2012 Retina Macbook Pro WiFi problem

I have this problem too, but only since the latest firmfare and 10.8.3 upgrade.

It worked just fine before.

Yes, the same story here! Hope they will come up with a fix soon!

+1

Same problem here too (MacbookPro Retina 13", bought in France, Late 2012, 8Gb, 160Gb running the latest flavour of 10.8.3), I use it in different locations with Cisco, various Netgear(quite old, and very recent), Dlink, Linksys and Apple based WiFi networks with the very same issue: it works for an undetermined period of time, then fail, no error reported, if in Safari, it just waits for ever to load the page, if in MS Outlook (I know, I should not use it) it reports it can't connect to server... and so on... all other devices (iPhones, other Macbooks, PCs, iMacs) remain completely unaffected and continue working seamlessly. If I stop the WiFi or select another network, reselect the one I was connected to before then it works again like it should, for, again, an undetermined period of time !!! it could be 1 minute, or 1 hour. Definitely switching off Bluetooth, or changing MTU size to 1453 doesn’t solve the issue.

Only the "Retina" seems to have this annoying behaviour.

Got fed up today and called Apple support, I have an appointment in 4 days to swap my unit for a new one. (At no cost).

I am not really sure that it will solve the issue to be honest, but I will give it a go and will post back here the results after restoring the software from TimeMachine and a few days of testing.

Everyone, seriously - try this first. Nothing gets deleted, its saved in a backup folder. This fixed my wireless issues! I copied this out of the previous link to make it easy to find:

0. Forget everything above.
1. Start terminal
2. cd Library/LaunchAgents
3. mkdir Back
4. mv *.plist Back
5. cd /Library/LaunchAgents
6. sudo mkdir Back
7. sudo mv *.plist Back
8. cd ../LaunchDaemons
9. sudo mkdir Back
10. sudo mv *.plist Back
11. Restart Computer (TopLeft Corner Apple than Restart)

WiFi should work normaly.

Hi Astropunk...

I just read your message, and there are a few things that I find strange.

1) The same actions are done twice to the same folder /Library/launchAgents

2) in my case this folder contains only one .plist entry for apple, with settings for the addressbook only and a few other .plist files for other software vendors. As these are "configuration files", I would NOT want to remove them, so your *.plist is probably a shortcut which could cause issues to some people, I am not sure I would advise to simply remove (move) all files like this.

3) in LaunchDaemons, I have no .plist files from apple !!!

Could you please give some explanations of what this was supposed to achieve apart from moving some configuration files used by software which in my case have nothing to do with networking ?

Maybe, there is a .plist file, elsewhere, which is the cause of this WiFi failure problem, but, once again, in my case, it doesnt seem to be in these folders... well, if it is, it is hidden to my administrative rights !!

maybe, the good files are in the third folder which was replaced by the second copy of "Library/LaunchAgents" ?

I really dont know why - but whatever files get moved are either get re-generated or are un-needed. I just followed the steps as a last resort before wiping out the whole OS and starting clean, and everything worked. It's worth a shot, and you can move the files back if nothing improves. So far I see no ill effects, but I also dont use the address book.

I am not worried much about the address book as such, but, in my case, a few other applications are using .plist files, and I am not really going to erase files which are obviously not related in any way to networking.

I am also having the Wi Fi dropping out problem, not only with my MBP Retina but also with my I Mac & Mac Pro.The problem started for me after the installation of Mountain Lion 10.8.3, i had no issues prior to Mountain Lion. I was previously using Lion, no issues whatsover ! Someone else mentioned this particular problem is an Apple Lap Top issue, we have two other Apple lap tops both running Lion & neither have any Wi Fi issues at all, we've had other apple lap tops in the past without problems with Wi Fi. In my opionion there is a fundamental flaw within Mountain Lion & Wireless i hope Apple resolves the problem soon.

Hi Michael, I also have Mountain Lion on all my Macs (iMac 27 i7, iMac 20, iMac intel 24, MacBookPro 13 and 15) with no WiFi issues, I only have issues with the Retina 13". Maybe it is Software related, I can't say, but then it is driver related and not an issue linked to the OS which can be found then on other machines.

Hi Charles,

Thanks for your reply, i must admit i'm not really sure, you're obviously quite experienced with Macs & there may be an issue with the hardware on your MBP although in my opinion it's probably more likely to be software related. A few days ago i installed Mountain Lion 10.8.3 on two machines previously running Lion, neither machine had any Wi Fi problems with Lion, since the ML installation i have had problems with both although to a lesser extent with the I Mac, the Mac Pro however works fine for a bit, next thing it wants 5 mins plus to load a web page, i have had the Mac Pro 4 years without a sniff of a problem with wireless until ML, as mentioned i have a similar problem with the I Mac except that it works Okay for longer before it plays up. 4 days ago i bought a Retina MBP & after a day or so i updated it to ML 10.8.3 & every now & then i get the same issue of pages taking too long to load, although as with the I Mac the problem is less severe than with my Mac Pro, i have another MBP still running Lion that i have used quite a bit over the last week with zero Wi fi issues. I have another Mac running Snow Leopard also no Wi Fi problems so i'm certain that my wireless network is okay, incidentally my Wi fi is an Extreme base station & two Express's so there isn't a third party compatibility issue. I have more recently istalled ML onto a Mac Book so i'll keep a close eye on that !!

I too have been having the same issue.

I've just recently updated to 10.8.3 , and so far so good. It's only been about an hour though, so take it with a grain of salt.

If the issues still continue, I'm going to do a fresh install of the OS and restore from a Time Machine backup.

I'll keep you guys updated with the performance.

I am confused now... I have upgraded a MacbookPro 13" belonging to one of my sons, he had Snow Leopard on it, so I upgraded first to Lion, then ML. I had his MBP next to my Retina 13" and his MBP started showing the same weird wifi hickups... I disabled Bluetooth and changed the MTU size to 1453 and it seemed a bit better, so after all, maybe, it is linked with the installation of ML. As it works without any issues on other machines, I am still temptd to say that it is drived related within ML. Like the fact that Apple changed the way security is handled with NAS systems from Lion onwards..

Well, tomorrow, I will get a new Retina, and I'll re-install it. We'll see. I'll keep everybody posted whether it makes a change or not.

Hi,

MBP swapped for a brand new one, restore done from Time Machine, so the software is identical. I must admit that if it has been working OK this morning, yesterday evening, it wasn't...

Therefore, there is something with ML which is wrong...

I made a stupid mistake when I purchased this laptop, I was too stingy, and go the 128Go hard drive instead of the 512Go version. The guy from Genius yesterday advised me where to get a good compatible disk and explained to me how easy it was to do the swap, I am going to order one and do it. As I do it, I will do a clean install of ML and keep you informed.

This issue is really annoying !!!! Apple Support could do something about that !!!

Hi,

I nearly became mad today as my new MBPR dropped the WiFi connection each 5 seconds from my bedroom... I had to use a MBP next to it to do my research, and I found something interesting which seemed to be working (well, so far so good) it has been working for 15 minutes instead of 5 seconds... 😝

Give it a try and let us know..

rename /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration folder to /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration.backup

shutdown the machine

while off, hold Shift-Control-Option-Power for 8 seconds then release

Log on

It should work...

I found this on www.markoncode.com