New Macbook Air - wifi connectivity problems

For whatever it's worth, I neglected to mention that "just before" the wireless tech had me turn off my bluetooth, the 1st tech had me "remove" the following two files from my network library:

com.apple.airport.preferences.plist

Networkinterface.plist

She had me drag them to trashcan.

Then the wireless guy got on the line and said to turnoff the bluetooth.

Perhaps it needs to me a combo of both of these fixes?

I have not had a drop since Monday.

I too have the MBA 2013 i7 802.11ac and the new Airport Time Capsule 3TB w/ AC, and waking from sleep the MBA won't connect to the network. The signal strength indicator is at max, i'm right next to the Time Capsule (one foot away) and I have no network connectivity.

I toggle off WiFi toggle it back on and WiFi works quite happily. Already had the Time Capsule replaced so it's likely not that.

Bluetooth is off and has always been off. I'm on 10.9.2.

Genius bar wont' do anything for the MBA, saying it works.

It'd be great if they replaced the lid where the antennae are but no luck there.

Any suggestions?

nycjdc1 wrote:

I too have the MBA 2013 i7 802.11ac and the new Airport Time Capsule 3TB w/ AC, and waking from sleep the MBA won't connect to the network. The signal strength indicator is at max, i'm right next to the Time Capsule (one foot away) and I have no network connectivity.

I toggle off WiFi toggle it back on and WiFi works quite happily. Already had the Time Capsule replaced so it's likely not that.

Bluetooth is off and has always been off. I'm on 10.9.2.

Genius bar wont' do anything for the MBA, saying it works.

It'd be great if they replaced the lid where the antennae are but no luck there.

Any suggestions?

In Energy settings, uncheck the wake up from sleep on network access. It solved the problem for me. The workaround was ok with me as I do not have an Apple router and the option anway works only with that.

This is not the Airport Time Capsule device which is basically a backup device that works with Mac's Time Machine software. I have a Passport that does same thing. What I was referring to is a piece of software on your Mac contained in Library/Preferences file folder. The file names are:

com.apple.airport.preferences.plist

Networkinterface.plist

These are the files the tech dumped first before turning off Bluetooth and I haven't had a single drop since Monday morning and I swear my "speed" has doubled as well.

These are "apparently" at least some of the software that doesn't work right which the 10.9.3 fix before end of March is "supposed" to fix.

If you aren't comfortable trying this on your own - call Mac Support and ask them about these two files and that you are aware the 10.9.3 version is supposed to fix but in the meantime they "should" walk you through it and remove those files.

If you want, however, the steps are:

1. Go to Finder and open it.

2. Hold down "option key" on computer and go up to finder bar.

3. Hit "Go" and a dropdown box will open. You will see "Library" there. Note: if you let go of "option key", Library will disappear - hold it down and it will reappear.

4. Select Library

5. Select folder called "Preferences"

6. In that folder, the two files I listed above will be in there.

7. Select them one at a time and drag them down to your trashcan

8. Trashcan should be down on your dock

Granted, who knows how many other "bugs" are in these MacBook Airs -- but this certainly has worked great for me.

We will see when the update comes out and I turn back on my Bluetooth!

Good luck!

I tried the procedure above, nothing changed obviously.

The problem is the wifi driver.

what nirmalts said.

"uncheck the wake up from sleep on network access."

three days straight i haven't had an issue anymore with connecting to TIme Capsule WAP.

Thanks!

nirmalts wrote:

nycjdc1 wrote:

I too have the MBA 2013 i7 802.11ac and the new Airport Time Capsule 3TB w/ AC, and waking from sleep the MBA won't connect to the network. The signal strength indicator is at max, i'm right next to the Time Capsule (one foot away) and I have no network connectivity.

I toggle off WiFi toggle it back on and WiFi works quite happily. Already had the Time Capsule replaced so it's likely not that.

Bluetooth is off and has always been off. I'm on 10.9.2.

Genius bar wont' do anything for the MBA, saying it works.

It'd be great if they replaced the lid where the antennae are but no luck there.

Any suggestions?

In Energy settings, uncheck the wake up from sleep on network access. It solved the problem for me. The workaround was ok with me as I do not have an Apple router and the option anway works only with that.

I had the same problem. MacBook Air 10.9.2 The wireless network would disconnect every time the computer would sleep. I spent at least an hour troubleshooting with Apple third level tech support. The conclusion was a corrupt com.apple.Bluetooth.plist file. The fix was to turn off bluetooth, delete the plist file and turn on Bluetooth again. I no longer have the problem. I hope this helps someone else. Good luck🙂

To add my story to the countless others, I have been on the phone w/Apple Support a total of 41 hours and talked to 18 different folks including senior tech reps. The Air has been in for "repair" 3 times. The issue remains - frequent dropped connection. I have been told the following by tech support:

"you will have to live with it", "you are making this up", "you are not cooperative with us", "there is nothing wrong with the machine", and my all time favorite "maybe you have electricity issues".

Every other device runs smoothly. Everywhere I take the Air it drops connection while all other devices hum along. This has been going on since the machine was taken out of the box. I called on day one I was told "you have to give it a few days to warm up". It take the machine 4 minutes to shut down and and another 4 to start back up.. The latest from Apple is "there is nothing more we can do". I bought the machine in July '13. They refuse to go good on a replacement. I keep climbing the food chain of tech support only to get the run around over and over again.

Most of the suggestions on this board I have tried to no avail. The 3 trips to the Apple repair folks yieled "repairs" on trip one and three and nothing was done on trip two because "problem could not be duplicated". I put a piece of tape on the machine and marked it prior to shipping - machine came back w/tape in same place and no evidence they opend the machine. I"m so disgusted with Apple and their dismal customer service. CLearly it's either a lemon machine which is fine, just replace it. Or the issue is larger and they dont care.

Moral of story, I will never buy another Apple device. Sorry for the lengthy rant. Good luck to all of you

2,000 replies and half a million views, and still apple do nothing to resolve this... Just appaling.

My MBA has worked fine since the 10.9.2 release.

Previously I had all the same issues.

Dunno why people are still having problems

It depends on router. After two nonfunctioning routers we have had no wifi problems since Netgear D6200 at home. In my workplace first time I open the Macbook in mornings everything is fine and after first sleepmode the connection is lost. Sometimes it comes back but normally it doesn't untill the next morning- funny.

Yes, the router has something to do with this. Also I believe we are looking at more than one issue that people have been having, and only some of the issues have been documented enough for Apple to address with previous updates.

Not everyone will have the problem that appears unfixed for now, and none of the proposed solutions work.

Granted some people may have had multiple issues and most of the people may have had most of their problems fixed by the latest round of software updates and fixes proposed here.

The problem that has remained has been spontaneous disconnects of Haswell MBA (and possibly other Haswell MB) from certain routers. The disconnects are generally bad enough to require a reboot of the Mac in order to restore wifi connectivity, and disconnects can come in minutes to hours without a noticeable pattern.

Of the 2,000 people who have replied to this thread and half a million views, I would guess that only a fraction of those people are affected by this problem, the rest may be fixed by undergoing the patches and workarounds previously mentioned.

I have resorted to adding a specific base station for the 2013 MacBook Air to use in the office, and it works without failure. Connecting to the existing base station causes disconnects with the 2013 MacBook Air, a problem that my 2011 MBA didn't have and none of my other devices have either.

I don't have any problem connecting the MBA with any other base station I regularly use, which includes a N version of Airport Extreme and an AC Aiport Extreme as well as wifi tethering to iPads/iPhones.

At this point the only suggestion I have is to unplug your router and bring it down to the Genius Bar along with your MBA so they can see the disconnects happen. Since my problematic router is installed in a factory, unplugging it to bring it down isn't an option.

Otherwise, it might be good to report what router brand, model, AND firmware version, along with any settings you may have. It could be a specific chipset and/or setting on the router that is causing the disconnects, and give Apple a clue on where to look to prevent this frustrating issue from happening.

It nothing to do with your routers, i regularly connect my mac to about 6 different routers, all different makes, and after the MBA has gone to sleep, it wont reconnect untill you disable then re-enable the Wifi. Sometimes I even need to reboot to get it working, suggesting that people take there routers is quite frankly ridiculas, who is going to do that. What you're basically doing there is fobbing people off. Very bad customer service.

The issue is with the power saving features of te haswell chipset used by the macbook air, and is a known issue by both apple and Intel. Rather annoyingly i also have a Dell Powerbook with exactly the same chip set and exactly the same issues. There are also reports of Sony laptops witht he same problem.

The fix is either going to be firmware, or replacement hardware. In the mean time disabling Bluetooth might work for you, but it seems pretty hit and miss and its hardly an acceptable fix.

Come on apple/intel sort it out. We expect this crap from broadcom but not from you guys.

I don't know if you are experiencing the same issue as I am, but I can definitely replicate the issue on my 2013 MBA, and I experience ZERO disconnect issues with the second router, whilst sitting in the same spot I can experience lagging and disconnects, requiring a restart, when I connect to the original router.

No changes other than connecting to a different router.

I'd like to see the reference for the Dell model problems that you are citing too. Perhaps there is a common firmware or hardware issue that is causing abnormal function on the MBA.

yes, there is, its an intel Haswel issue. Just google it. You will see.