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Losing network or internet connection after sleep/wake

I've created this as a new thread as it seems to be more prevalent with Mavericks and the very last update to ML but the problem has been around a while. It does seem to affect all types of Mac though from the other threads I have read and posted to.


The problem is essentially this: Intermittently, after a system sleep, the Mac appears to have no network connectivity (local and internet) and for a while the only reliable solution was to force the renewal of the DHCP lease or turning WiFi off and on again, after which the network would be restored.


There have been several theories postulated and a number of fixes, such as the DHCP renew, suggested but none of them have lasted for long but I now think I have this fixed as the following been 100% stable on my Mac Pro with wired ethernet connection for the last two weeks with no recurrences. I see no reason why this would not work on other Macs or connection types.


The problem seems to lie in the automatic location setting in the network settings, so here's what I did...


  1. Network settings - Location - Edit Locations
  2. Add a new location .. "Home" for example
  3. With home selected, click the cogwheel below the network services and choose "Set Service Order"
  4. Reorder the services so your preferred connection type is at the top
  5. After that, select each service in turn (assuming you have a few - like Bluetooth PAN etc)
  6. Make the services you are not using inactive
  7. Apply


Please post a reply if this works for you - it's been dragging on far too long and needs sorting out by Apple but if this is a good workaround for people then it will certainly do for now.

Mac Pro (Mid 2010), OS X Mavericks (10.9)

Posted on Nov 7, 2013 11:53 PM

Reply
196 replies

Jan 2, 2017 5:58 PM in response to Reforger

I used the "new location" procedure about 2 months ago and my 2010 Mac Pro (El Capitan) seemed to be happy again until today. Comcast took the network down for some maintenance. First, the Airport Extremes didn't pick up the signal again (had to reset) after Comcast turned things back on.. then, Mac Pro wouldn't recognize wired connection via the port location that I had built and appliued .. Did SMC and PRAM resets, nothing. Built a new location (Network Preferences showed it was connected all the while, but not getting through to browsers) with the connected Ethernet port and things were back to normal again..


I had this machine since 2010 and never had a networking issue until I built an external image of a Mavericks system (iDVD doesn't work correctly on El Capitan).. When I booted back to the main system is when all this network nonsense started to happen.. Still don't understand why.. Doesn't seem to respond to fixing permissions, clean ups, reboots, etc. Just feels like some flag is getting reset with these new locations when they're built..

Feb 13, 2017 6:37 AM in response to Reforger

I'm using a wired connection to an Airport Extreme (newer model with current firmware) and my iMac running El Capitan was having this issue. I went and set up the location as described, and for months the problem went away. After recently applying a security patch to the OS, the problem has returned.


The "path of least pain" is to leave Terminal running and when the Internet connection isn't working I run

sudo ifconfig en0 down

wait a few seconds and

sudo ifconfig en0 up


That fixes it until my machine sleeps again. Annoying!

Mar 22, 2017 9:42 AM in response to Reforger

It's March 22 2017 and the issue lives on up to and including macOS Sierra 10.12.

In my case an iMac I use as an iTunes home sharing server would drop wifi (802.11n) during sleep. This in turn would play havoc with Apple's Remote app. which I use on an iPad to control music across multiple sound systems in my house. If Remote gets dropped the only recourse is to restart it, but over time the app gets more and more bogged down. The solution to that is the annoyance of creating a new connection in Remote from scratch. On occasion, the drop would confuse Airport Express music nodes, forcing a hard reset and reconfiguration.

Your network service order solution however has solved these issue. Thanks so much for your contribution which is simple to implement but not obvious to a typical Mac user.

Apple, are you paying attention yet?

Oct 22, 2017 5:12 AM in response to Reforger

Man I have to say.. Thank You!


Ive been struggeling with this connection problem since a year now, found that while transmission ( torrents download manager app ) was running the connection was kept all the time because it does not ever stop to exchange packages to the network even if no download processes are active ( same with Skype or other big internet talking apps ) but it wasnt a real solution.


I did what you suggest and now .. my Mac ( and myself ) can both go to sleep with loosing the connection to our minds!


Once again .. thanks!

Nov 9, 2013 1:23 AM in response to Reforger

Works great...I have been having this same problem since Lion and was wondering what was up with it; upgraded to Mavericks and still had the same issue so I went to the forums for help.


My WIFI would just randomly crash and not be able to connect until I turned it off and back on, I have tried every other solution including resetting the DHCP and resetting the Airport but none of those worked.


I created this account just for saying Thank you for posting this.

Nov 11, 2013 10:43 AM in response to MarkH356

I've had this problem intermittently on my iMac for years now but this is the first time I've ever googled the problem and I feel much better knowing it's so common.


I've decided to chip in to say that I've always been able to regain the ethernet connection after sleep by simply pulling out and reinserting the ethernet cable at the back of the iMac. It's a bit of a pain but a lot quicker than the rebooting some others were mentioning.


The "new location" solution above looks good but as a lone female tech-phobic user I'm always reluctant to mess with anything for fear of making it worse and the "cable out, cable in" solution has served me well for several years now.

Nov 12, 2013 11:04 AM in response to Reforger

I tried to perform this by creating a new location from the drop down, it worked and stayed onnected after sleeping/closing for exactly one day, then reverted back to its searching for the network in vain. The wifi is at the top of the service order selections for all locations, but every time it sleeps it loses the connection and the network name menu goes blank, I have to manually choose it each time and apply. Help!

Nov 13, 2013 9:41 AM in response to Reforger

Have a 2oo9 Macbook Pro and after updating to Mavericks from Snowleopard WLAN stopped working or at least it works badly, i.e., network is not found after boot or is dropped after sleep. Also, my router is not, most of the time, shown in the list of available networks (yet, others are shown).


Called Apple support today. They told me to delete the folder //Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration. At least now it looks like it solved the problem. Skeptic, though.

Losing network or internet connection after sleep/wake

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