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Internet connection drops: Mail, Firefox, Safari

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Peewiglet

macrumors newbie
Original poster
May 31, 2011
22
0
Hi,

I've had a Macbook Pro for a few months now, but I'm still a very new Mac user.

All was well until a week or so ago, when suddenly I found that on opening the Macbook up the internet connection seemed to have hung. I try to get email in Mail but it won't work, and after trying for 30 seconds or so Mail stops with little exclamation marks next to the various accounts. Firefox always seems to have hung, and I have to close it down and re-start to get it going again. Safari tells me I'm not connected to the internet, but when I follow the diagnostic link it offers it tells me my connection is working perfectly. All this continues for a couple of minutes, and then things start to work again.

I've scoured the net to try to find an answer, but although I've come across several people with similar problems I haven't found a solution. I followed advice to repair permissions, but that hasn't solved the problem. I've tried turning WiFi off/on/off but that doesn't seem to help either. My PC working wireless upstairs is fine, BTW, so I don't believe the problem really lies with my connection.

I realise this sounds vague, but I *think* the problem started after an OS upgrade/update. I'm on OS X 10.7.2. Because I'm new to Mac I don't know where to look to find out when the last update was, and I don't know whether it might be possible to roll it back or something. I'm almost sure, though, that about a week ago (just before the problem started) I got a message asking whether I wanted to install an OS update. Unfortunately I don't know how to check.

If anybody can help I'd be very grateful. Until now I haven't had a problem with connectivity. This is becoming a major pain, though.
 
Last edited:
Could be something on your ISP's end. I had an issue a few weeks back where my Internet connection got upgraded, and when the guy set up the router he accidentally had it assigning the same IP to two different computers so both of them would randomly drop.
 
Thanks for that. I'll check with the ISP. I thought it prolly wasn't anything to do with them, though, because initially I thought the router wasn't working properly and so I swapped it, but I still have the problem. Still, I'll give them a ring. Thanks again.
 
For anyone else who has this problem

I'm now sure that this is something to do with the OS, and nothing to do with my ISP.

This morning when I fired up the Macbook I was told there was a software update waiting. I installed it, and when the Macbook re-started itself the problem seemed to be gone. My fingers are still crossed, but so far all's well.

I've read about many people with this problem (Google shows reports going back several years) and what it actually seems to be is a delay in waking on opening the case.

Anyway... I hope it's gone, as I couldn't find an answer anywhere.
 
I have had this exact same issue, and it's due to a recent update that Apple pushed to us a few days ago. This is how I fixed it...

1) trash the '/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration' folder
2) empty the Trash
3) shutdown the computer and leave shutdown for 30 seconds
4) startup the computer and select my network from Airport
5) put the computer to sleep, wait 30 seconds
6) wake the computer and ensure that Airport had established a connection to the network and set my network as the preferred network (as it had)
Click to expand...

This does work, and I was quite impressed. Found it on the Apple Support Forums.

Good luck!
 
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