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Slow WiFi in Sierra

Y

yg17

macrumors Pentium
Original poster
Aug 1, 2004
15,029
3,004
St. Louis, MO
Let's play a little game I like to call "One of these things is not like the other"

Windows 7 Laptop:
5708760873.png


iPhone 6S Plus:
3Em9zQj.png


iPad Air 2:
7xxlJsT.png


2015 15" rMBP:
5708776380.png


Were you able to figure out which one is not like the others? You did, congratulations! You win, but the answer is so obvious Stevie Wonder would be able to win this game.

All 4 devices were near each other and all about the same distance from the WiFi hotspot, about 5 feet. Turning off WiFi and turning it back on in Sierra seems to resolve the issue temporarily, but soon, it's back to being crap again. And I've found articles online that suggest deleting a few files would fix it, but I've tried that, and it hasn't. I never had this problem before upgrading. Anyone else out there had a similar issue and found a working solution?
 
The last few months I've noticed wifi with El Capitan and now Sierra seems slow and sometimes locks up. I saw a piece on "Opera" and decided to download it. IMHO, it's much faster than Sierra and after a tryout of maybe a week, it's now my default browser on my MBA and on a Windows computer I also use. On the latter, Safari was also my default until it became almost unusable.
 
StarShot said:
The last few months I've noticed wifi with El Capitan and now Sierra seems slow and sometimes locks up. I saw a piece on "Opera" and decided to download it. IMHO, it's much faster than Sierra and after a tryout of maybe a week, it's now my default browser on my MBA and on a Windows computer I also use. On the latter, Safari was also my default until it became almost unusable.
Click to expand...

I just tried the speed test in Chrome, Safari and Firefox and got the same crappy results. I got the worst one yet at a whopping 8 mbps down, while my work laptop, which is Windows, just got 130 down, sitting next to my rMBP, on the same WiFi network, so it's not a matter of distance from the router. This isn't a browser issue, this is a "MacOS Sierra is a buggy piece of ****" issue.
 
If you substitute an ethernet cable and turn wifi OFF, do the download speeds change?
 
rshrugged said:
Which one of the steps temporarily worked? Could be a clue to someone to an eventual solution.
Click to expand...

Deleting the files was temporary, the MTU stuff didn't seem to make a difference at all. I've been using Google DNS forever so there was nothing for me to change there.
 
yg17 said:
Deleting the files was temporary, the MTU stuff didn't seem to make a difference at all. I've been using Google DNS forever so there was nothing for me to change there.
Click to expand...
Just shooting in the dark -- one thing not mentioned at the previous link but I have heard before as a work-around remedy is, if on, shut off AirDrop.

Something else to try if this is isolated to one network is to delete the existing one and set up a new one : System Preferences -> Network -> Assist me
 
I did a clean install of Sierra yesterday and back to slow speeds. Pathetic. Guess I have to live with it :rolleyes:
 
Another thing not listed on that troubleshooting page that you said you've tried already -- Create a temporary, new user account and test. Doubtful but possible that the issue is isolated to your existing one(s).

EDIT -- meant to preface this with : If you've altered the clean install in any way - .......
 
Last edited:
I upgraded from elCaptain to Sierra yesterday and every since whenever my iMac 27" goes into display sleep mode it disconnects from my wifi and I am having to reconnect when I wake the display. Not very good never had this problem before.
 
@yg17
Whether you're still at a clean install state or not, consider running the native wireless diagnostics tool for analysis, monitoring and reporting :

[...]Analyze your wireless environment

Your Mac can use Wireless Diagnostics to perform additional analysis.

  1. Quit any apps that are open, and connect to your Wi-Fi network, if possible.
  2. Hold down the Option key and choose Open Wireless Diagnostics from the Wi-Fi status menu
    yosemite-disconnected_icon.png
    .
  3. Enter your administrator name and password when prompted.
Wireless Diagnostics begins analyzing your wireless environment:[...]
Click to expand...
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202663
 
yg17 said:
It says my WiFi connection is working as expected.
Click to expand...
I don't know the full capabilities of the monitoring aspect of the tool. It might be worthwhile to get WiFi working in a proper state, as you were able to previously get it into temporarily, then see if the monitor will trip a useful report when/if your WiFi slows again.
 
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