After update to Lion, Wi-Fi does not turn on

I spent 4 hours trying to edit those ffffff... files. Everything goes good until that vi editing part in terminal. I just can't get what am I doing wrong

Is it possible to copy those files to their places without editing? May I ask you to send me those 4 files to jesterro[at]gmail .com please?

Sorry for my English.

Had this problem last March. Tried all the fixes and nothing worked. I was just about ready to lose my late 2008 MBP, then all of a sudden it worked and has until last night. I have been following all the major threads about this thinking I'm pretty lucky. I did everything I could to get it to fail and it just wouldn't. Then last night I was streaming to my Pioneer AVR while BBQing and it went dead and I could not get a WiFi connection even though the menubar icon said I was connected. But the Control Panel said I wasn't.

From what I have been experiencing this issue goes from seeminly hardware to software to "Act of God" related. I have not been able to pin it down. Last night I restored to previous OS versions where it worked, and it failed. I see people stating that it worked fine in SL, but not in ML. Mine won't work in any OS. I can sit and click on the "Turn WiFi On" button a billion times and nothing. Did the scripts, did the file/folder editing, did the router adjustments. Still nothing. Although it was working just fine 5 minutes/weeks+ before with the same gear set the way it is now. Only the MBP can't connect, everything else no problem. Also thought that it could be from the fact that the upper part along the hinge of my MBP gets severely hot. That would be heardware failure. So . . . I'm lost.

I've just used 2yb's script in Terminal...And so far - amazing - it works. On the second restart wifi magically came back on. I can't quite believe it, although early days yet. Thank you 2yb.

Incidentally, this is the first time I've used Terminal, and it's slightly intimidating, but if you follow the instructions very carefully it works perfectly. You do need to do the editing in Terminal, but the instructions worked for me. Remember not to include the title of each script and not to start with a blank line, and that you have to put the scripts in the correct files and folders.

If you are unsure if you have done it correctly you can just trash the folders (from finder) and start again.

Glad you finally got it working.

One thing to note. If the computer ever shuts off without going through restart/shut-down sequence, i.e. if battery dies on laptop or power is cut off on non-laptop; then the wifi may not work on the first time you power the computer back up. This is because the script relies on the proper restart/shut-down sequence. If this happens, powerup and then reboot. It should start working again.

I found a typo in my vi directions.

Original direction:

b. press the "x" key. This will put the vi editor in edit mode

Fixed direction:

b. press the "i" key. This will put the vi editor in edit mode

Sorry for this confusion.

This fix works well. The key is enabling the root user when setting it all up. Thanks again!

Infuriatingly the problem has returned, despite the 2yb's fix which worked for a while.

This is what seems to happen:

The Wifi is working fine for a variable amount of time. Then it drops the signal, or loses the signal. Then it starts looking for a Wifi signal. At this point the Wi-Fi indicator still shows all its bars. However, it can't find the Wifi signal and the internet doesn't work. On some occasions it finds the signal and goes back to normal. However, on other occasions it is not able to find the signal however long you leave it. I then try to turn the Wifi off and on again. I right click on the Wifi signal and turn off the Wifi. The Wifi icon, as expected turns to white triangle without any bars. However, it is then not possible to turn it back on again, either by right clicking on it, or in network connections.

I will then restart the computer. Sometimes it starts working again, although usually not for long. Othertimes, the white triangle remains and it says 'no hardware installed' when I click on the Wifi icon. Sometimes this continues for several hours or even days. Then for no clear reason it all starts working again

I have tried absolutely everything that I can find to fix this:

-Reset the PRAM and SMC

-Delete the system configurations folder in Library>Preferences

-Change lots of settings in Network connections

-2yb's script above

Most of these sort out the problem for a few hours/days/weeks, but it always comes back.

At one point, stopping using Safari and changing to Firefox sorted out the problem. This worked for a couple of weeks, and I could recreate the problem by opening Safari, and I thought it was related to Safari. But, as always the problem came back, even with Firefox.

I've just reinstalled Mountain Lion (as I think this problem only started after installing Mountain Lion, although this could of course be coincidence). Wifi working now, but I expect the problem will recur soon.

Just to add, it is definitely not a problem with the router as other Mac and phones etc all working fine.

I get the feeling, that there is some software bug, in which when the Wifi loses a connection it sometimes turns itself off, and it becomes unable to turn itself on again and it all goes wrong. But I can't for the life of me work out where the problem is or how to fix it. Needless to say the Apple Genius Bar people haven't suggested anything cleverer.

If anyone has got any further ideas or solutions, please, please post it.

saul_eye

I've found one strange dependence!

It's happening if I switching off and start laptop again with connected USB Mouse (Logitech M500).

But 2yb's fix working good!

I have been dealing with this issue for months. Finally, 2yb's fix solved it. Thank you very much.

It just happened to me last night after an update. I tried all the suggestions except the script which I didn't find until today. Nothing worked after many restarts. I reinstalled mountain lion through disk recovery because that recognised my wifi automatically at start up. Then I did an SMC reset (just in case) used disk utility to verify disk, then permissions lots of mistakes in the log then repaired disk permissions. It worked, recognising my wifi again just like it did before the update and is working now.(late 2008 13 2GHz duo with ssd and 2 GB RAM) MacBook. What a little workhorse, battered and keys missing but a little beauty.

This is the strangest computer problem I have ever had. It has now not happened for about 2 months, despite having happened almost continually for the preceding few months. The only thing that I have changed was to turn off my Magic Mouse, which I hadn't noticed was sitting under a pile of papers on my desk. I have no idea if this is related - could the Mouse wifi have been causing some sort of conflict, as per Jesterro above?

The script worked for me initially. However, a couple weeks ago the machine was restarted and the wifi didn't come back with it. I connected the machine to an Ethernet port on my home network. Rebooted twice and it came back. Works fine as of this post.

Hi 2yb,

Thanks so much for solving the wifi problem. I had this problem after i upgrading from 10.8.4 to 10.8.5, how could this problem be?

I guess you may report the bug to Apple if you know whats going on with this problem. It may helps so many people with this wifi problem.

Hi 2yb

I tried all the above but didn't understand very well how to do it...

I read another discussion when you explained step by step what to do..but after creating the files with the "touch command", you say...then using an editor, paste the contents ...

My quiesiton is..how do I open this files in an editor? ..what kind of editor?..how do i do that?

when I try to edit form the Vi editor, the terminal says me (permission Denied)

What can I do with this?