WiFi: No Hardware Installed after Mojave upgrade

Finally found a solution, thanks to this post: Re: Mojave login UI sluggish & laggy

If you're booting from a usb drive, make sure to edit the file on the right volume. My MBP is now back to being healthy and working perfectly on Mojave... with WiFi!

TL;DR - on the native drive (/Volumes/Macintosh HD), got to /etc/ and rename the sysctl.conf file, reboot and voila!

Here is the solution, I had the same problem and fixed it yesterday. Look below.

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Fixed it! It is amazing to me that one tiny config file can bring down the whole system! I followed the instructions of someone else in the replies below (forgot the name) and Mohave installed without a hitch. Here are the instructions:

If you're also seeing symptoms like networking failing, bluetooth devices not connecting, etc, and you have been using the mac for a while (or restored it from another machine using migration or time machine), then it's due to an old, out of date system configuration file that is contains settings that are too low for modern macs: '/etc/sysctl.conf

'
This file doesn't even exists on new macs, so if you have it, it will cause problems

A. If you can log in (even if slow), or you're still on High Sierra, and have not yet upgraded, follow these instructions:

1. Start the terminal

app from Applications/Utilities

2. Check if the file exists, by typing

ls -l /etc/sysctl.conf

If this returns a result like the following, then the file exists. If it does not, then your issues are caused by something else

-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 136 24 Nov 2013 /etc/sysctl.conf

3. Remove the file: (actually this command will simply rename it, so you can restore it if you really want to mess up your computer again.)

You'll be prompted for your password.

sudo mv /etc/sysctl.conf /etc/sysctl.conf.bak

4. Restart your computer, and you should be all set, or if you've rolled back to High Sierra, you should be good to attempt the upgrade again.

Just left the Apple store (1 hour 20 minute visit). We found that the Fusion drive was incorrectly defined.

Machine is OK after splitting the logical Fusion drive into its physical components, erasing them, rebooting, re-establishing the Fusion drive and doing a clean install of Mojave.

On my way home to restore my data (not the apps or system settings). I’ll reinstall my apps from scratch.

THANK YOU!!!!

This solution did it for me! My offending file was from 2005!

A. If you can log in (even if slow), or you're still on High Sierra, and have not yet upgraded, follow these instructions:

1. Start the terminal app from Applications/Utilities

2. Check if the file exists, by typing

ls -l /etc/sysctl.conf

If this returns a result like the following, then the file exists. If it does not, then your issues are caused by something else

-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 136 24 Nov 2013 /etc/sysctl.conf

3. Remove the file: (actually this command will simply rename it, so you can restore it if you really want to mess up your computer again.)

You'll be prompted for your password.

sudo mv /etc/sysctl.conf /etc/sysctl.conf.bak

4. Restart your computer, and you should be all set, or if you've rolled back to High Sierra, you should be good to attempt the upgrade again.

B. IF you are unable to successfully log in at all (usually those who are running encrypted disks), then you're going to have to do a couple of steps first.

1. Reboot in to 'recovery mode' by holding cmd-R when you power on the computer until you see the apple logo.

2. You'll be presented by a menu with the 4 recovery options. One of them is 'disk utility'. Click on it to load disk utility.
3. Disk utility displays a list of the drives/partitions on your computer. One of these will be called something like 'Macintosh HD'. Select it. Next, On the top right hand corner of the disk utility window is a series of icons, one of which is called 'Mount'. Click on this. If you disk is encrypted, it may ask you to type in your password to unlock it. Do so.

4. Quit the disk utility app. This should take you back to the recovery menu.
5. Launch the Terminal app as follows: In the top main menu bar is a menu called 'Utilities'. Open this menu, and you should see 'terminal'. Click on it to launch.
6. From terminal, rename the troublesome file:
mv /etc/sysctl.conf /etc/sysctl.conf.bak

7. Exit terminal, and restart your mac. You should be able to log in successfully.

Thanks

FYI when I tried the Terminal commands they didn’t work, saying something about not being authorized etc. Not sure if I missed some spaces or use l instead of 1 etc.

Anyway what worked for me was to find the file directly and rename it. I went to the Go menu, then chose “Go to Folder” then typed “Volumes/Specific Name/private/etc/“ where “Specific Name” is the name I gave the hard drive volume.

Once the folder was accessed I found the file “sysctl.conf” (mine was from 2009) and renamed it manually. I got a alert box and had to enter my password to rename it.

After restarting everything seems to be working normally (trackpad, WiFi etc.) and it’s not sluggish anymore. Glad I found this.

The same symptom happened to me just now - “WiFi: no hardware installed”. Turns out it was just a corrupted file, not an actual hardware failure. To make your WiFi come back to life, you need to remove "/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.airport.preferences.plist" as in drag it to the trash.

Open a Finder window. Then go to the menu bar for Finder and select "Go" and then "Go to Folder". Then enter "/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration" in the dialog box and click "Go" button. Inside the folder that appears you will find "com.apple.airport.preferences.plist".

Drag "com.apple.airport.preferences.plist" to the trash. A few seconds later, the little WiFi symbol in theta bar comes back all on its own.

Follow the instructions here and it'll take care of the offending file ([Edit]: Sorry I put in a URL I thought would go to the answer that had the instructions, but it just goes to the this thread, let me figure out how to link to the answer with the specific instructions)

You don't actually have to eliminate it just follow the instructions to rename it.

[Edit 2]: Ok, here is the link that should take you to the answer with detailed instructions of what to do: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8558304?answerId=34003022022#34003022022

My fix was as simple as booting in recovery mode and running first aid on the start up drive. Fixed the slow boot up and the “no hardware found” for netwo

My call today with Apple support was not productive. Went through all the generic fixes, predictably to no avail. Recommendation was to take the iMac in to an Apple Store (not happening, health prevents me from driving 90 minutes each way) or local authorized repair center, obviously this is not a hardware problem. Fortunately I made a bootable copy just before updating (long time SuperDuper user), just restored the iMac from that and all is well. For what it’s worth, they did say Apple was aware of the issue and working on it.

I have had this same problem when updating to Mojave the date it was released, i have contacted apple support with no help at all, this is something that you must do on your own, but i was able to resolve my problem by creating a time machine and restoring back to High Sierra, tho i lost all my applications. I keep my data with the Time machine in Mojave but you must manually look for your files because you can't restore data from a high firmware to low. I believe it's an OS problem with some Mac's ( i have the 2016 MACBOOK PRO 13' Touchbar ). So i would suggest not to update to Mojave and go back to sierra till the next version of Mojave is available. Current version available atm is 10.14 so i suggest to wait to 10.14.1 or later

Same problem here, and I started with a MacPlus!! After upgrading current MBP (Retina 13", mid 2014) to Mojave got the "WiFi no hardware" error, slow as ****, non-responsive, same as others have reported. Tried everything I could. Went to Genius bar, HW checked out OK, funny enough their diagnostic tool showed "no MacOS" ... spent 3 hours for them to reinstall Mojave, but same issues as before. Ended calling Apple, their engineer was nice but couldn't figure out what the problem might be.

After wasting 2 days, I finally reverted back to HS (Recovery mode, Time Machine B/U, but had to connect to my router via Thunderbolt-Ethernet adaptor).

Recovery took 9 hours but I am back to HS and where I was before Mojave destroyed my MBP.

So, a loud BEWARE: DO NOT UPGRADE TO MOJAVE.

Apple needs to fix the problem quickly if they care about their customers.

Wonder if this is another way for Apple to force mac owners of older computers to buy new Macs ... just saying!!!

Bottom Line: nothing you can do . Go back to HS and hope you have a B/U before you got sucked into Mojave.

I just shut my computer down and restarted while pressing Command R. That then gave me the option to restore from a TM backup. It also asked where I would like to install it. I picked my internal HD where Mojave was and went to bed. Checked back in the morning and High Sierra was back along with my WI-FI 😁

I would suggest you try this first.

go into recovery mode and reinstall.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204904

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201314

You could also recover to a back up before you installed Mojave, to get back to a working state.

Jeff

Try doing a clean install, then use Migration Assistant to migrate everything except "Other files and folders", assuming of course that you have a pre-Mojave backup or clone.