Wifi dropping on certain wifi networks and only on Macbook Airs.
June 28, 2015 8:21 AM Subscribe
Wifi is dropping on two Macbook Airs on certain networks but not on others while all other devices are fine. How to fix?
All of the Macbook Airs in my household (one is OS X 10.9.5 and one is OSX 10.10.3) are having the same problem - they are constantly dropping the wifi connection when on the home wifi (and one other house wifi as well). This is happening to both Macbook Airs. iPhone and iPads are working just fine on these home wifi networks.
Wifi is fine on these same laptops when on work office wifi, coffee shop wifi, airport wifi etc.
Any idea of how to fix this? I'm not that computer literate, but any help would be very much appreciated! Thanks.
All of the Macbook Airs in my household (one is OS X 10.9.5 and one is OSX 10.10.3) are having the same problem - they are constantly dropping the wifi connection when on the home wifi (and one other house wifi as well). This is happening to both Macbook Airs. iPhone and iPads are working just fine on these home wifi networks.
Wifi is fine on these same laptops when on work office wifi, coffee shop wifi, airport wifi etc.
Any idea of how to fix this? I'm not that computer literate, but any help would be very much appreciated! Thanks.
No idea why, but this works when my mac gets finicky about our home wifi:
In the Wi-Fi menu, right click (or control click) on the network in question and select "Forget network" then go back and join the network again like it's the first time.
It takes about a minute and won't hurt.
posted by whoiam at 10:24 AM on June 28, 2015
In the Wi-Fi menu, right click (or control click) on the network in question and select "Forget network" then go back and join the network again like it's the first time.
It takes about a minute and won't hurt.
posted by whoiam at 10:24 AM on June 28, 2015
What wireless router are you using, and where is it located, in relation to the dropping Airs.
posted by humboldt32 at 12:13 PM on June 28, 2015
posted by humboldt32 at 12:13 PM on June 28, 2015
My Air did that continuously as well...whoiam's solution works, but it's still super annoying. We ended up getting a repeater and that solved the problem. (does the dropping happen mostly in certain areas of the house?)
posted by lemonade at 7:18 PM on June 28, 2015
posted by lemonade at 7:18 PM on June 28, 2015
Whoiam has it, this also works on iOS devices(which i've also experienced this problem on intermittently) and it makes me think it's a bug in some shared OSX network code.
I hate that this works, because i hate solutions that make hte problem go away without explaining what caused it, but it does work.
It's really dumb, but i needed a router upgrade anyways and got a used airport extreme. Not only did it solve it, but it's also the most stable router i've owned in the past 10 years.
posted by emptythought at 7:50 PM on June 28, 2015
I hate that this works, because i hate solutions that make hte problem go away without explaining what caused it, but it does work.
It's really dumb, but i needed a router upgrade anyways and got a used airport extreme. Not only did it solve it, but it's also the most stable router i've owned in the past 10 years.
posted by emptythought at 7:50 PM on June 28, 2015
Response by poster: Well, Whoiam fixed one laptop, but not the other. Any other ideas?
To answer other questions: router is the basic one that the internet provider sent (I'm in the UK, so one router is from BT and one is from Virgin) and it has been tried in every single room of both houses (away from tvs etc).
posted by meerkatty at 2:25 PM on June 29, 2015
To answer other questions: router is the basic one that the internet provider sent (I'm in the UK, so one router is from BT and one is from Virgin) and it has been tried in every single room of both houses (away from tvs etc).
posted by meerkatty at 2:25 PM on June 29, 2015
> Whoiam fixed one laptop, but not the other.
Which one?
OS X 10.10 introduced discoveryd in place of the old standard mDNSresponder to handle some networking, and it has been a buggy mess (cache poisoning, duplicate names, etc. etc.) - so much so, that Apple has pulled discoveryd and reverted to mDNSresponder on the latest 10.10 betas.
If you're running 10.10 and still have discoveryd running, you might consider doing some surgery on your own - that's basically what Apple did, but you take on the risk doing it yourself. Or you could wait for the next Yosemite update - should be soon.
Or maybe this issue has nothing to do with you - sorry. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
posted by RedOrGreen at 3:09 PM on June 29, 2015
Which one?
OS X 10.10 introduced discoveryd in place of the old standard mDNSresponder to handle some networking, and it has been a buggy mess (cache poisoning, duplicate names, etc. etc.) - so much so, that Apple has pulled discoveryd and reverted to mDNSresponder on the latest 10.10 betas.
If you're running 10.10 and still have discoveryd running, you might consider doing some surgery on your own - that's basically what Apple did, but you take on the risk doing it yourself. Or you could wait for the next Yosemite update - should be soon.
Or maybe this issue has nothing to do with you - sorry. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
posted by RedOrGreen at 3:09 PM on June 29, 2015
Response by poster: It's the OS X 10.9.5 that is still not working.
posted by meerkatty at 1:36 AM on June 30, 2015
posted by meerkatty at 1:36 AM on June 30, 2015
Or you could wait for the next Yosemite update - should be soon.
And there it is. 10.10.4 has been released, and promises to fix various networking issues. "Improves networking reliability" is the top bullet point for the release.
But that apparently doesn't help you, sorry.
(You should update anyway, because networking is like black magic. These computers, they talk to each other? Over a 7-layer protocol that modulates radio waves into binary digits into network frames into internet packets into http into cat videos from a server in across the globe?)
posted by RedOrGreen at 11:14 AM on June 30, 2015
And there it is. 10.10.4 has been released, and promises to fix various networking issues. "Improves networking reliability" is the top bullet point for the release.
But that apparently doesn't help you, sorry.
(You should update anyway, because networking is like black magic. These computers, they talk to each other? Over a 7-layer protocol that modulates radio waves into binary digits into network frames into internet packets into http into cat videos from a server in across the globe?)
posted by RedOrGreen at 11:14 AM on June 30, 2015
As an update, 10.10.4 is the first yosemite version to make a meaningful improvement in stability to my machine. Both network performance, and system stability(i have one of the flaky graphics card recall models i've been too lazy to take in since it still runs most of the time).
Rather than wifi dropping, or the system freezing... it either slows down for a second then continues to stay connected or in the case of crashes just kicks me back to the login screen.
This is one of the most solid patches to an already good OS since like, windows 7 SP1 or the first big bugplug to 10.6/snow leopard. A+ job, go install it right now. It seems like there's been some power management tweaks as well since temps went down a bit too.(which is impressive, because it's like 88f/32c in my apartment)
posted by emptythought at 11:19 PM on July 1, 2015
Rather than wifi dropping, or the system freezing... it either slows down for a second then continues to stay connected or in the case of crashes just kicks me back to the login screen.
This is one of the most solid patches to an already good OS since like, windows 7 SP1 or the first big bugplug to 10.6/snow leopard. A+ job, go install it right now. It seems like there's been some power management tweaks as well since temps went down a bit too.(which is impressive, because it's like 88f/32c in my apartment)
posted by emptythought at 11:19 PM on July 1, 2015
Response by poster: In case anyone pops back to this thread for an answer, this has just FINALLY been resolved. The Macbook Airs couldn't connect to the 5GHz frequency on the router, and I had to manually change them to connect to the 2.4 GHz. Problem solved.
posted by meerkatty at 3:58 AM on August 18, 2015
posted by meerkatty at 3:58 AM on August 18, 2015
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by beagle at 9:01 AM on June 28, 2015