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Wifi is incredibly slow on OS X El Capitan

So after installing OS X El Capitan my Wi-Fi is so so so so so slow.

My Internet Connection Speed is 2Mbps (240kb/sec) and it shows 2Mbps on my iPad and iPhone (using the speedtest.net app). On my MacBook Pro it shows me 120-250Kbps (10 to 25kb/sec) when I'm using Spotify, YouTube and anything that's Internet based (Apple Forums took me a minute to open)

I've never ever had this problem on Yosemite. My wifi works fine for sure. Even during downloading OS X El Capital from the App Store my speed was constant 230-240 Kb/sec but after installing El Capitan nothing works fine (Internet Based Applications)

I did everything I could. Deleted Wifi AP Name and added it back. Restarted everything (Router and Mac). Turned off Wifi and turned it back on.

I don't think its my wifi router or anything or else fault as my iPad and iPhone would have been affected as well.

Can someone please tell me if they face this issue as well and if yes what's the solution?

MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Late 2013), OS X El Capitan (10.11)

Posted on Oct 4, 2015 5:16 AM

197 replies

May 31, 2016 11:15 AM in response to jubamad

Thank you so much!!!!! This totally worked!!!!!

gnocchi

Level 1

4 points

Jun 25, 2016 10:59 PM in response to grahammiranda

I think I may have figured this out, at least for me.

❯❯❯ ps -ajxww | grep location

_locationd 2876 1 2876 0 0 Ss ?? 0:00.08 /usr/libexec/locationd

❯❯❯ sudo kill -9 2876

Password:

❯❯❯

Fixes the problem every time. Lemme know if this works for anyone else.

Jun 28, 2016 5:10 AM in response to gnocchi

Could you elaborate on this? What problem did you have? Dropouts or slow connection speeds. What are these terminal commands suppose to do?

Cheers

Robin

Bob Bujic

Level 1

134 points

Jun 30, 2016 10:26 AM in response to Bob Bujic

Well, painfully slow Safari response in opening pages is one issue i have, but what happens right now is totally unacceptable.

I have two Apple laptops. One (MacBook) has Lion on it. A half a year ago, my bank and one of the credit card providers warned me to upgrade the system or I will not have access to their services.

I bought used MBPro (2009) with El Capitan and have all upgrades including 10.11.5.

Unfortunately, in a past few days, I have been unable to open PayPal site on El Capitan. However, I can reach and enter my account on the 'obsolete' Lion platform!

This is very hard to fathom. Or, maybe someone can suggest what to do to correct it.

Jul 5, 2016 12:39 PM in response to jubamad

Thank you Jubamad! This worked for me too. Problem has been driving me crazy for weeks!

Jul 28, 2016 1:28 PM in response to grahammiranda

I’ve had trouble with wifi dropouts for months, even though my Macbook Pro (OS X 10.11.6) is no more than 10 feet from the wifi router, and even though my phone was able to see the network consistently. I tried every plausible fix I could find on the internet, with only temporary improvements. It was frequently unusable, but I found that I could unplug the monitor, take the laptop downstairs, and it would work fine.

In my office, I’ve been keeping the laptop closed while using separate keyboard and monitor. Now I find that if I leave the laptop lid open while using the monitor, it seems to be working much better. I suspect the system was putting the wifi to sleep because the lid was closed, even though the machine and network were in use.

harrij

Level 1

4 points

Jul 29, 2016 4:58 PM in response to grahammiranda

Thanks..followed your instructions..much faster

Bob Bujic

Level 1

134 points

Aug 5, 2016 10:38 AM in response to robinfromköln

I found here about EtreCheck software, downloaded, and the app found out that I have an adware sneakely installed on my MBP 2009.

EtreCheck removed it, and my 10.11.6 is now running noticeably faster.

Thanks EtreCheck... PayPal donation is on the way!

Aug 7, 2016 5:21 AM in response to Bob Bujic

In case you wondering why the connection speed to your NAS / AIR Port Extremen etc. is really slow: It's actually not the 10.11 wifi, it's a bug/feature in El Capitan's SMB file transfer protocol. I found a fix that increased my transfer speeds form 12 MB/s to 70 MB/s.

https://dpron.com/os-x-10-11-5-slow-smb/

Cheers

Rob

etresoft

Level 8

46,978 points

Aug 7, 2016 10:13 AM in response to robinfromköln

Hello Rob,

Thanks for posting. This is quite interesting. However, it can't really be called a bug in OS X. There is a security exploit in SMB 3. Apple's approach is to disable SMB 3, falling back to SMB 2, if your server is vulnerable. The correct approach would be to fix the server, not make your client vulnerable too. Unfortunately, this issue probably affects users of the many generic NAS servers on the market. Those are going to be difficult to update, even if they can be updated. Those of us lucky enough to have a proper configured and secure server won't notice any problem.

Aug 10, 2016 2:44 AM in response to jubamad

Wow! I struggled all day. Then I jumped straight to your comment:

- Then I suggested resetting PRAM (turn off Mac, then hold Command + Option + P + R and tap power button) Wait for 2 Apple chimes and release keys.

And it did the Job!
Im connected to our NAS and the internet speed went up from 0.4 Mbit to 38 Mbit/s!
🙂

THANK YOU!

😍

Sep 18, 2016 5:38 AM in response to jubamad

***EVERYONE!!!****

Try the Shut Down and reset of PRAM - it did the trick for me, I was literally registering between 3-10 MB/s, after doing PRAM reset I had over 100 MB/s....thank you!

Too bad I figured this out AFTER I downloaded 60 GB worth of software over 12 hours....ugh.