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OS X 10.10.4 and Wi-Fi Performance
- Thread starter hsouris
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I had no wifi problems with my 2013 MacBook Air. Ever. Every OS version was always fine.
UNTIL I paired my recently acquired Beats Studio Wireless headphones to it. Ever since then, I have the dreaded Bluetooth conflict.
I had never had problems with wifi and Bluetooth before this. I've always used a Bluetooth keyboard with no issues. Ever since I paired the headphones, I can't use wifi with Bluetooth enabled at the same time. I've tried everything. Deleting the headphones. Changing settings. Etc etc
When wifi craps out, all it takes is to disable Bluetooth and instantly everything comes back again.
At this point I'm thinking of trying a clean install, or throwing the MacBook out the window. So annoying!!
If anyone else out there had a similar problem and got it resolved, I'm all ears.
UNTIL I paired my recently acquired Beats Studio Wireless headphones to it. Ever since then, I have the dreaded Bluetooth conflict.
I had never had problems with wifi and Bluetooth before this. I've always used a Bluetooth keyboard with no issues. Ever since I paired the headphones, I can't use wifi with Bluetooth enabled at the same time. I've tried everything. Deleting the headphones. Changing settings. Etc etc
When wifi craps out, all it takes is to disable Bluetooth and instantly everything comes back again.
At this point I'm thinking of trying a clean install, or throwing the MacBook out the window. So annoying!!
If anyone else out there had a similar problem and got it resolved, I'm all ears.
Have you tried 5GHz WiFi? Bluetooth is 2.4GHz so it is easy to imagine it interfering with 2.4GHz WiFi.
We have had, for the last 4 years or so, wireless networks at all our school sites that have been based on Apple Airport Extreme access points. We started prior to that with the third generation, round units ("flying saucers"), which would occasionally cease to function on one side or other. The interesting but annoying thing about that was that when one went down, it would result in a cascade effect, wherein 30-40% of the remaining units on campus would also fail out, all requiring a restart of the AP's.
This was cured by replacing the Flying Saucers with the square format APX 802.11n ("Hot Plates") access points. We would have less than one drop out per year per site with these, and their range and client capacity were much better. Those were subsequently replaced by the current 802.11ac units, which we call the "Tower of Doom". None of these has ever stopped working, even once.
With any of the Apple access points, we have had no WiFi connectivity issues of any kind except that the units have trouble handling more than about 40 clients at once, and general outside bandwidth problems unrelated to the internal network connection. Stability with Mac OS's 10.4 and up was never an issue. At home, where I also use a Gen3 "Hot Plate", there are no WiFi problems using 10.6, 10.7 or higher, up to and including 10.10.4, even when streaming movies into two devices. The access points were configured to automatically switch between 5 and 2.4Ghz channels as needed.
HOWEVER....
Because of the need to have multiple WiFi SSID's and offer better central management, we have moved to a Ruckus enterprise grade access point, and we are having some issues with some of the Mac hardware. Not with stability when in use at all, but newer iMacs in particular will fail to re-establish the connection through the access point to the network. The WiFi signal and connection to the access point persists, but not the connection beyond the AP. We're not sure at this point where the problem lies at this point, but as I say, it sounds like something different than is being complained of here. Other than reconnection after an idle period, we have no complaints about the stability of the WiFi with any of our Macs.
If anyone has anything to offer on that matter, please do.
Thanks
This was cured by replacing the Flying Saucers with the square format APX 802.11n ("Hot Plates") access points. We would have less than one drop out per year per site with these, and their range and client capacity were much better. Those were subsequently replaced by the current 802.11ac units, which we call the "Tower of Doom". None of these has ever stopped working, even once.
With any of the Apple access points, we have had no WiFi connectivity issues of any kind except that the units have trouble handling more than about 40 clients at once, and general outside bandwidth problems unrelated to the internal network connection. Stability with Mac OS's 10.4 and up was never an issue. At home, where I also use a Gen3 "Hot Plate", there are no WiFi problems using 10.6, 10.7 or higher, up to and including 10.10.4, even when streaming movies into two devices. The access points were configured to automatically switch between 5 and 2.4Ghz channels as needed.
HOWEVER....
Because of the need to have multiple WiFi SSID's and offer better central management, we have moved to a Ruckus enterprise grade access point, and we are having some issues with some of the Mac hardware. Not with stability when in use at all, but newer iMacs in particular will fail to re-establish the connection through the access point to the network. The WiFi signal and connection to the access point persists, but not the connection beyond the AP. We're not sure at this point where the problem lies at this point, but as I say, it sounds like something different than is being complained of here. Other than reconnection after an idle period, we have no complaints about the stability of the WiFi with any of our Macs.
If anyone has anything to offer on that matter, please do.
Thanks
In general you should not have more than 20 devices per AP. If you need more than you need a higher density network. Consumer hardware doesn't work properly in those cases because of the radios being set too high (it causes interference). More expensive professional/enterprise hardware doesn't. They allow you to turn down the radios so you can have a high density network. The Unifi devices from Ubiquiti are rather popular but so are the ones from Aruba Networks, Aerohives, Ruckus and Cisco. When using these you also need to start finetuning the network which is best done by a professional company specialising in wireless networks. They know what to set to have proper roaming of devices and such.
Not sure your response was directed to me or to the larger audience, but my point to the average user is that stability of wireless networking has never been an issue while using Apple access points, only those from third parties. We ran as many as 70 clients up against some of these before we added more access points and still had less trouble than we expected, again excluding issues that we know were caused by bandwidth or remote web server throttling/capacity.
Aruba, BTW, was quite unfriendly toward OSX and Apple iOS devices of every kind. Our pilot installation of an enterprise wireless system was with Aruba, and we are replacing that with Ruckus at the moment.
I think I just found a possible cause of my problem, but I need to run a couple of tests.
Aruba, BTW, was quite unfriendly toward OSX and Apple iOS devices of every kind. Our pilot installation of an enterprise wireless system was with Aruba, and we are replacing that with Ruckus at the moment.
I think I just found a possible cause of my problem, but I need to run a couple of tests.
Hey, I was really stoked because this fix worked so well, unfortunately I have to report that after working great for 2 weeks, the wifi problems returned for me. I didn't change any settings or hardware, so I just don't get get it. What the hell is creating these issues? Once it's fixed, why the heck doen't it stay fixed, if I didn't change anything...? :-s
Oddly enough, today is the first time I had wi-fi problems in the morning. What the hell? I also didn't change anything, no updates either except for iTunes two days ago.
I have isolated what is (or, is not) happening with the particular problem that I had. The problem is that unless all of the check boxes in the Energy Saver SysPrefs pane are cleared, the computer will sleep, but keep the WiFi card active. The access point will show a live WiFi connection, but once the machine sleeps, the Ruckus will not reestablish the connection from WiFi to Ethernet unless the computer re-initializes the the WiFi card. If you watch for the WiFi icon in the menu bar, it will come back blacked in immediately as the display wakes.
Clearing all the checks allows the card to sleep along with the rest of the system, and on wake, the card re-starts, and re-establishes the full connection at the AP. You can see it come back on line when set this way.
So, this particular problem is due to the access point not having full and complete compatibility with the Mac hardware functions, and not a direct fault of 10.10.x. In fact, we've had this particular problem since 10.9.
How many of you who have had WiFi issues are using an Apple access point?
Clearing all the checks allows the card to sleep along with the rest of the system, and on wake, the card re-starts, and re-establishes the full connection at the AP. You can see it come back on line when set this way.
So, this particular problem is due to the access point not having full and complete compatibility with the Mac hardware functions, and not a direct fault of 10.10.x. In fact, we've had this particular problem since 10.9.
How many of you who have had WiFi issues are using an Apple access point?
I am also struggling with Network issues on one of my Macs.
My laptops are all running the same version of OS X (10.10.4), and I am using several browsers on them all.
The 2013 15" MBPr has had connection issues for a long time, that seem to be DNS issues to me: some pages load, whereas others do not; some pictures load, whereas others do not, etc. I checked my other computers load everything.
I was hoping that 10.10.4 would help, but it did not.
Any idea about what I could do ?
My laptops are all running the same version of OS X (10.10.4), and I am using several browsers on them all.
The 2013 15" MBPr has had connection issues for a long time, that seem to be DNS issues to me: some pages load, whereas others do not; some pictures load, whereas others do not, etc. I checked my other computers load everything.
I was hoping that 10.10.4 would help, but it did not.
Any idea about what I could do ?
Heavy wifi issues for me with every yosemite version and el capitan beta i tried clean installs upgrades all the internet solutions nothing works.I revert back to 10.9.5 and works perfectly well.
When you did your clean install of Yosemite did you restore from a Time Machine backup just after you installed Yosemite?
Now I am kinda worried since 10.10.4 fixed all my wifi issues for good... perhaps 10.10.5 will break it again 
Why don't you users just admit that you don't know what you are doing instead of using this lame excuse or at least use an excuse that for one actually is a little teensy bit creative? IT people hear this excuse multiple times a day without anyone actually being able to back up those words with deeds. Using a computer does not make you an expert, it only creates the expectation that you are able to use one (which in some cases is a false expectation).
Lesson no 1 with wifi: it is very very complex and very very prone to noise and settings. Wifi means fiddling with firmware, settings, software updates and pulling your hair out before finding a solution or just giving up. The more different kinds of clients you have the more complex it becomes because settings for one client can cause issues with another. It is a constant battle.
I'll burst your bubble here: people will always run into wifi issues no matter what Apple (or whoever) does. This is due to the nature of wifi (it is wireless and thus prone to a lot of things) and the nature of people here (only wanting to rant and blame Apple while having no interest whatsoever in finding the cause and solve their issue). Your response is a very example of the latter.