10.13 High Sierra Wi-fi issue

thornr wrote:

I've upgraded 10.13.2 and I still can't connect to 5Ghz reliably. When I do connect, I'm lucky to get 5-10Mbs down. I've tried everything on every forum I can find. So I'm stuck using 2.4Ghz like it's the 1990's.

I'm new to these forums. Does Apple ever actually assist anyone here or do these posts just go into the ether?

This is a user to user community; Apple largely only enforces the terms of use for the forum.

5 GHz has much reduced range as compared to 2.4 GHz and you needn't go far before 5 fails to work as reliably as 2.4.

Unfortunate about Apple.

I'm literally 3 feet away from the router. The windows (gag) box beside me is getting 100+Mps Down. My mac is getting about 9 on 5Ghz When I was able to connect to it. On the 2.4 it's getting around 30. This was fine until High sierra.

I'm downloading stuff to my windows box (gag) and using a USB drive to copy it to the Mac.

Assuming it's the 5Ghz?

For the performance, changing the wifi key seems to fix that (thanks Mac_slide). It makes 0 sense but it seemed to do the trick.

The only way I can get connection to my 5Ghz to work is to remove all "preferred Networks" from settings. Power off (not restart) the Mac. Then it will connect when I power back up. If I connect to another wifi network/hotspot, it will not re-connect to the 5Ghz. I have to make sure I have no other Preferred networks then power off and then power back on again.

smh

oh man!! so bummed to hear this....I had to take my computer to apple store...they wiped it out and installed Sierra. Was hopeful now with this update that I could update to High Sierra, I am nervous to try and not be able to connect to internet.....

Agreed withBGreg.

10.13.2 does not fix the problem. Mid 2011 Mac with hidden known network SSIDs from Apple Airport Express. The networks are listed in the Advance tab Preferred Networks listing and they should at least be tried by the macOS before it gives up. In addition, I experienced System Preferences>Network locking up and required a force quit while troubleshooting in 10.13.2. This is Apple’s own infrastructure in my setting and an issue that they cannot place arrogant blame on the rest of the IT space.

This Mac is the only ip device of 20+ in the house - including iPad and iPhones - that is having connectivity issues. This might also be an issue with Keychain as I have seen networks in the preference list that only the iPhone or iPad would have seen and since this issue is only on the desktop Mac that never leaves the house. And, issue remains after removing unnecessary networks.

Apple cannot dictate whether a network should be broadcasting or not and must conform to the options available from the networking standards. The difficulties of network issues are not new on the Mac. Any Apple product that wants to be proprietary but not user friendly is not what Apple should be known for and not what Jobs would stand for from his products or designs. Apple needs to hire real networking expertise and fix this problem instead of avoiding the frustration of its users. Apple has too many alternative competitive options if they don’t fix their own infrastructure issues.

It's not a total fix and some times you have to monkey around with turning airport on and off until you get a connection, but for those who have no ability to change network name or lower or raise the power to whichever network to boost it's dominance --- this string in terminal can help.... you SOMETIMES like I said may have to power off and on the wifi on the laptop but when you get a Solid 5G connection which can be viewed with Option & wifi symbol it works for awhile, some times for hours or days, and other times it switches back to 2.4 and you'll have to do it again, but for me and all of my macbooks and mac pro, macbook pro, etc - this has helped me:

/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Apple80211.framework/Versions/A/Resources/airp ort prefs joinMode=Strongest

Agreed, however Apple has never ever been or shall I say appears to have any concern over their wifi connectivity issues - they have always had since 2001 a sub standard performance in this area, and from what I am told by older guys ALL the way back from the beginning which I was on those PC's but didn't have any BBS or Net connectivity.

Platform: Macbook Pro 2013, 15"

My primary router (xfinity) just sits there after I call up a webpage in any browser unless I am 4'-6' away from it. In the rest of the house, I can switch to the DSL router I have and it may work....

Has anyone spoken with Apple support directly?

I have some need to connect with them time to time in places of public locations.

Sometimes this does not work for good, and you have to reboot or re-connect - but it seems in places that I frequent often, after awhile, it rarely connects to the lower quality connection.

Open Terminal and enter:

/System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Apple80211.framework/Versions/A/Resources/airp ort prefs joinMode=Strongest

Thanks for sharing, bettercallsaul. You are a prime candidate to report this issue to Apple Support as you are probably still under warranty. You may save a lot of people from experiencing this continuing frustration if you would be so kind as to report the issue to Apple and refer them to this thread. The macOS WiFi should behave per the standards regardless and it should remember the networks it has connected to in the past, whether the SSID is hidden or not. Apple cannot pick and choose compliance for their convenience. They need to comply with the established standards. Thanks in advance.

I called Apple support but that did not resolve wifi issue most probably as we can see from the posts here, because it is a problem of Sierra (occurred here the first time) and High Sierra upgrade. It is interesting. It was reported, that upgrading old (before 2009, which can normally not be upgraded any more) Macs to Sierra using a patch, the wifi would not work any more. Something in the Sierra and especially High Sierra upgrade is touching important wifi issues. So I think calling Apple support only makes notice to Apple that the wifi issue until now was not resolved.

I, too, called Apple support. After 90 minutes of troubleshooting/trying to blame the router, the rep gave up and told me it was an issue with my ISP and that I would have to call them. So I call my ISP. After another 90 minutes of my life that I can't get back, my ISP tells me it's an Apple problem. Same old, same old ... I will report it to Apple, but have no expectations of a fix.

I'm following this topic for a few weeks now because I'm having the same problems with my new iMac 27" (2017).

The iMac shipped with Sierra, I couldn't restore from TimeMachine because the OS was newer so I upgraded the new iMac to High Sierra 10.13.1 and restored my files back. All went fine until a few days later after two times the iMac was put in sleep mode, the WiFi signal drops out, it gets disabled and gets enabled by the OS but without any errors. During that moment the iMac gets really slow like it's going to crash. After two times waking from sleep, the iMac gets unusable because of lowliness upon enabling wifi. Quick solution was just let the iMac shut down instead of sleep, but a few days later I noticed that it began to happen even when using the Mac where the wifi just disables itself (not just losing the wifi network signal). It began to get frustrating. After updating to 10.13.2 it got even worse, it got to a point that I just couldn't enable wifi anymore. It was just disabled, trying to enable it in network preferences did nothing. Thank god that I have a long lan cable in my house to have some internet connection... So I searched the inter webs and found this article and some troubleshooting guides including removing the wifi settings from /library/preferences/systemconfiguration, reset SMC, reset PRAM, ... nothing worked. Even ran hardware diagnostics (no issues), used another profile, reinstalling Mac OS High Sierra, ... . Even that didn't solve it. The WiFi gets even disabled and re-enabled when you boot in rescue disk and try to reinstall macOS over the internet causing the download to halt and new reboot is required.

As the iMac is in warranty I contacted AppleCare (Belgium) where they helped out the best they could like all the stuff I already did to get it solved. They advised me to get my Mac back to the store to take a look at it but I'm afraid when reading all these reports that the issue wouldn't be solved at all.

Miraculously when I was in contact with AppleCare my wifi got re-enabled again, but still I have to shut down my Mac instead of sleep to keep it working. One sleep and I can remove the files at /library/preferences/systemconfiguration and reboot to get it up and running again. This ain't a good solution unfortunately.

I sincerely hope a fix is out soon because it is a bit frustrating.

PS.: my router is new, and on my old Mac there where no issues running Mac OS High Sierra 10.13.1,

Edit: SSID not hidden, connected to 2.4Ghz network since 5Ghz is unusable

I had the same problem. At any time after you got your new iMac did you reset your router to factory settings (the paper clip thing in the Reset hole, hold 2 seconds) and then change the network name and password to what you want through the web admin interface? That was a great help to me.

Thanks for your reply. Did a hardware reset of the router moments ago, will test with the iMac if it can keep connection after that reset. Network name can't be changed (locked by the ISP).

I'll report back after a few tests!

Edit: Because the 5Ghz was most troublesome, I tested that out. It got connected at first but quickly dropped the connection, it tries to reconnect causing the iMac to slow down, the spinning wheel that goes round and round when hovering the wifi icon. During that, the keyboard fails to even type, mouse does work. Wifi resets itself from off to on and reconnects to the 2.4Ghz network. Whilst trying to reconnect with 5Ghz channel it now gives an error that It couldn't connect and says I should get closer to the router (I'm only 10 feet away from it). Will give further try on 2.4Ghz channel to see if issues are still there.