Julius N
Level 1 (9 points)
Apple Watch

Q: El Capitan drops Internet connection

Ever since I upgraded to El Capitan a few weeks ago my 2014 MacBook Pro hasn't been able to stay online. The connection to outside world eventually drops, sometimes in a few minutes, sometimes in an hour. During this I cannot load web pages, connect to any server or ping anything other than my wireless station, while other devices, like my iPad Air are able to use the same station both at 2.4 and 5 gHz. Sometimes the connection may recover by itself, sometimes I manually turn the wi-fi off and back on, which works temporarily. My station is a dual-band Sagemcom F@ST3284 DC, and it is located in the same room with no obstacles in between it and my devices. The connection issue has persisted ever since I installed the device. Connection speed is excellent when it works.

 

What I've tried so far:

  • Resetting the wireless station
  • Switching it off and back on
  • Switching the computer's wi-fi off and back on
  • Tried both 2.4 and 5 GHz base frequencies
  • Trashing internet preferences
  • Resetting PRam
  • Scanning and checking for overlapping wireless channels
  • Testing the connection with an iPad Air, an iPhone 4S and a cheap wi-fi dongle without issues
  • Adding Google DNS  in Network preferences

MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2014), OS X El Capitan (10.11.3)

Posted on Feb 8, 2016 8:44 AM

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Julius N

Q: El Capitan drops Internet connection

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  • by joe_7399,

    joe_7399 joe_7399 Feb 9, 2016 11:55 AM in response to Julius N
    Community Specialists
    Feb 9, 2016 11:55 AM in response to Julius N

    Hi Julius N,

     

    Thanks for using the Apple Support Communities!

     

    I understand that after upgrading to OS X 10.11 El Capitan, you are experiencing some unexpected Wi-Fi connection drops on your MacBook Pro. I see that you have completed a lot of great troubleshooting and isolation steps already. Great work. 

     

    If you haven’t done so already, I would suggest running Wireless Diagnostics to see if it can help identify the issue. 

     

    Use Wireless Diagnostics to help you resolve Wi-Fi issues on your Mac - Apple Support

     

    Best!

  • by Julius N,

    Julius N Julius N Mar 29, 2016 3:36 AM in response to joe_7399
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Apple Watch
    Mar 29, 2016 3:36 AM in response to joe_7399

    I did everything that the diagnostics suggested, but nothing worked. Not only that, but the diagnostic tool itself froze up, not letting me even close it anymore.

     

    I believe the issue is DNS related. I reset the settings to what should be the default for my service provider, but the connection just won't last. Sometimes I can ping Google's DNS while not being able to load web pages, sometimes the other way around. I also tried flushing DNS cache with command line but the problem persists.

     

    You would imagine that if a machine doesn't even have an ethernet port, it should be able to work wirelessly.

  • by squigglepop,

    squigglepop squigglepop Mar 29, 2016 5:49 AM in response to Julius N
    Level 1 (23 points)
    Mar 29, 2016 5:49 AM in response to Julius N

    Try running;

     

    sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder

  • by Julius N,

    Julius N Julius N Mar 29, 2016 5:51 AM in response to squigglepop
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Apple Watch
    Mar 29, 2016 5:51 AM in response to squigglepop

    Already did that.

  • by Julius N,

    Julius N Julius N Mar 30, 2016 2:05 PM in response to Julius N
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Apple Watch
    Mar 30, 2016 2:05 PM in response to Julius N

    One interesting phenomenom that may or may not be related to my issue is that if I keep pinging for example a DNS address for long enough, I get timeouts every 15 minutes. These drops seem to last less than a minute though.

  • by squigglepop,

    squigglepop squigglepop Mar 30, 2016 2:49 PM in response to Julius N
    Level 1 (23 points)
    Mar 30, 2016 2:49 PM in response to Julius N

    Is that pinging an IP or a dns name that is then resolved?

  • by Julius N,

    Julius N Julius N Mar 31, 2016 2:39 AM in response to squigglepop
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Apple Watch
    Mar 31, 2016 2:39 AM in response to squigglepop

    An IP address. I got the same result both with my service provider's DNS and Google's 8.8.8.8.

  • by Julius N,

    Julius N Julius N Mar 31, 2016 3:00 PM in response to Julius N
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Apple Watch
    Mar 31, 2016 3:00 PM in response to Julius N

    Seems like sometimes the connection to Internet is only partly lost. Some web pages were loading unusually slowly, Google's account service didn't respond and Mail lost connection to two accounts on the same server. Rebooting brought everything back to normal. This is getting pretty infuriating. I think I need to contact Apple support.

  • by maureen22,

    maureen22 maureen22 Apr 22, 2016 9:29 PM in response to Julius N
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Apr 22, 2016 9:29 PM in response to Julius N

    I've had this problem since I owned my Macbook Pro. I took it in and they said it was a problem at home which I refused because EVERYTHING else works in my home with a strong signal. They suggested another Location Name which worked in the store but not at home. And I was upset that the guy in the store was so flip about it. After turning my wifi on and off and changing location names for weeks after that, I did an update. Then it resolved for about 5 months. Now it's acting up again after another update. Tonight it wouldn't even recognize my network but another computer and my phone (Android) are at full connection. And I'm 2 feet from the router. So, it has to be an issue that they can't seem to fix the bugs on. Any resolution on your end?

  • by Julius N,

    Julius N Julius N Apr 23, 2016 1:06 AM in response to maureen22
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Apple Watch
    Apr 23, 2016 1:06 AM in response to maureen22

    After trying just about everything else I ended up reinstalling El Capitan a week ago, and the problem hasn't returned since. Perhaps you can try that as well. Does your connection drop as regularly as mine did, exactly every 15 minutes?

  • by maureen22,

    maureen22 maureen22 Apr 24, 2016 5:36 PM in response to Julius N
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Apr 24, 2016 5:36 PM in response to Julius N

    I'll give it a try. It was working just fine. It's not losing connection as frequently as before, but usually when it did I could turn wi-fi off and on and it would find it again easily. Now it takes a much longer time, sometimes trying several times with different location names. Thank you.

  • by Julius N,

    Julius N Julius N Aug 3, 2016 12:42 PM in response to Julius N
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Apple Watch
    Aug 3, 2016 12:42 PM in response to Julius N

    Sadly the issue was gone only temporarily. From my ping log I can see that packages get lost every 15 minutes. Sometimes the connection simply drops and doesn't return. Is Apple planning on fixing this issue or am I forced to reinstall the operating system every few months?

  • by leroydouglas,

    leroydouglas leroydouglas Aug 3, 2016 1:01 PM in response to Julius N
    Level 7 (22,873 points)
    Notebooks
    Aug 3, 2016 1:01 PM in response to Julius N

    Julius N wrote:

     

    Ever since I upgraded to El Capitan a few weeks ago my 2014 MacBook Pro hasn't been able to stay online.

     

    http://osxdaily.com/2015/10/16/fix-wi-fi-problems-mac-os-x-el-capitan/

  • by Julius N,

    Julius N Julius N Sep 5, 2016 10:19 AM in response to leroydouglas
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Apple Watch
    Sep 5, 2016 10:19 AM in response to leroydouglas

    Doing that, among various other network configurations, often fixes the issue only temporarily. However, sooner or later the issue returns. Always. If Apple would still care about user experience they would've fixed this ages ago.

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