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MacBook airport keeps disconnecting and reconnecting

D

dotdotdot

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Jan 23, 2005
2,391
44
For some reason, my MacBook keeps disconnecting and reconnecting from my home network.

Browsing the internet, accessing network files, listening to iTunes sharing, all of these things are interrupted by the AirPort disconnecting from my network and reconnecting moments later - and by moments I mean like 1 or 2 seconds.

In the Finderbar, I see the Airport symbol have all the bars completely full, and then all of a sudden drop to empty, and then a second later become completely full again. Clicking on this shows Airport: Scanning..., but I think it's just because I click it that it looks for networks.

How do I get this to stop? It's incredibly frustrating.
 
i'm having the same issue. i changed the channel. try that. but that really hasn't been a permanent fix. thought it does work for a bit
 
mashinhead said:
i'm having the same issue. i changed the channel. try that. but that really hasn't been a permanent fix. thought it does work for a bit
Click to expand...

Do you have 10.5.2?

In any case, I had to switch to ethernet, but when I start needing to take this on the road, how do I fix the problem?
 
dotdotdot said:
Do you have 10.5.2?

In any case, I had to switch to ethernet, but when I start needing to take this on the road, how do I fix the problem?
Click to expand...

yes i do. i really don't know another way to fix it other than that. and complaining to apple. these problems started with leopard, and i think it is an OS issue. leopard has been a terrible internet experience to me, airport issues, safari crashing all the time, flash runs poorly.
 
I have had a very similar issue with my Macbook airport in Leopard. I'm able to connect to my Airport Express network only 10% of the time from 5 feet away. It keeps asking me for a password and then saying it's not accepted. This started with Leopard in the last few weeks (maybe it's 10.5.2?). I was going to dig into the innards and make sure the airport antenna didn't wiggle loose. That happened on my old PB G4 once.
 
Here's a picture of AP Grapher tracking my Airport reception in the Macbook. I have an iMac Core 2 Duo about 6 feet from my Airport station and it gets 75% signal quality consistently (as would be expected).

The attached picture shows me sitting 15 feet from the airport with a clear line of sight (nothing obstructing signal). Then, I walked to the next room about thirty feet from Airport where my work desk is. This has always had fine reception and yet it completely cut out as you see in the picture. The final spike is where I walked over and held the Macbook literally two feet away from the Airport Express.

My thoughts are this. Something's suddenly hurting airport reception. As I mentioned in my last post, does anyone think this could be a problem with my airport antenna getting jiggling loose? I searched for tutorials online about how to open the case and double check the airport connections but couldn't find anything. Anyone have a link? Thanks for any help.
 

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My iMac used to do the same thing when I first installed Leopard. It always dropped the connection, reconnected for 5 minutes or so, and then dropped out again. Have you applied all of the latest updates for your MacBook? Once I installed 10.5.2 and the latest Airport updates, it has only dropped out once or twice. I would call Apple and ask them what you should do. If you haven't already, check out the Apple Support website. Seems to be a lot of helpful information over there.

Good luck.
 
ryannel2003 said:
My iMac used to do the same thing when I first installed Leopard. It always dropped the connection, reconnected for 5 minutes or so, and then dropped out again. Have you applied all of the latest updates for your MacBook? Once I installed 10.5.2 and the latest Airport updates, it has only dropped out once or twice. I would call Apple and ask them what you should do. If you haven't already, check out the Apple Support website. Seems to be a lot of helpful information over there.

Good luck.
Click to expand...

that happened with me on tiger until i installed the updates but when i got leopard i installed the updates right away and nothing seemed to go wrong ;)
 
Hi, sorry to bump an old thread, but I'm having the same problem. Airport just keeps disconnecting then reconnecting a few seconds later; it used to happen every few days, but now it happens every day. It only does this with my home network, nowhere else, but I know it's not my router because my brother, who also uses a macbook, has perfect signal at home. I try switching Airport off and on again, which works for a minute, then goes back to disconnecting. Sometimes when I click the airport logo, my home network isn't even listed in the drop-down menu. I've installed all the updates for it, but I don't know what else to do now.

Some help would be appreciated, thanks :)

[I'm using Mac OS X 10.4.1]
 
dotdotdot said:
For some reason, my MacBook keeps disconnecting and reconnecting from my home network.

Browsing the internet, accessing network files, listening to iTunes sharing, all of these things are interrupted by the AirPort disconnecting from my network and reconnecting moments later - and by moments I mean like 1 or 2 seconds.

In the Finderbar, I see the Airport symbol have all the bars completely full, and then all of a sudden drop to empty, and then a second later become completely full again. Clicking on this shows Airport: Scanning..., but I think it's just because I click it that it looks for networks.

How do I get this to stop? It's incredibly frustrating.
Click to expand...
I am having the same problem!
 
Here too

Same problem here. Suddenly starts switching between full strength and no signal every second, for about 30 seconds.

Maybe a router channel conflict? But another (newer) macbook on the same network at the same time had no problem at exactly the time that this one (10.4.11) did have the problem.

This thread is slightly old - did anyone resolve the problem?
 
It's good to know I'm not alone

I have the same problem. I'm on OSX 10.6.5 and my airport connection on my MacBook pro is intermittent. It works better some parts of the day than others, which is ridiculous.

My iPad has no issue whatsoever.
 
I have a macbook 2.0ghz and installed all the updates. it has just come back from repair and it keeps disconnecting. tried 3 different wireless networks and the same issue keeps occuring.

Any ideas anyone? Seems like a common problem!
 
Count me in!

Problem started yesterday, internet slows to a crawl and then airport starts "searching" for networks. Updated to 10.6.6 this morning and that had no effect.

Not my router or connection as my g/f MB works fine as does my iPhone.
 
iStudentUK said:
Count me in!

Problem started yesterday, internet slows to a crawl and then airport starts "searching" for networks. Updated to 10.6.6 this morning and that had no effect.

Not my router or connection as my g/f MB works fine as does my iPhone.
Click to expand...

Same as me. iPhone, iPad + other laptops all work fine. Its only my macbook that has the problem. My sisters newer Macbook is fine as is the MBP! Really frustrating.
 
Problem solved??

I have updated my MB with all the new updates from Software Update (hadn't been done for a while as I had no wifi! :eek:)

Wifi worked fine for the 10 minutes that I had spare to test it.

Is there any software I can use to monitor my wifi connection while I leave the laptop on and go to work?

Thanks
 
Not Mac OS Dependent

I have started experiencing what sounds like this problem with increasing frequency on both a netbook running Ubuntu Linux 10.04 and a Cr-48 Chrome OS notebook (Chrome OS is built on Linux). Connection drops, I am asked for the WPA passphrase (which, in my case, is characters long, and saved in a text file), I copy/paste the passphrase (so no chance of error exists), which is not accepted. If I unplug the Airport Express for 5 seconds, after it has restarted, the passphrase is accepted. And, I think (haven't tried this for a while), if I delete the saved connection, I can re-connect without rebooting the Airport Express (which is first gen, approx. 5 years old).

Changing the network speed of the AE had no effect (neither better nor worse at 1 mb/sec, 2mb/sec, or 5.5 mb/sec). I'm slowly working through all of the channels, which is iffy. It seems to be somewhat more stable on some channels than others, but, because the problem is erratic, this could just be random variation. My latest experiment is to switch from WEP to WPA2 authentication, which is both more secure, and allows me to create a shorter, more easily remembered, passphrase.

Combine this with crappy Comcast ISP service (which drops several times a week), and I'm getting very frustrated.
 
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Here may be the easy fix!

I've been having this same trouble. It's been getting worse. I've had new routers, tried all the channels, even contemplating buying an Airport Extreme, and/or a new computer or Aaarrrggghhh. As you can see, I was in the same boat.

I called Solutions in Hove. They said £99 to look at it.
I called forcomputerproblems.com. I'm working out of the phone book here, I'm unable to get back on line. He said "try this - fix disk permissions. Verify first, it can be interesting to see where the problem is" He added "faulty disk permissions sometimes scramble passwords" (or words to that effect).

finder - applications - utilities - disk utility - select your harddrive and go. Have something else to do while it runs, it may take a while.

And voila! So far so good. Love that man at the url above (but he's on the phone too). Proper bloke.
 
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MacBook airport keeps disconnecting and reconnecting

Hi
I got the same problem with a macbook pro (and got 1 more friend with the same prob too)
and started one day with no previous warnings.
Read a lot of forums, asked mac experts, but havent found any solution

I think its not a software prob cause when i move the mac facing the router it works just fine. (with no gaps)
The router is not a prob for sure cause all the other devices are working perfectly.

Hope it works to most of ya
Cheers
 
Airport issues

Hi,

Try changing the wifi router channel to 11 as it might cause signal interferences with your neighbours wifi router.

It works on my Mac OS X 10.6.8.

ignatiusathens said:
Hi
I got the same problem with a macbook pro (and got 1 more friend with the same prob too)
and started one day with no previous warnings.
Read a lot of forums, asked mac experts, but havent found any solution

I think its not a software prob cause when i move the mac facing the router it works just fine. (with no gaps)
The router is not a prob for sure cause all the other devices are working perfectly.

Hope it works to most of ya
Cheers
Click to expand...
 
Try clicking on the Wifi signal bars and then go to "Open Network Preferences". I would delete the "Wi-Fi" Connection by highlighting it and clicking on the "-" sign.

Then add by pressing the "+" sign and choose the interface as WiFi and Service name you can leave it at WiFi. Afterwards try reconnecting to your WiFi and see if the problem persists.
 
I agree with several of the people on this post that this is a recent problem in the last 6-12 months or so. Using a 2008 MacBook Pro 10.6.8 and an Airport Express. It's not the AE as my iPhone and iPad work just fine on it (I even took it to the Apple store and they gave me a new one but they did not think my old one was broke). But at the same time it's not the computer as it connects JUST FINE to other people's WiFi networks (not an antenna issue). It has something to do with the handshaking between the Macbook Pro/OS and the AE, and I bet it occurred with some sort of security update; just like the latest security update screwed up the Rosetta code, because Apple really isn't looking that far backward anymore in detail. I think it may be the fact that many of us are still on 10.6 snow leopard, maybe in combination with my old 2008 machine, not sure. I ran iStumbler to analyze the signal and it comes across weak and/or spiky as the post with the graph illustrated. Changing channels is not the answer; the 'auto' channel select has worked just fine for years since I bought my first AE in 2004.
 
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