Q: Late 2013 Macbook Pro Retina 13'' Wifi Issues

Sounds like you may have some trouble with interference. Microwave? The neighbour's network? Depending on atmospheric conditions, these interferences may differ across time...

What doesn't the terminal let you do? Were you able to copy the kext file into the systems library (/Systems/Library/Extensions; this is not the library in your home folder!). The commands in the terminal are to change the access rights and the ownership of the new driver from you to the system (root:wheel). I suspect that the copying of the new driver didn't go right either, otherwise you would probably not have any wifi at all at the moment because the system would not be allowed to use the driver anymore.

You could do everything through the terminal:

1) First download and extract the new driver to your Desktop. You should get a file called "IO80211Family.kext" on your Desktop.

2) Now open a terminal window (in Finder go to: Applications > Utilities > Terminal)

3) Save your original driver to your Desktop in the folder "DriverBck" using the following two commands in the terminal (line by line; enter in between):

    sudo mkdir ~/Desktop/DriverBck          (the terminal will ask for your password after you press enter)

    sudo cp -R /System/Library/Extensions/IO80211Family.kext ~/Desktop/DriverBck/IO80211Family.kext

4) Now only if the previous step went OK; copy the new driver from your Desktop to the Systems Library:

      sudo cp -R ~/Desktop/IO80211Family.kext /System/Library/Extensions/

5) Change the access rights abnd ownership of the new driver (line by line; enter in between):

     sudo chmod -R 755 /System/Library/Extensions/IO80211Family.kext

     sudo chown -R root:wheel /System/Library/Extensions/IO80211Family.kext

     sudo touch /System/Library/Extensions/

6) Reboot your system:

     sudo reboot

thnx for that topfjoer

will retry tomorrow like u described.

I couldn't change the short howto anymore so here's a small addition/change:

A better (safer) way of copying the new kext file from the Desktop to the Systems Library (step 4) is:

sudo rsync -av --delete ~/Desktop/IO80211Family.kext/ /System/Library/Extensions/IO80211Family.kext/

instead of:

sudo cp -R ~/Desktop/IO80211Family.kext /System/Library/Extensions/

To roll back copy the kext package from the "DriverBck" folder to your Desktop and repeat steps 4 to 6.

I have this issue with my home network and it is seriously annoying.

I have tried everything: removing keychain entries, creating new network location, resetting the SMC and nothing helped. Using old MBA driver didn't helped either =(

Since many issues are getting discussed here it would be nice if everyone commenting here writes the problem and wifi type in their signature

For example.

[wifi g/n, wifi drop, ping latency, wifi sleep]

[wifi n, wifi slow, ping latency, wifi sleep]

In my case

[wifi ac, ping latency, wifi sleep]

I received a call from Apple (about my new 15" MBP, ironically same issue on my new iMac 27" over wifi).  Sounds like they are working on a resolution to this and will send be sending me details about a fix they would like to test and it sounds like they are working on it for 10.9.2.  Crossing my fingers. 

I agree with nirmalts. Instead of just saying you have "problems", it would be helpful  to explain the type of problem and the network you're on.

In my case:

Networks tested: wifi n (2x) and g

Issues: Ping and other software (eg Safari) latency. Haven't had any issues with drops or reconnecting after sleep.

Change to older driver solved latency issues on g and 1 out of 2 n networks.

Thats good news that they "acknowledged" the problem in some way. I tested 10.9.2 beta and the problem is not addressed yet. Hope they do it before the final release

[wifi n/g/ac, ping latency, wifi sleep]

To make the process of swapping drivers a little safer I wrote a couple of Applescripts and combined them with the older MBA kext package and a short howto in a single zip file:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/s6un9ou3cnxvq2q/ReplaceDriver.zip

To replace your driver: download the above zip file to your Desktop, extract and follow the steps in the Howto file.

Needless to say I'm still not responsible if something would go wrong! Use at your own risk!

This weekend I cancelled my order for the sony vaio pro 13 because of, you guessed it, severe Wi-Fi problems.

A long thread (though less long than the IR-problem for the MBPr) on the Sony forum convinced me enough to cancel.

I also read a lot of articles about hardware problems after the windows 8.1 upgrade, so I became interested in switching over to Apple products (sorry for being off topic).

I have some questions which I hope some of you can answer

1. Are all MBPr affected by these Wifi issues or just a percentage? Or do some users just not notice their lack of connection.

2. Does the MBPr Wifi issue affect the range of connection compared with other laptops? (With the Sony Vaio Pro with Intel 7260 N network chip the connection quickly drops with weaker signals than - 60dbm rendering the device useless when traveling etc.)

3. Are the Wifi issues severe enough so you would advice someone to wait (or cancel) with the purchase of a MBPr? Or are the problems overcomeable (sorry for my English), combined with the hope of a software-fix.

@ Jane Sneijders
I read you were trying out the windows 8.1 network connectivity. Have you tried tweaking with the settings for the network chip in Windows 8.1? I read somewhere on the 179 pages for the vaio pro on the sony forum that it helped to set the energy output (something like that) to the networkchip to maximum.

I don't know exactly what it said, but I can reread the pages for you to help out ;-)

I think DotK said somewhere that the powersaving feature of the Haswell chip can be of influence of the fluctuating connectivity issue.

@joeri:

1) I have the feeling (not testable) that some people have had hardware problems, but that most of the issues result from software/driver issues. Some people may be more picky than others, so some may not notice (me - I test everything and hate it when stuff doesn't function perfectly ). I think the degree to which people are affected varies depending on specific combinations of hardware (e.g., type and age of router, type of protocol) and interference (the neighbour's network). I presonnally haven't experienced dropping connections or trouble with logging on. I did have problems with latency/slow software (e.g., Safari, Airplay). Apple tried to solve the dropping connection issue on the MBA with a driver update that for many actually introduced the latency issue. So if you don't have dropping connections, but do have latency issues, it's worth trying the older driver.

2) I tested that with iStumbler and the reach of my new MBP is just fine - not worse than my older MBP from 2010.

3) Depends. I tend to keep tinkering until I'm happy (enough). At the moment I can't run 11n reliably with the router I have at home, but 11g is fine. Also, 11n is fine on some other routers, strengthening my belief that my issues at least are software-related. I can live with that for now, anticipating that Apple will fix this. I think you have a higher chance of running into trouble if you have and older router.

@ Topfjoer ..thnx for the convenient script.Very much appreciated.

I tried it. The process worked fine.

Sadly I can t connect to my router with the old driver.....

I give up on trying to solve the matter.   For two weeks I felt like an unpaid Apple testing employee.

The fact that Apple is still not ackowledging the problem is so disappointing. 

The reports on the 10.9.2 beta are also not very promising.

Will bring back this macbook pro as well.

Maybe somehow the returning of two mbpro s because of  the same issue will channel feedback to the right persons in Cupertino. 

After two weeks of experimenting I am done with it.

Good luck everyone.

@joeri1974 thnx for your tips but I have windows 7 on my machine.

I finally got the courage to try rolling back to the original 2013 Macbook Air driver

I have a 15in rMPB Pro 2013; swapped three machines, all same issue: latency; dropped packets(no sleep isssues or dropped connections); wireless AC router

with the old driver; latency is fixed; like having a new machine; still dropped packets(but only on some networks); much improved but not completely fixed yet

Hopefully Apple will address this soon

Thank you for the detailed instructions

We have been discussing a lot on whether the ping latency is a bug or a "feature". For me personally, I do not face any problem due to this latency. My connection to WLAN AC is stable and internet speed never drops. On Safari and Chrome I do not see any page load problems. I only problem I face is that the iMac does not connect to Wifi after sleep. It seems to be fixed now (I will test it further and let you guys know)

Does anyone else with ping latency also have the same behaviour?

[wifi n/g/ac, ping latency, wifi sleep]