat, everything I tried fiddling with settings did NOT work. I was having problems on both an 18-month-old MacBook Pro and a brand-spankin'-new-for-Christmas iMac. Same issues and same symptoms. I disabled all manner of things, reset my configs, etc. Nothing worked. The only thing that would function as a workaround was to run a ping command in a terminal window and keep it going continually.

The MacBook Pro functioned well with Snow Leopard and Lion and the same old access points. No issues. Install Mountain Lion, and things went to ****. There is a definite problem with Mt. Lion's WiFi stack. And whatever the problem is, it doesn't manifest itself with certain access points (e.g., Apple Airport works fine).

After 3 days of testing on my wife's iMac 2009 Fall 21.5" (8GB RAM, TWC Road Runner is my ISP, D-Link DIR-825 is my wireless router, 2.4GHz is the band I select) after making a change to the "service order", I have had ZERO issues!!!

This iMac shipped with Snow Leopard, then I upgraded to Lion, then I upgraded to Mountain Lion. I did not observe the WiFi reconnect issues after coming out of sleep until Mountain Lion was installed.

While I am sure there are other fixes that include going out and buying new Apple products or other brand routers, I refused to go to such lengths.

It was Bob Allison's recommended fix that resulted in my now experiencing zero issues. Others may be experiencing other issues, such as WiFi drop out, which may not be fixed by this approach, however, for the issue I was experiencing.

I would encourage others on this thread to try this fix and report back to this forum.

Dave

ps. I forgot to add in that lengthy explanation above that no one else was having problems working with the original router except for rme running Mountain Lion. There were several other Macs, but they were not running the latest OS.

Finally the only way to solve my wifi drops is to downgrade to snow leo driver version.

All other solutions all over the www didn't help.

I know now what the Pro in MacBook Pro stands for: Pro --> Problem.. .

... .Arrogance of success is always before the downfall.. .

I've been experiencing this problem since upgrading to Mountain Lion on a mid-2010 Macbook. The problem appears to occur most often when trying to stream music accross the LAN or randomly when loading streaming content from the Internet. For example, it is common while streaming music to an Airport Express via iTunes. Other periods of 'high' traffic (file copies or large file downloads) are usually fine.

I just made the adjustment that was mentioned previously of setting the service order to try WiFi first rather than Bluetooth and some other connections. So far that seems to be providing me improvement, but I'll know for sure after a week or so of testing.

I've been experiencing this problem on an enterprise level Cisco Access Point inside of a Cisco 881W router. All other devices on the network never experience this problem -- iPad, Windows laptops, Roku Players, etc.

For refernce here is the output on the access point when I experience the disconnect:

## My Connection Drops

Jan 30 2013 14:05:52.203 CST: %DOT11-6-DISASSOC: Interface Dot11Radio0, Deauthenticating Station xxxx.xxxx.xxxx Reason: Sending station has left the BSS

Jan 30 2013 14:05:52.511 CST: %DOT11-7-AUTH_FAILED: Station xxxx.xxxx.xxxx Authentication failed

## I manually reconnect to the SSID via the menu bar

Jan 30 2013 14:06:05.589 CST: %DOT11-6-ASSOC: Interface Dot11Radio0, Station xxxx.xxxx.xxxx Associated KEY_MGMT[WPAv2 PSK]

If someone at Apple wants to reach out I can work with them to provide more detailed debugs on what is seen from the access point side and specific details of my Mac configuration.

Hello you all,

I also had the problem of a disconnecting wifi while my imac was sleeping. I did not have the reconnecting issue after sleep, but the lost connection issue during sleep which made it impossible to reach my imac for things like homesharing, apple tv or remote desktop. I have a late 2012 iMac with a clean ML 10.8.2 on it and wirelessly connected to an apple time capsule (same as an airport extreme). My partner has a mid 2007 iMac, also with an ML 10.8.2 on it.

I tried every single solution I could find on the internet, such as changing the router's security from wpa2 to wpa, changing the MTU from automatic to manual 1453, router reboots, re-installations, re-configurations, keychain clean-ups, everything.

Eventually I solved my problem with these steps and now it works as a charm. I can still find the iMac with the remote app, even after 12 hours of sleep:

My time capsule router is set on automatic MTU and encrypted with WPA2 and I use the 5Ghz network!

1. Cleaned all the wifi passwords in keychain on my iMac

2. Created a new network location in system preferences

3. In this location I deleted the bluetooth pan and bluetooth dun connection.

4. In this location I changed the preferred connection-order to wifi on #1 and ethernet on #2.

5. Restarted my iMac.

Now I still have a connection when it sleeps and I can wake it to low profile using the remote app (homesharing) and everything works fine.

Hope more people wille be helped by this.

BuMac

Saved! Thanks so very much.

Others might want to know that in my case turning bluetooth OFF was what worked for me.

Had not used Bluetooth since upgrading the OS, did so about a week ago and today was the 1st day since I had actually restarted the MacBook with bluetooth still on. Then wi-fi would not turn on. Thank goodness I have an iPad to search the web with.

Turned Bluetooth off, restarted the mac and hey presto - wi-fi is back on and connecting fine.

Teacher writing lessons at home working remotely on school network. No wi-fi, no network access, no lessons!

Can't do that!

Apple need to sort this one. People's jobs are affected.

After 4 days of Apple Care support and an overnight stay in Apple tech hospital, it turns out my Macbook Pro with Mountain Lion OS (10.8.2) had difficultly communicating with my Netgear CG3100D. Solution: Apple provided me with an AirPort Express and I turned the NAT and Wifi off on my Netgear modem/router. Note: had to also turn Bridge mode off on the Airport Express.

Upshot is that Apple products are not always compatible with other products and vice versa.

After 4 days of Apple Care support and an overnight stay in Apple tech hospital, it turns out my Macbook Pro with Mountain Lion OS (10.8.2) had difficultly communicating with my Netgear CG3100D. Solution: Apple provided me with an AirPort Express and I turned the NAT and Wifi off on my Netgear modem/router. Note: had to also turn Bridge mode off on the Airport Express.

Upshot is that Apple products are not always compatible with other products and vice versa.