Yosemite WiFi bug

I have a similar issue on my MacBook Pro 15'' mid 2012; only thing, this started BEFORE I upgraded (actually I performed a clean installation) to Yosemite. Sometimes other messages, still very similar to the one you posted, appear in the console.

In my case the wifi chip randomly goes off during normal use; the status bar icon doesn't notice that the chip is gone but will not display any network. Going to System Preferences shows me that the chip is off and cannot be switched on. Wi-fi works again after restarting OR putting the system to sleep (I have to wait until it loses power anyway).

My first guess is that this is a hardware failure; I noticed that my wifi chip loses power immediately (printing the said messages in the console) when I adjust the angle of the laptop screen. Since I believe that wifi chip is located just beneath the screen (in a movable part) I guess that the connectors might randomly gain or lose contact when moved if they have not been properly secured. On the other side there is the possibility that both our chips are actually broken in some weird way so that they decide themselves when to go off.

Still, I may be wrong, if anyone has a better explanation I'd be happy to hear it!

I have begun to see the same behavior you describe from my MacPro (cylinder) since upgrading to Yosemite. In fairness, I don't think I used the wi-fi under the previous OS very often -- the only reason I found it was turning itself off was when I started to use the Maps functionality in Yosemite, which requires wi-fi to work (which seems weird to me). The symptoms you describe are the same though... wi-fi turns itself off, and no clicking of anything on the status icon or networks prefs can make it come back on.

About two weeks ago, I decided to get to the bottom of this, as rebooting my Mac to turn on wi-fi was getting a little ridiculous. I wrote a script that does a "dig", forced across my wi-fi adapter (en2, in my case) every five minutes, and prints the results in a terminal window. Whenever that request fails, an error is noted (from the script). The script then turns off the Airport card, waits five seconds, turns on the Airport card, waits five seconds, brings en2 down, waits five seconds, and then brings en2 up. From there the dig loop begins again. This has caught the issue twice over the last week or so (this last time yesterday with the ARPT dead card message in the logs), and both times was able to recover the card without booting the machine, or me even having to do anything.

The five second delays are so that it's easier to correlate things in the log with the steps the script is taking. In a perfect world, I'd insert messages from the script into the logs for even better correlation.

The script will run on a regular ol' Mac -- and I'm happy to share. I only added one thing -- gdate. It's impossible (from what I can tell) to format the messages displayed in the terminal window the same way as lines cut/pasted from the logs, as the native date command doesn't have millisecond precision like is displayed in the logs when you cut and paste log messages. I wanted to be able to know for certain what was happening when.

Hope this info helps, and again, I'll be happy to share my script, but it's not really much more than what I described above.

Since I can turn the card off and back on from the script, I'm inclined to think this is not a hardware problem, and more something to do with drivers, etc.

My two cents. YMMV.

Colin

I'm having the same issues, and have tried all of these solutions. I have wondered if it was hardware, but it does not seem to be related to moving my computer at all (and coincided directly with my upgrade to 10.10.1 from Mavericks). I have tried all of these fixes, as well as a clean install; some things have worked for a few days, but the problem keeps returning. My connection will hang in the middle of loading a page, turning it off and on will make the icon act weird (showing full bars although system sees wifi status as "off"; turning it on does nothing). A reboot will sometimes fix it, or sometimes come up with an "x" in the wifi icon, saying "Hardware not Installed". Sometimes I have to reset SMC or PRAM. Sometimes I have to reboot several times. Then it will maybe work for a few minutes, a few hours, or if I'm lucky a day or two.

Wi-FI connection drops

Wi-Fi Problems in OS X Yosemite

Wi-Fi Problems in OS X Yosemite (2)

Wireless Diagnostics

Also try turning off Bluetooth.

Troubleshooting Wi-Fi issues in OS X

Wireless Connection Problems - Fix

Wireless Connection Problems - Fix (2)

Wireless Connection Problems - Fix (3)

Wireless Connection Problems - Fix (4)

I have:

trashed my SystemConfiguration folder

reset SMC and PRAM

created a new network location and reordered services (and renewed DHCP lease)

done various things with Keychain iCloud sync (turned off)

turned off bluetooth (not really a feasible option to leave this off always; didn't help anyway though)

kept to using 2.4 networks (also not really a good solution; again, didn't help anyway)

fresh install

most of the above again

I don't think the AWDL/Airdrop solution applies to my older mac (late 2011 Macbook pro), and I draw the line at downloading a third party kext to replace the stock one.

I updated yesterday to 10.10.2, and had the issue occur again this morning. I removed the Wifi service, rebooted, and added it back to get it working again. Maybe that rebuilt my preferences/configurations in a way that will fix it, but I am not entirely sure. It sometimes takes 3 or more days to happen again, so I will post here if the problem occurs, or if a week goes by without it (whichever comes first...).

A month downstream, and the script is doing well. It's caught half a dozen or so instances of the wifi symptom I've had, dropped everything, and fixed it on its own.

I upgraded to 10.10.2 yesterday, and have turned off the script to see if the new code drop has solved my problem. Not quite 24 hours in, and everything is stable... so far.

I may ask you for that script if my issue isn't resolved. I don't know if I can wait for 10.10.3.

Sure, I'm happy to share. Dunno if it's legal to post the script contents here, but if so, I can just post it here. I'm not the world's best scripter, but it works, and that's what's important! :-)

BTW, without the script running, the wifi has been happy for almost 40 hours under 10.10.2. However on the previous code drop, I've seen whole weeks where nothing happened, and some weeks where the problem returned a few times.

Same here with no script, sometimes I get 4-5 days, sometimes 10 minutes... My most reliable way to get it back up has been to go straight to Network preferences, where it will say WiFi is "off" (even though shows full bars in the menu icon); if I "make service inactive" and click "apply", my computer completely freezes for 10 seconds and then shuts down. Turn it back on and wifi is right as rain for a while, until it isn't....

Well, sometime overnight, my wifi flaked out again. Same symptoms as before -- icon shows connected (although none of the rest of the drop down seems to indicate that), and the network prefs panel indicates it's turned off. I clicked the "Turn Wi-Fi On" button from prefs, and nothing happens, aside from the icon changing state to show that wi-fi is indeed turned off. I started my script up, and it was able to recover the wifi card with no impact to the machine. I watched the prefs panel while this was going on, and it correctly reflects the card being on, and now connected to the wifi network.

So... it appears that the script is still needed in my environment to ensure the wifi continues to work correctly on 10.10.2. Not the news I was hoping to report. I need to dig into the logs to see if I see anything weird overnight, and I'll report that if I see anything strange.

Bummer.

Send Apple feedback. They won't answer, but at least will know there is a problem. If enough people send feedback, it may get the problem solved sooner.

Feedback

Or you can use your Apple ID to register with this site and go the Apple BugReporter. Supposedly you will get an answer if you submit feedback.

Feedback via Apple Developer