Q: OSX Yosemite Wifi issues

Having initially thought this worked, it seems to be slightly better but still dropping out...

This is ridiculous...

Yosemite 10.10.3

MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2014)

The solution: Reinstall Yosemite from scratch (restart cmd+R, then use disk utility to format system drive). Yes, make sure to do that on clean disk, i.e. format the volume. (I usually re-partition as well).

Then, at the first region-choice screen that appears after a successful Yosemite installation, choose Russia as location. (other countries might work, I did not test). This does not change the language of the OS to Russian, so do not worry. Then proceed as usual and use wifi. You should have ZERO issues.

Now how I got to this:

Yesterday I decided to reinstall Yosemite from scratch (with complete drive reformatting), and did that. Then, out of curiosity, I put the region to US at the initial set-up screen (I normally use Russia, since that's where I'm located). I started to experience wifi dropping issues in the first minutes of using my Retina Macbook Pro (15-inch, late 2013). I never used to have wifi issues before. I wondered, and then I remembered the apple communities and other threads with numerous wi-fi complaints. My issue was simple: either within a few seconds or a few minutes of using wi-fi actively (copying files from local network, browsing net) I would lose connection. The wi-fi status was fine and connected (my router is Apple Time Capsule, last generation with ac), etc. but local network and internet connectivity was lost. Switching wi-fi off and on again helped - for a few minutes. That was frustrating to say the least. So, I reinstalled Yosemite again, now using Internet Recovery, and then yet again (after wi-fi issues cropped up readily again) using bootable flash drive (choosing US each time as the locale). No luck.

Then, I gave up, and upon the next reinstall I chose Russia as region for my Mac at the first setup screen that appears after reinstall. That did it! No issues whatsoever. Try it, guys, and maybe this is going to help. This does not automatically change the language of the menus to Russian, by the way. =)

I found that simply changing my wifi modems password solved the issues for me. It's been a week now without a single drop out of wifi connection!

Clarify. Do you mean the rovers network password. not your IP password?

try this worked for me it seems OS X is turning off the wifi periodically.

• open automator and select to make a new application
• add a shell script item
• enter the following within in the shell script,  ping -i 0.2 172.27.20.144  thats my ip address but you change it to your own

Save the application then let it run

This will ping your router every 0.2 seconds preventing OS X from turning the wifi off or it going to sleep and having to be switched off then on again has worked flawlessly for me

That's not working for me. For those whose WiFi connection dropped 20 sec after connection. My WiFi kept dropping each 20 seconds and I had to manually turn it off and on, until it went back to normal. Sometimes I had to do it 20 times. So that's what I came up with. I found an AppleScript, which checks my connection every two seconds and resets the WiFi if the it is broken. Here it is.

Create an empty file in Script Editor, paste the code below and replace everything in and including the brackets, and press Play button. AppleScript may return error saying "en0 is not a WiFi interface", so try replacing 0 with 1 or 2.

on checkInternetConnection()

try

  set pingResult1 to do shell script "ping -c 1 [ANY WEBSITE OR SERVER]"

  on error

  set pingResult1 to ""

  end try

  -- Check the results returned and return true or false.

  set p to number of paragraphs in pingResult1

      if p < 5 then

  -- Ping another Open DNS server for redundancy.

  try

  set pingResult2 to do shell script "ping -c 1 [ANOTHER ONE FOR SURE]"

  on error

  set pingResult2 to ""

  end try

  set p to number of paragraphs in pingResult2

  if p < 5 then return false

  else

  return true

  end if

end checkInternetConnection

repeat

  delay 2

  set connected to checkInternetConnection()

  log connected

  if connected is false then

  do shell script "networksetup -setairportpower AirPort off"

  do shell script "networksetup -setairportpower AirPort on"

  do shell script "networksetup -setairportnetwork en0 \"[WiFi Network Name]\" \"[WiFi Network Password]\""

  end if

end repeat

you guys seem to not take my "Russian locale" solution seriously, and try to invent god knows what involved workarounds with scripting and what not! Just try setting the locale to Russia right after install. I have just copied 200Gb over wi-fi, several hours not one dropout. And that is how it used to work all the time for me on my Retina Macbook pro. But for the several hours I was trying out the US locale, I had like 20 wifi drops at least.

Maybe its NSA PRISMA backdoors auto-activate for American users, I do not know... =)

I've got it by default.

ALex... Firstly, give people who want to try it time to actually try it. Secondly, i'm Australian. Thirdly I am not in a position to wipe my HDD on an un verified attempt to fix an issue. I can't afford the time for my computer to be down or the risks of wiping a HDD.

How about you get the chip off your shoulder. Your advice is as good as most here. Not all advice works for everyone and not all is ever responded to. But people are reading it and deciding for themselves if they want to try it. As I said a few posts back, I'm sick of the likes of you assuming that because you fixed your issue it will work for everyone and your some kind of hero riding in to save the day.

you guys seem to not take my "Russian locale" solution seriously, and try to invent god knows what involved workarounds with scripting and what not! Just try setting the locale to Russia right after install. I have just copied 200Gb over wi-fi, several hours not one dropout. And that is how it used to work all the time for me on my Retina Macbook pro. But for the several hours I was trying out the US locale, I had like 20 wifi drops at least.

Maybe its NSA PRISMA backdoors auto-activate for American users, I do not know... =)

Alex, you may have touched upon a very valid point here. Although it seems Airport channel choice is supposed to be automatic all over the globe, and channel choice will autorestrict to common allowed frequencies (for example when traveling), there still are local frequency, transmit power and channel width restrictions. Maybe it would be interesting if all the plaintiffs here check their local frequency restrictions, and make sure the country codes ( see System Profiler) of their Mac and their base stations/ cable/ ADSL modem (refer to manual) align.

BTW: I believe Apple is breaking many local laws by using 40 MHz channel width. But in fact, they do not recommend it. See second link.

Lately I've seen registered Dutch Apple users expressing their amazement their Mac was running on German Airport card country codes. That seems to work, but maybe not on all hardware WiFi network components/ combinations or with all ISPs?

Hopefully not adding to the confusion in this thread: a list of allowed WLAN channels: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_WLAN_channels

And yet another very important Apple link concerning WiFi: Recommended settings for Wi-Fi routers and access points - Apple Support

Spasiba, stare moi! (hope this not Slovenian instead of Russian and sorry, but the Cyrillic alphabet is not installed on my Mac).

Alex why would i want to wipe my SSD and try your fix when i have a perfectly good fix that works for me stop trying to patronise people it just makes you sound like a dick.

To Alex,

given the nature that your instalment is but a few days/weeks old it is not yet valid as a solution. I am in Germany an my region is set to German.

I have the issue. I also have one with region set to Danish (Where my mother lives) and one set to US when I am there. All exhibit the issue.

In ALL cases of the fresh-10.10-instalment - the incubation time was severely different. In Denmark it took 4 weeks for the issue to appear, in Germany 6. The US version had YET to reveal itself after 5 weeks which it finally did ;-)... So unless more Russians come forth with a zero network drops over a 3 month period of time. As in 100s of Russians - I am going to regard your fix as a temporary lucky fix ;-)

Aside from that, to those wanting to test the 'Russian' fix. How about just setting your region to Russian in the system preferences and do a reboot with  a safe-boot followed by a regular boot...

I tried setting my location to Russia in system prefs with no reinstall. Can't do that bit. The issue remained.

Well, I can only say that I used my macbook for 2 years, before Yosemite, and with Yosemite with zero wi-fi issues (installing with Russian locale), until I reinstalled and chose US locale. Then all of a sudden I started having weird dropouts of wi-fi connection (while the system reported that the network was connected, but no connectivity either with local network or internet). I tried 3 reinstalls (normal recovery, internet recovery, and flash drive install, all with complete format of the system drive) and each time wifi issues reappeared immediately after installation, so it is not some third party software that is the culprit.

As soon as I reverted to Russian locale (after another complete reinstall) I am having zero issues again, for 2 days now everything's fine.

This is all I know. Let us wait before somebody tests this for himself. Formatting isn't that dangerous, provided you have full backup of your files. =)

I set up your recommendation slightly differently (e.g. 30 seconds vice 2 seconds) and so far so good. The problem with WiFi had gone away for me, but apparently recent updates brought it back and this time it is much worse. Not a single drop since enacting your solution. Thanks.

Side note: Only my iMac is affected by the WiFi issue. My MBP is solid and has been throughout.