Wifi unstable

zSupp wrote:

My MacBook Air (MID 2012) keeps dropping the wifi connection after upgrading to OS X Mountion Lion.

Every couple of minutes the internet doesn't work but the wifi symbol says that it is still connected. After deactivating and reactivating the wifi it workes fine until the next wifi drop.

What I have alreday done:

- Reinstalled Mountion Lion (2x)

- Added other DNS Server

- Changed the MTU

- "KeepAlive" bash (ping router)

What should I do?

Did you remember to set the time on your computer after each reinstall of OS X ML?

Yes @Boca, I was also aware of this suggested solution. I changed my WAP/WAP2 mixed to only use WAP and removed the preference files to start from scratch. But same issues so far.

Just a few mins ago I called the Apple tech support, and tried to explain the situation and problem. Seems that they don't agree that this problem is related to their software and think third-party connection hardware/software (modem, router) made this.

Anyhow, I'm trying to do all of the suggested solutions again and see how it goes.

@Carol: I have only one preferred network here. I had seen this solution, but it is only related to those networks with similar properties. That has been said, with my experience this cannot solve such unstable connection problem at all.

I will post if any of the solutions can actually solve this problem.

I was tested all... nothing worked for me, only one thing (hours of test).

My router is very old, and to many drops since lion.

Well, MY SOLUTION:

BLOCK all traffic of 224.0.0.251 with little snich network monitor.

Seems to be working well now.

Boca Bull wrote:

My problem was completely solved by changing from WEP to WAP Personal on my router. Not WAP/WAP2 mixed. Straight WAP Personal, deleting the previous wifi network from network preferences and keychain access. Then automatically connecting to the new WAP connection. None of the custom manual tweaks in network settings worked but changing to WAP Personal was a 100% fix.

My router (Apple Airport Extreme) uses WPA 2. You kept saying WAP but I think you ment to say WPA. I also understand that there is plain WPA and also WPA 2. I did not have luck with WPA and WPA2 seems to be the default for the Airport Extreme router.

Also, one person, one or two messages back, said they have only one prefered network... Perhaps remove that prefered network, and then just re add it back on. I would also not mess with the MTU. I also have my router set to 802.11n (802.11a compatible).

Stay away from WEP security.

sorry about the typo.

if you're using Apple Airport Extreme probably you don't have the problem that we are dealing with (such as old router dlink-615). I also removed the preferred network and put it back again. No success so far.

Contact D link. http://www.dlink.com/us/en/home-solutions/support/product/dir-615-wireless-n-300 -router?revision=

or go to craigslist, look for electronics, lots of people are selling routers cheap. People are even giving them away free.

you can get a refurbished airport extreme from http://store.apple.com/us/product/FD031LL/A?fnode=0a2118df35f5f863305754e8c9c787 3f1edf9a581d860834fa253d553105c8ce7dd1b6ebd3b5d31095060fe8faf182ae

I don't know I am sorry.

The answer lies in the router.

I have a late 2008 15" MBP (5,1) with the AirPort Extreme (0x14E4, 0x8D) and Broadcom BCM43xx 1.0 (5.106.98.81.20). My router is a Buffalo WZR-HP-G300NH. I have the same problems as you guys - WiFi looks like it's connected, but will drop all connections. Strangely, I can still ping anywhere I want, but no other traffic works. It's like ICMP works but the TCP/UDP stack is breaking. I have gained nothing going from Snow Leopard to Mountain Lion (clean install) and this has really soured it for me. I hate when it breaks while I'm playing an online game, or chatting online with a friend.

Can anyone tell me where the kexts would be from SL? I have a backup.

10.8.1 can't come sooner.

Edit: I should say, I work in IT. I've tried changing my MTU, DNS, keeping a constant ping (keepalive), changing my router's channel, channel width, and nothing has worked. I'm using WPA2 Personal. The thing that boggles me is that it's seemingly random. One day I had it happen 5 times within 20 minutes. The next day, it didn't happen once. I didn't reboot in between.

do NOT mess with kext and other system files: it will not solve the problem and it can do a lot of harm.

I would create backups, obviously.

I tried one more time the kext from sow leopard available on the blog. IO80211family.kext contains all necessary drivers for wifi chip vendors, it's just packed inside the kext file.

However, it did not work! As I mentioned before, this will not solve the problem, maybe just make it little bit less irritating.

Interesting point is, if Ihave connected stream - video, audio or any ongoing connection, this will not be dropped. However, new websites can not be loaded, or they are loaded awfully slow. I thought that this for sure is a problem of DNS, but then I tried pinging IP address directly, and it did not work either - so it's not a problem of DNS.

Alright, I won't mess with the kexts. I was playing Garry's Mod today on my PC (I share internet from AirPort via ethernet from my MBP to my PC) and all of a sudden everything just stopped. I knew my connection dropped before the indicator had to tell me the connection died. I turned wifi off and on but it didn't save the connection, sadly.

my idea:

do not use apps like Little Snitch (and the like) at all,

do not mess with system files (like kext),

in general do not think "Windows": OS works different.

Believe it or not, some people like finer control on their operating system. I want to control what traffic goes in and out of my computer.

"it did not work!" isnt well. "didnt work for me" is fine.

Because the kext file in the blog Worked for me and antil today, are 3 days testings, no more wifi drops, wifi stable. Waking from sleep, and all the stuff and wifi OK.

I have broadcom driver, but atheros driver was worked for me perfect.

Only thing after install the kext, Repair permissions with Disk Doctor, and restart de Mac.

In the package are an utility to make a backup of your actual kext. You dont mess the system with this.

I dont know, is working fine for me, no more wifi problem.

Regards.

Reporting back from another experiment which solved the problem.

What I did with my router is basically filtering network access. This filtering can be done through MAC assignments. I assigned all MAC addresses and prevented any unassigned ones. With this approach I could disable the WPA and WEP authentications and still have secure connection.

No wifi drops anymore...