Late 2013 Macbook Pro Retina 13'' Wifi Issues

Yep - agree with all comments.

I have been on phone with care - they send me to genius - genius say arrange a swap - spoke to apple re swap but no point in swapping until apple nail the problem as I will just get another machine with same problem. A real shame that Apple are not taking this a bit more seriously - if this was about windows people would be getting very irrate.

Here people are being very constructuve and saring sensible testing but apple seem to continue to ignore that a problem exists.

I have bought a a new retina mac book pro to replace a 3.5 year old mac book pro - sadly my old machine overall is quicker than the new machine - the only let down which drags the new machine behind my old machine is the terrible network performance.

I know someone said change the wifi base unit to channel 6 to fix the problem (a tad difficult when the wifi access point is not yours - can just imagine a trip into starbucks and ask for a latte and can you set you wifi network to channel 6 please) not really a suitable fix.

I have till 1st of Jan to get new hardware - I am holding out for apple to wake up and will swap to a new machine in late dec in the vague hope that apple are on a new batch of components or realise how to sort the firmware.

Ideally if it is firmware - I would gladly sacrifice some battery life and have decent wifi (the point that I have just the same problems when on mains power I guess indicates this is not a power save item that inteligently uses power).

I would ask everyone keeps posting - the hotter we make this dicussion group the more chance there is that Apple will take notice and get it fixed.

Good luck! In my case, the hardware exchange didn't change anything ... Like I wrote before, the woman from Apples technical support told me I could exchange it a second time but doubts that this will change anything.

So I'm sticking to my second rMBP 15" and wait for a firmware update. In the meantime I'm using an ethernet cable wehenever I can.

This whole thing is very annoying and not what you expect when buying a 2500€ machine.

I'm having the same problem with my new MBPr 15" I got about 3 1/2 weeks ago. The thing is, I don't remember the internet being rubbish at the very start. It only seems to be the last couple of weeks that it's started to get slower - mostly getting stuck for a bit half way through loading the next page. I had a load of extensions added to Safari, and I foolishly assumed it was just those. Now I've finally taken them all off, unticked everything I can - and found out it changed nothing - I can see that lots of other people are experiencing the same thing.

Is the 2 weeks return thing universal - or do people with Apple Care get longer to return their machine?

The fact that store managers are routinely denying that these problems are in fact a real problem - even when the evidence is right in front of them - suggests corruption from above, i.e. they've been told about the problem, and they've been told what to say when a customer comes in. I'm seriously not impressed with that.

£2000 on this machine, and the wifi *****.

I went through 3 rMBP Pro 15 with nVidia; all had same issues; all were exchanged at genius bar as they could not figure out what the issue was and it was within 14 days; I had variable ping rates and dropped packets on many different networks where my old computer worked fine and other Macs had no issues

I spent 90 minutes on the phone with Applecare; they either kept trying to tell me that nothing was wrong or it was my network/router; I was pretty persistent

Finally they ran a test on my mac which he forwarded results to Apple engineering

I got a call back a day later that this is a known issue and they are working on an update

Hopefully we will get a firmware update soon; really annoying a $2500 laptop with crappy Wifi; I nearly bought a USB wireless card before I got the call back

If you look around the same problem is being reported in mackbook air & imac threads here and @ macrumors.

As mentioned few posts before I made a test in a store with 5 different macs - 4 were affected - only old macbook pro classic was OK.

This problem is not limitted to rMBP. For MBA its already more than half a year and NOTHING has been done to resolve it!

Maybe we all just need to keep replacing.

I was out of my 2 week replace policy but because i went to genius they said they would arrange a swap (mine is a china build as upgraded processor).

When I called to plan in swap they said I had up to a month to takeup the swap - so I have till 1st jan.

perhaps all on here should push for a swap - sale of goods act etc - the more that keep getting swapped will most deffinatly get apples attention as I assume machines which are swapped get refurbed and sold for less margin plus the cost of sending a replacement/pickup old machine.

I am going to swap mine over xmas period when it is least inconvienient - if the replacement is still a problem as i expect it will be - I will push for another swap in jan and another in feb - as we are all saying - we are paying big bucks for a product that should work (flawlessly like previous MBPs in my opinion) - I have not given apple a chunk of cash to take a step backwards.

I encountered mentioned issues with my rMBP 13 Late 2013 only at home. I hade the same picture: wi-fi connection on my MBA 2011 is stable without lags and interruptions, but on rMBP it is horrible. What is really weird that I have very confident connection at the office on rMBP. It made me think that situation can be with interoperability of MacBook and router, moreover I have really old router at home: Tenda W268r N-Router.

So, I opened router configurations and changed it's WAN Settings from using "mixed b/g/n mode" to "g mode" - my router doesn't have just "n mode". After 5 hours - no issues and interruptions, continue observation.

Obviously it can't be considered as a fix - just workaround until Apple provide corresponding firmware update.

Well - I have at home newest Time Capsule with ac wifi. Cannot imagine better match for new rMBP.

Still the issue is present (my two old MBA works flawelesly)

As a reminder, Apple does NOT check these forums. If you want Apple to resolve an issue, submit your feedback directly to Apple using their feedback link:

http://apple.com/feedback/macosx.html

I want this fixed as much as anyone, so please join me and submit feedback so something can actually be done! Thanks.

Feedback submitted.

For what it's worth--

I purchased two (2) rMBP around the end of November for our company who uses a Cisco-based Wireless-N network. I quickly discovered the wireless connectivity drops and high ICMP ping response times. (I believe the two issues are mutually exclusive, with the connectivity drops being the more pressing issue). I opened up a case with Apple support, which was escalated, and ultimately the two machines were swapped at the Genius Bar for new hardware within the 14-day purchase window. Apple wanted my old machines in order to have an example so that engineering could bench test the hardware. My case was also esclallated to an 2nd level support enginneer. The new machines produced (and continue to produce) the same behavior, so I worked with Apple support to provide packet captures using a diagnostic tool that they provided me. The last status was that there was no concrete fix, and that engineering was working on a fix.

Also worth mention- I do not experience the issue on my Wireless-G network at home; the issues only seem to appear for me on Wireless-N. I use my Wireless-G network at home nightly without issue. (I use Buffalo WHR-HP-G54 APs running DD-WRT). Our office uses Cisco "Small Business Pro" access points; these are set up for Wireless-N. We had adjusted a setting from 20Mhz to 40MHz (and back again) at the suggestion of something I had read while researching this issue-- but the issues still exist (on the Macs only; Windows PCs are fine).

Also-- While waiting in line at the Genius bar to swap the original machines, I decided to see if I could reproduce the issue while in the Apple Store. Interestingly, the ping times at the Apple Store were sub 1ms and I did not notice a drop. I wasn't able to test for very long, perhaps 5 minutes. So I can't say that this was a terribly scientific test, but I was suprised that there seemed to be no issues at all at the Apple store.Presumably the store uses AirPort A/C and the latest & greatest hardware, but the associate at the store could not confirm or deny that.

Thanks dmk355, that's good to know. It shouldn't be a hardware issue because my MBPs worked fine under 10.6.8, but I'm glad to hear your case got escalated.

My problem is quite similar, you can read about it here. I also found that changing to 802.11a - 802.11b/g (as opposed to "N") was a partial solution. It brought my download speeds back up from 10 to 30mbps, but it's still not the 60mbps I used to get.

Dmk355

You are desrcibing my problem almost exactly as in my thread.

As I mention there, I have tested the same network with a USB-wifi-adapter from D-Link. The adapter presents the same issue as the built-in airport device, this suggests that there is an issue with the software and not the hardware. Just for fun i tested the external D-Link adapter in vm-ware fusion (the usb port is directly forwarded to the guest OS, windows 7 in this case) and the connection presents no problems.

I'm not sure if mine is solved permanently, but it has been working all morning now, after barely working at all.

After emailing Apple support, and got a response this morning. I did what the email suggested, and just that process seems to have been enough to fix it.

The only thing I can think of that might have fixed it is that when I 1st ran the 'Wireless Diagnostics', I had to enter my computer password, and it asked me if I would allow it to access it all the time - or something - something about a keychain. That's the only change I made to my system.

The email from Apple said at the bottom that I shouldn't post it in any forums - including this one - but basically all I did was - Option click on the WiFi symbol in the top bar, then Open Wireless Diagnostics and just follow what it asked. I haven't yet sent the logs to them yet as their haven't been any problems since then.

Today I got a brand new MacBook Pro 15" Retina in exchange. Unpacked it, booted, open a terminal and do the usual ping test and guess what? Same problem.

I call up Apple Support and their "solution" is to point me to the local repair center where they changed almost every part in my previous Macbook to no avail.

This is totally unacceptable. Can't Apple just admit that they screwed up?