Q: OSX Yosemite Wifi issues

This would explain why I'm having more issues in the office and none at home. My home airport has IPv6 enabled as local link whereas we have IPv6 disabled in the office. It might also explain some the random disconnects we have with some Yosemite users as they bounce to nearby wifi. I'll have to test on Monday.

Just to give an update, since updating to 10.10.3 wi-fi has become more stable once connected, however it does lose the connection every time my MacBook Air wakes from sleep mode. I then have to disable wi-fi on and off for it to re-establish the connection. An improvement on 10.10.2 which dropped out all the time but still not 100%!

Following up to  my own post here, because it seems most responders don't get the implications of 'penalty box'ing name servers.

 

Apple's discoveryd appears to be (almost) silently refusing to use any name server that is configured for only IPV4.  I have a very constrained home network where I only run IPV4, not IPV6, with a private V4-only dns service.   My private network name server, by design, does not answer AAAA requests since I don't support IPV6 on my NAT.  (I also don't do SRV records). This is all by design.

 

discoveryd/airportd connects to my network wifi bridge just fine, but then after a few IPV6 name queries puts my network DNS server in the "penalty box", I think this is because it doesn't see the answers IPV6 name records (AAAA queries in DNS-speak).

 

In other words, discoveryd will just STOP EVEN ASKING to resolve V4 names after a minute or two in an IPV4-only name service environment, because the V6 names it wants don't get answered.  With reference to other 'workarounds' that you might have seen; when you 'sudo killall -9 discoveryd' you get another timeslice before your name server gets thrown into the oven again.  Same thing happens when you turn the wifi off and then back on.   You get a new instance and a little more 'grace time'.  Other folks have mentioned 'turning off icloud'  as a work-around -- that might also be relevant here since the AAAA queries that seem to trigger the penalty box all end with 'icould.com'.

 

This, I believe, also explains why "updating your router to the latest firmware"  makes things better for some users -- if your old router firmware had poor or limited IPV6 capability an update can quite often improve that functionality.

 

This is moot in my case since I don't have a WiFi 'router' -- my network has a recent model wifi bridge with up-to-date firmware.

 

This discoveryd behavior is probably why some see random disconnects too.  I believe that discoveryd and airportd conspire to try and reconnect to a different network when they decide that "you aren't letting us do IPV6, so we have decided to penalize you."  I believe the wifi disconnects and starts going through every other SSID it sees when you don't have 'Ask to join new networks' checked, it just pretty much stalls when you do have that  option checked and it can't reach one of your other preferred networks.

 

You can argue that this is autoswitching is desirable behavior for the 'coffeehouse wifi' crowd -- I'll admit that.  I get very nervous when my equipment actively tries to escape my desired config and use some other potentially unknown and unpredictable network.

 

Is the the failure to provide an IPV4-only fallback behavior in discoveryd just a serious compatibility problem with discoveryd or a deliberate strategy by Apple to coerce use of IPV6, or both?  I think at the least it is disenfranchising a significant population of wifi users.

 

Wired networks work fine because, well, you can't unplug the wire, so you have to support fallback to IPV4 operation or just make the customer's link go dark.

That is a very interesting post, Trailsloth! Penalisation due to the use of ipV4 instead of ipV6 would be consistent with the frontier policy of Apple, but not as much with real-world situations. Older OSX solutions to network problems would invariably point to switching off ipV6.

In this day and age, we are at a transition point for ipV6.

ipV6 is simply too much for older router firmware, as well as for many ISPs and many relay stations as well still.

So the question is double:

- has your router been flashed to the latest firmware? To be really ipV6 proof?

- does your ISP really support ipV6? And what about the relay stations?

Let us take it from there.

As I've stated before: this here thread has not provided us with too much config info to go on. It mainly seems a thread of plaintiffs, but we simply cannot work with that. So thank you for your positive and practical input!

To sum it up: you state the Yosemite WiFi issues may be related to ipV4 versus ipV6 system/hardware/ISP components? Certainly worth further investigation. Anyone?

"Penalty boxing" looks like a Tarpit construction. anyone know how to get rid of it?

Hi Hex! Been a while.

Yes, I'll start this configuration of ISP and Internet Hardware configuration using my situation based here in Baton Rouge, Louisiana USA. Cox Cable is my ISP. I have Internet only via cable on dedicated cable line. IPv6? Are you kidding? Here? I'm happy to have Gigabyte Ethernet and Wireless N utilizing full speed of both on IPv4.

I upgraded my original Motorola Cable Modem to a GB Motorola Arris Surfboard SB6141. Hook up and call the ISP to register connection with new modem to COX. They have to enter your modem model and serial into their system. Yep! At the mercy of your ISP. Gotcha!!

I upgraded my Linksys EA2700 100 Mbps Wireless N slow boat to a Linksys EA3500 GB Ethernet and Wireless N 300 Mbps plus and upgraded firmware out of the box. Recommended in user guide. Set up my SSID's and Passphrases and left IPv6 alone! Default = Auto. Nothing up my sleeve - Presto! Done. No fiddling with router settings or other features needed.

To sum up what I'm trying to add to the point is that IPv6 is just not there here in my town. Leave the IPv6 feature for home networking in Auto or whatever the default state is recommended by router Set Up instructions. The ISP is my DNS and not IPv6. My ISP isn't even close to establishing IPv6 any time soon. My current internet Hardware/ISP configuration allowed me to run Yosemite 10.10.1 and 10.10.2 with no connection issues Wi-Fi or Bluetooth both running simultaneously. I hope I stayed on topic with this response to you. Cheers!!

What is making my situation more unique than others is the question at hand, for me?

Hi,

-I've updated to 10.10.3

-I didn't update from Mavericks, but did a completely fresh install of 10.10.0 back in the days

-I've tried Hybrid-Mode for the Bluetooth

-I've shut down Bluetooth

-I've set "Configure IPv6" to all possible variations in the TCP/IP settings

Still I get periodic problems with the latest-and-greatest cisco AC access points solution we have at the office. At home with my Fritz!Box (no IPv6 enabled) everything works like a charm.

What I just noticed:

I can provoke the drops by opening System Preferences on the Displays tab!

The graph below is from ICMPUtil, I ping the next four hops. Latency is blue, lost packets are red, 0.1s ping interval. I get that the periodic drops could be anything. And although their occurrence looks like clockwork, I don't worry about them yet.

The parts with many red bars together is when I click on the Displays Control Panel. 2-3 Seconds after leaving it, the pings goes back to 'normal'. And within the red part, you see the latency plotting some stairs. Also productive traffic during this time is impacted.

***? Am I missing something? Can anyone reproduce anything comparable?

thanks

simon

olafmol wrote:

 

This is really sad and a joke. My Macbook pro retina has wifi issues all over the place since upgrading to Yosemite. My 2 windows machines still work stable and fast with wifi. This really is an Apple issue.

It’s definitely a combination of mac and wifi router hardware though. I have a tele2 wifi router at home, which doesn’t play nice with Yosemite. First i though i fixed it switching to WPA2 personal in the router security settings. But alas, after a week the issues appeared again: slow (max 2 Mbit wifi speed capping).

In frustration i created a new user-account, and voila, switching to this new user-account gave me normal wifi-speed again! And switching back to my default admin account, the wifi speed was good also!

This is a nasty workaround, but it seems to work, until apple really releases a stable fix for it.

So my steps for a workaround:

– switch your wifi router security settings to WPA2 personal
– create a new user account on your mac, and switch to this account, then log out, and switch back to your regular account

Hope this helps!

Olaf

I have just started having very slow wifi speeds since updating to 10.10.3 a few days ago. After much frustration (clearing out this & that, doing PRAM and SMC resets, deleting plists etc etc) I like you also created a new user account, only to find that this new user account had full speed wifi, then I logged out of that new user account and logged back into my default admin user account and it remains full speed, just as it does with your Mac.

So I'm glad we both discovered this temporary fix!

My question now however is: with yourself and I clearly having the very same bug in our admin user accounts, have you found a permanent solution to this problem since writing this post back in January?

@ olafmol: tele2 is Dutch, right? Did your first account carry a WPA 2 Enterprise password? And does your new user account go under a new WPA 2 Personal password? There you might have it: WPA2 Personal password may have stuck in your Keychain. WPA 2 Enterprise is not happy with Yosemite under some routers.

All in all, it is my impression that Yosemite 10.10.3 no longer presents us with system-specific issues, but rather network-endemic problems specific to each major system upgrade and router.

Hi Simon. Sorry for a late response, work schedule and that sort. Interesting observation. I gave up on Yosemite and have been running Mavericks and have Windows 7 Pro Boot Camped. My Broadcom in my Mac Mini late 2012 is starting to get flakey with Wi-Fi connection speed. Don't know. I am planning to go ahead with a clean installation of Yosemite and up it to 10.10.3. Hopefully in a couple of days I will try a few things and also try to reproduce what you report.

Here's my thing right now. My wife runs Mavericks on her MBP late 2012. I run Mavericks on my Mac Mini late 2012. Both of us use the 5 GHz Wi-Fi. She has connection speed of 365+ Mbps. I am barely getting 165 to 200 Mbps Windows and Mavericks. Go figure. I will attempt a complete HD erase followed by an SMC reset and NPRAM Reset prior to installing Yose. and see what happens. I'm learning to loathe Broadcom very fast. The most eccentric network card I've ever delt with. Too bad there's not a retro fit from another manufacturer for a Mac and Mac Mini. I need to install Yosemite again anyway to check out 10.10.3. It might flunk on my system all together whereas 10.10.1 and 10.10.2 ran fine. Cheers!

John

Thanks to everyones replies.

Update on my situation. I never had to call apple support or send my new imac back as i upgraded to 10.10.3 and since then my main issue with wifi dropping has stopped. It has been solid since the update. The issue with the mac not waking from sleep i have not had since either but i have not left any usb drives plugged in which i think i had previously (lightening cable/external hdd)

So i am now a happy new mac owner! Would just like to add this is my first ever experience with OS X and it really is a nice OS!

Regards

This one seemed to work actually. I remember I used to have multiple network locations for work and home, after yosmite they are gone. I added home again and it allowed me to select my wifi networks again (previously i could not select my 5ghz network, only the 2.4ghz on the same apple router).

My WiFi seemed fine finally after upgrading to 10.10.3 (provided BT was off) but now is regularly playing up again. Sigh. What has changed?

Seems nobody has any idea why.

Well, back to waiting for another update and in the meantime switching WiFi off and back on again every 10 to 15 minutes.

2012 rMBP 15"

Aircard 760S

This is exactly the same issue for me. First 2 days after 10.10.3 update all worked perfectly. Now wi-fi keeps dropping and I have to turn it on and off again to re-establish connection. All other devices in the house work with no issues.

Hello again, made it to the other side of Yosemite. During my clean installation I must point out that I did not fall for the upgrade to Cloud Drive and Set Up Keychain routine. I'm sure they would love for me to. I'm now running OS X 10.10.3 after rebellion against installing it. I have no Bluetooth or Wi-Fi connection issues to report at this time. None. As usual, at first glance, Yosemite has a lovely Dock and Application icons that look like Bubble Gum wrapper pictures. You know, PlaySchool My First OS X. All that's missing is the big red button that you can push and does nothing, the horn that beeps and a steering wheel. Otherwise it is running just fine on my Mac Mini late 2012.

I cannot reproduce your issue in Displays Control Panel. I have one Apple 27" Thunderbolt Display. I am running 10.10.3 as my main primary OS. I will monitor Wi-Fi connectivity over the next several days to see if these issues rear their ugly head. So far my TX Rate: 270, RSSI: -27 dBm, Noise: -89 dBm on Channel 44 (5 GHz). WPA/WPA2 Personal. IPv6 set to AUTO in my router. Cheers!!

Okay hexdiy, it's time to give up a warm hand and welcome for the Malware/Trojan Horse - Discoveryd, Ladies and Gentlemen! It snoops your system wide folders and discovers all OS X's and Apps you have saved in buried folders on backup hard drives and partitions. I just found that in my App Store Purchases both Yosemite and Mavericks download buttons were greyed out. Ejected my external hard drive that had 10.10.1 and 10.9.5 installed in a partition within a folder, within a folder and the folder named with no eluding to the OS X's stored therein. After ejecting my external hard drive, I could then go back to the App Store Purchases and download both Yosemite 10.10.3 and Mavericks. Wow, wow, wow! I don't know about anyone else, I'm going back to the desert on a horse with no name called Mavericks. Enough of this Yosemite madness. This is why Yosemite will not make it as a Business Server Solution. Apple can peer into their data base and see what the you want without guessing. Peace out. Going back to Mavericks while I still can. Cheers!!