Q: OSX Yosemite Wifi issues

hexdiy wrote:

 

Also, your theory seems inconsistent with the many/multiple reports in this lengthy thread from people who had just purchased brand new Macs who were experiencing WiFi issues right out of the box.

Ok, Steve626, you are right all the way. Your argument and other incoming reports today have just about thrashed my stupid theory about older Broadcom WiFi hardware causing this here WiFi issue. And letting the latest "autopush" system security update come through as well. Can't help trying...

Though - and this is where it can get confusing- maybe the out-of-the-box machines have some other issues instead. As stated before, we are dealing with a very mixed bag of issues here. For a good part run-of-the-mill networking trouble, I'm sure.

However, as I now am getting to know, there are so many variations of the WiFi (/sometimes combined Bluetooth) chip (the one for your 2010 Air is as I believe the BCM943224PCIEBT2)  and related firmware that I will be giving up research except for machines in my very own hands. Just look up your chip, and flash to its latest firmware.

The best advice I will offer right now is to make a rock-solid clone or backup of your current setup, and install Yosemite on an external HDD to try it out. With a clean install, just as Jndupuis1 did. If it runs well, install on your internal and migrate. You'll still have your clone/backup as fallback. Good luck!

I am not ready to dismiss your theory so quickly. The number that are complaining about Yosemite seems larger than "normal" to me. Looking back at the volume of postings for Mavericks or even Mountain Lion, it's much larger for Yosemite. In fact, the two most disturbing issues that seem fairly prevalent (still a small minority of users I am sure) with Yosemite are this WiFi one and another pertaining to not being able to access Time Machine backups through the Time Machine user interface.

Do all Macs of a specified model (e.g. Macbook Air late 2010) use the same chip? As for "flash to its latest firmware," shouldn't that come up through Apple's software update mechanism automatically? Is it advisable to do something on one's own with the firmware when Apple has not pushed such an update out? How does one check for an update for a given chip and how does one "flash it?"

The reports of brand new Macs right out of the box experiencing the issue perplex me. Right there in the Apple Stores are numerous new Macs running Yosemite on wireless networks with no networking issues. My employer has thousands of Macs in use on our site, running Yosemite, and people literally live on wireless at work here, and the computers seem to generally just work. Our routers at work are fairly modern and up to date, and are configured consistently; maybe older routers, of certain makes/models, have issues? I've looked back through the reports, however, and I see no real pattern.

Finally, there may be some low-tech solutions to some of these issues. When I first set up my Linksys WRT160N router, back in 2009 (yes I am still using it, it's old school but very reliable), I recall experiencing problematic 802.11n connections until I narrowed the channel bandwidth setting from 40 MHz to 20 MHz. With the older n routers, nearby networks will often interfere if the higher rate 40 MHz setting is selected, causing drop outs, etc. Not that this is the cause of folks' problems with Yosemite, but new OS's can be more sensitive to THINGS LIKE THIS and old fashioned tweaking might fix SOME of the issues reported here. (Although I would expect Yosemite to be more robust than earlier OS's, a priori).

The most amazing for me, is how windows manage a mac hardware better then apple!!!

I use parallels 10 to virtualize windows7 and the wifi connection drop in yosemite but still conected in windows virtual machine...!!!!

I mean Yosemite don't have wifi connection but runs virtual machine with windows who has full wifi access to internet!!!

I guess apple engineers should ask help to microsoft....!!!!

Unfortunately this solution did not help, other than the lower top speeds I mentioned before, it made no difference. Ah well.

Has anybody tried the 10.10.2 beta? Did it make any difference?

In previous post with hexdiy, we discussed possible driver issues under OS X. It is interesting to me that my Windows 7 Pro runs so well when I Boot Camped it under Yosemite. Tells me one thing. The Support Drivers from Apple are from the hardware and chip manufacturers and are "Digitally Signed" for use in Windows. Thanks to MS. They don't want drivers to "break" their OS. At no point was there a "This Driver is Not Digitally Signed" message.

My Mac Mini was a purchase due to MS support of XP being dropped. Windows 8 was Not an option. Only to find that my Windows/PPC compatible software not able to run in Mavericks. Apple dropping PPC support after OS X Snow Leopard. My temper was flared. However, not to give away my age, historically this has been the case with PC's as a whole over the past 30 years. Hundreds and thousands of dollars worth of Hardware and Software rendered useless due to advances in technology. Starting with my first Commodore 64, Commodore Amiga, and a Compaq. Just recently, the PC I built running XP being put to the road for pickup after I bought my Mac Mini. Firmware updates and driver updates may or may not come into play in upgrading to Yosemite (or the Apple fix) for some out there. In retrospect, I submit that Firmware updates and Driver updates along with "fixes and tweaks" will only take you so far until - you guessed it. Hardware upgrades. Software, OS and Cell phone OS developers in Corporations like Apple have the latest state-of-the-art equipment. Their equipment will be our tomorrow's New Models for us consumers. Just keeping "real" for myself. Every year, out with the old in with the new.

I had the opportunity to download it and it seems to work for me so far.

Do all Macs of a specified model (e.g. Macbook Air late 2010) use the same chip? As for "flash to its latest firmware," shouldn't that come up through Apple's software update mechanism automatically? Is it advisable to do something on one's own with the firmware when Apple has not pushed such an update out? How does one check for an update for a given chip and how does one "flash it?"

Actually, firmware flashing was more a line of thought of mine, just thinking aloud. It can be done by some serious geeks, BSD nephews of ours which I cannot speak openly of out here. The gist however is: maybe there is a firmware conflict between some Yosemite software components and firmware for Airport chips such as older Broadcoms or Atheroses.  Or the necessary firmware update was for some inexplicable reason not carried out correctly on some of the newest Macs. While this could be plausible for users upgrading from Mavericks (thus having to download Yosemite from the internet and running the risk of data corruption), the question of out-of-the-box Macs having the issue remains the biggest mystery.

Anyhow, flashing to newer firmware is indeed something that normally happens automatically through software updates, and especially system upgrades.

Once in a while something goes amiss, though. E.g. in the transition between 10.6.8  and 10.7.0 there was a huge glitch that prevented a lot of users to turn on their Airport card at all! Wifi won't turn on since upgrade to Lion

At that time, a very interesting temporary workaround some people on page #6 of this link came up with, was this:

a friend uploaded his System Configuration folder to me so that I might replace my folder with his.  He is currently running a 2010 Macbook Pro and Lion and having no trouble at all.  When I replaced my System Configuration folder with his and rebooted, my WiFi comes back immediately and asks me to select a network and I can connect fine.  For now, this seems to be working with no ill effects.

Remarkable, no?

As to your 1st question: I'm not sure if and seriously doubt that all Mac models of the same year and subfamily use the same chip or even brand of chips. As I cannot locate a history of these chips, all I have to go on are System Profiles of Macs I can access, and iFixit teardowns of most first issues.

Lack of info on things like this are exactly what stops us in this topic from any systematic investigations.

Well, keep up the good work and thanx for your interest!

Has anybody tried the 10.10.2 beta? Did it make any difference?

If you mean the 10.10.2 beta made available to the public through the updates in the App Store app, it did not help me.

1. I am wondering if developers now have access to a more recent update and whether that solves the Wi-Fi problems.

2. Apple must be working on an update. However, a considerable amount of time has elapsed since the first reports of this problem which suggests that it is being difficult for Apple to fix the issue. And that is what is puzzling many people here I think. How serious can a bug be? As serious as it takes a big company like Apple weeks to fix it. This is becoming an interesting story that I will not be surprised to see a news item on bbc.com sometime soon. 

Dose anybody have problems when using Apple Wifi hardware?

Ascenso Posted 12/22/14  in this thread:

Hello,

Before I reported this:

 

I have a MBPR15 and Yosemite and can't connect to my Time Capsule 2TB (A1409) via wifi 2,4 or 5GHz.

All my other devices can conecto to my Time Capsule and my MBPR can connect to other wifi 2,4 networks...

 

I've tried all of your solutions and got no results...

Now my time capsule only works for 20 to 30 seconds after I change the chanels, and no one can connect (iphone, windows PCs, Android... none)...

I am connected via cable and time machine and file share are OK.

I tried all the tricks mentioned in this post and no luck, i can only connect after changing wifi channel an for a short period of time...

Is it possible yosemite craches my time capsule WiFi?

Thanks.

There may be other posts Boby51. This is a recent post I recall.

Boby51 wrote:

 

Dose anybody have problems when using Apple Wifi hardware?

There were many reports of problems with Apple as well as non-Apple WiFi hardware. Here is one example:

Reported by:

Selesh3

Oct 18, 2014 1:33 AM

Re: OSX Yosemite Wifi issues

in response to mamaricci

I have the same issue with WiFi. WiFi drops every 3-5 minutes. It does not depend on router. I have the same issue at home with Airport, at work with Cisco and at my mother home with Netgear. I had no problems with Maverics.

The general common thread here is that everyone is pointing at Apple to hurry up and fix Yosemite. Users are creating work-a-rounds to get by. We must remember Apple was hurried in releasing Yosemite for upgrade, as we all seem to agree, too soon without more testing. That said, Apple has recently sent invitations to people in this thread for Seed testing. Lo and behold an OS X NTP Security Update was just pushed. I believe more of these type of update pushes may come prior to an "Official" Apple 10.10.2 update to Yosemite for the public. All conjecture aside. We all are seeing the posts still coming. Lots of good Theories, System Preference changes and band aids. A lot of us running Yosemite with no hitches and not being able to provide a "why it works for me" reason. This nut is a tough one to crack. Yosemite working fine for me. My personal clean install and settings methodology in my previous post is the same settings I applied in Mavericks. I am waiting for Apple with a little more patience and understanding on the impact the new update will have if not properly tested across all Macs, personal, enterprise and servers. How long it takes? Doesn't bother me now. It has to work.

Yosemite may have been rushed but since its release to this date you rarely hear anything public from Apple or otherwise regarding the extent of this issue. I am still having this issue and not just on my Macbook 13 retina but also my 27" iMAC. Both of these machines are business related and this issue has led to a loss of some clientele. When you arrive for demonstrations for a CEO of fortune companies and you cannot connect to their wifi networks, simply blaming apple for a problem they themselves have not heard of publicly looks like I am passing the buck when instead my whole pitch is to instill confidence in my companies technology. I have re-installed my MBP 3x, first was on top of Mavericks, second time was a fresh install of mavericks upgraded to Yosemite, and last week was a fresh USB install of yosemite. I still have no wifi on 5GHz AC and terrible speeds on 2.4Ghz.

• What I have found is that the upper channels of 2.4 (10-13) do not work at all. I cannot even connect to my ssid. Lower channels work but as I said, terrible speeds. I have 200 megabit download and I can only reach 40-70Mb.
• I have found connected to 5GHz at 40 or 80Mhz has fast internet for 3-10 seconds before dropping out completely. All 5GHz networks in range continue to disappear from the list over and over. If I run a ping continuously it sings along just fine but pings vary from 10-300ms and this does not happen on 2.4Ghz. Browsing via any browser does not work past a google search.
• I am using an ASUS RT-AC87U on the latest firmware 3.0.0.4.376_2769. I have factory reset and configured from scratch again with same results. The reason I include this info is because my UPC wifi modem capable of 5GHz AC speeds up to 120 megabit actually runs "somewhat" decenton my MBP however I am paying for 200 and would like to use it. So although the majority of my connections to wifi networks fail over AC speeds, the UPC modem tells me that this also seems to be an issue of how the apple hardware is talking to certain wifi chipsets communications.
• I have tried every bandaid listed in this forum since day ONE. NADA

Apple really has to get on the ball with this. Enough time has gone by now to either 1. publicly come forward! rather than allowing their die hard fans continue to troubleshoot there local networks to no end... I'm sure many have spent a pretty penny on technical house calls and/or visits to their local shop. 2. Well let's leave it at 1... Apple's blind eye to my emails, and hours of round robin helpdesk calls has certainly put a rather disgust in my opinion at the moment. 

Apple???

Now that you mention Round Robin, RichardX720; this is exactly what Yosemite and Bonjour seem to do unsuccessfully in flunked cases:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Round-robin_DNS

Any suggestions as to better DNS resolving?

Yosemite has caused serious problems for business. I have to say that I am not in that situation with my Mac Mini. It's for Home use. As you well know. I will share my brief. My Mini was purchased in August to replace my unsupported XP and outdated computer. Mavericks at that point took well after desktop appeared to connect WiFi. So, in order to take advantage of GB Ethernet and Wi-Fi, i upgraded my router to a Linksys 750N (EA3500). Wi-Fi connected a little faster, however, I was getting DSL blazing speed it seemed. My Motorola Cable Modem was over 3 years old! Paying Cox for speeds I was not getting. I upgraded my Modem. Gigabyte Ethernet was mine! Set up the Network Prefs in Mavericks and nothing has changed since. hexdiy, Today I created a bootable Yosemite installer using the Terminal. Used a small partition I created on my USB Thumb Drive. Wiped out Yosemite on the ext. drive and have gone full tilt to boogie Yosemite on the Mac Mini. I used the same methodology as I outlined to you in my previous post. The Recovered Files Folder that keeps appearing in the Trash ( a doc being saved by storeassetd ) is actually a software map. 5 so far. Every software change I make generates this. Okay can live with it. Macs that are running Yosemite well is still interesting. My router settings may defer a little than others. But why is there Airport and Time Capsule issues? Linkssys, Netgear and Asus. All are having issues with Yosemite. Maybe some of us who are running well, need to let Apple take "snapshots" of our Macs, Hardware Config, and Network Configurations/Settings running Yosemite. We've seen the issues of the Cons beyond a reasonable doubt. Those of us with little to no trouble may need to report the Pros and let our Macs do the talking to Apple, if you know what I mean. By the way, thanks for your patience and time with me.

OK John, seems you've been downloading Yosemite images from the appstore, and your Recovered Files Folder that keeps appearing in the trash probably reflects this. Possibly just remnants of installers. Simply empty your thrash.

Furthermore carry on your good work.Testing with 3rd party network hardware and reporting a positive result is invaluable as well.

https://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html

You never know if they will read it or not, but you won't be able to say you haven't tried.