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seb101 Author

Level 1

23 points

Wifi disconnects after sleep and takes long time to reconnect with Mavericks

Since upgrading to Mavericks whenever my MacBook Air goes to sleep (if I leave it idle) the wifi disconnects and it can take up to a minute to reconnect when it wakes.

Basically what happens is, as soon as it wakes I have no internet connection, the WiFi indicator is pulsing, meaning it is searching for networks, but it takes ages to find any, then after some time, usually between 30 secs and a minute all the networks in my building pop up and it instantly at that point reconnects to my WiFi network.

It is incredibly frustrating I was so used to the Mac being an instant on tool, now it takes longer to get on the internet than booting up my windows PC.

Any ideas what might have caused this?

Posted on Oct 28, 2013 4:08 AM

483 replies

mikkelnl

Level 1

5 points

Nov 1, 2013 1:02 AM in response to seb101

Also to add some info: I experienced the same issue after a restart, so it's not only when waking up from sleep mode.

ToniBG

Level 1

0 points

Nov 3, 2013 3:55 AM in response to seb101

Following your lead, I fixed the issue by unchecking

System Preferences > Energy Saver > Put hard disks to sleep when possible

System Preferences > Energy Saver > Wake for network access

Hope this fix helps anyone

djs99

Level 1

0 points

Nov 3, 2013 4:02 AM in response to nixwizard

I've noticed this pattern as well. Dan

mikkelnl

Level 1

5 points

Nov 3, 2013 9:16 AM in response to seb101

Hmm, I don't seem to have this option?

System Preferences > Energy Saver > Wake for network access

Could you please provide a screenshot, it might be the language (I'm running Dutch). Or is it not available on a Macbook Pro 15" Retina, early 2013.

Nov 3, 2013 11:57 AM in response to mikkelnl

I've actually found that if I turn off Bluetooth, this problem doesn't occur. Worth a try as it was an instant fix for me, and when I look back, it started happening after I enabled Bluetooth for the first time on this Macbook (brand new 2013 Air).

ToniBG

Level 1

0 points

Nov 3, 2013 1:44 PM in response to mikkelnl

mikkelnl

Level 1

5 points

Nov 3, 2013 11:54 PM in response to ToniBG

Thanks, didn't know this option is only visible when while charging 😉 it's not there when using the battery...

Nov 4, 2013 8:53 AM in response to AndrewFlintoff

Oh wow, this actually worked for me. Toggling bluetooth on and off is far less annoying that toggling wifi 🙂

Nov 4, 2013 11:46 AM in response to nixwizard

I tried too it's seems to work on my Macbook Pro 🙂

Eric Root

Level 10

684,567 points

Nov 4, 2013 11:58 AM in response to seb101

Send Apple feedback. They won't answer, but at least will know there is a problem. If enough people send feedback, it may get the problem solved sooner.

Feedback

Nov 4, 2013 12:04 PM in response to seb101

I talked to a "genius" at the Apple store, and he told me that if you're running off battery, wi-fi will automatically turn off if your display goes to sleep; this has apparently been part of the OS since a few iterations back. To get around this, you need to set the "turn display off after" timer in the energy saver preference panel to a longer period of time or never.

To prevent wi-fi from turning off when you're plugged in, check "Wake for Wi-Fi network access" in the power adapter tab of the energy save preference pane.

He suggested using "Caffeine," a free app you can download from the app store to prevent your display from going to sleep; you can toggle Caffeine on and off from the menu bar (instead of having to open up the energy saver preference pane).

I'm a bit worried that preventing my display from turning off will shorten the display life, but it seems this is the only way to ensure that wi-fi doesn't get disconnected.

Hope that helps.

seb101 Author

Level 1

23 points

Nov 5, 2013 6:50 AM in response to scientiffic

I think the 'Genius' misunderstood the issue. Yes, WiFi has been turned off during sleep for many versions of the operating system, and I expect it to be, it would waste a lot of power to leave it on. The problem is that before Mavericks (in Mountain Lion) when you 'woke' the computer it would reconnect instantly to the network, or at least within a couple of seconds. Now it takes a long long time to reconnect, far longer that most computers take to find and connect to a brand new network. There is clearly an issue here - whether its power management, or bad drivers... who knows...

Nov 6, 2013 10:13 PM in response to seb101

PROBLEM SOLVED!!!

Was in contact with Apple Support Chat (amazing support as usual).

Resetting the System Management Controller solved my WLAN issue:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964?viewlocale=en_US

Now if my Mac comes back from sleep, WLAN is immediately available and stable, as it was with Mountain Lion. Great!! 🙂

If resetting the SMC does not help, the second option is to reset the PRAM

http://support.apple.com/kb/PH14222?viewlocale=en_US

regards

Roger

Reforger

Level 1

7 points

Nov 9, 2013 2:57 AM in response to seb101

This may solve your issues too:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5537854

Nov 9, 2013 1:55 PM in response to seb101

Are any of you running DropBox?

I have found that if I quit DropBox I won't ever have an issue when I wake from sleep with connecting back to WiFi.

WIth DropBox running, when I wake my machine it shows connected to WiFi, but no applications will communicate with the Internet. I must turn WiFi off and back on to recover.

Wifi disconnects after sleep and takes long time to reconnect with Mavericks