Yosemite Wi-Fi Bug on MacBook Airs/iMac

[keysofanxiety]

Hi MacRumours,

We've been deploying a number of Macs through OS X Server. On the MacBook Airs and the iMacs, there's a Wi-Fi bug wherein no networks are visible, and networks can only be added through the Network Preferences. However it will not auto-connect to these networks, and it always shows as 'searching for networks' in the top Apple menu.

This problem can only be resolved by going through Macintosh HD>Library>Preferences, and renaming the ‘System Configuration’ folder to ‘System Configuration 1’, then restarting the computer. However, there's a few things we've noticed:

- This issue only occurs on MacBook Airs and iMacs
- The deployment from OS X Server is the latest version, and it doesn't havethis error for any other models of Mac
- On the systems that have this Wi-Fi bug, the preferences folder in the Library is locked with no read/write access (red warning sign) and needs to be unlocked. On the other Macs where the Wi-Fi is working fine, this folder isn't locked, leading us to believe that it's something to do with the permissions on that folder that's somehow causing the issue.

So in conclusion, I don't think there's anything wrong with the system image because the problem with that folder being locked isn't occurring on other systems.

Tried calling Apple support to query this, and after a 27 minute hold, they immediately hung up when they answered. 😡

Does anybody have any ideas how to resolve this issue or possibly have any suggestions for things we can try?

Thanks as ever!

 

[maflynn]

Does anybody have any ideas how to resolve this issue or possibly have any suggestions for things we can try?

I don't think there's anything else you can do, other then what you wrote. IT is a bug of OS X, so we're on the hook waiting for apple to fix it.

 

[keysofanxiety]

I don't think there's anything else you can do, other then what you wrote. IT is a bug of OS X, so we're on the hook waiting for apple to fix it.

Good afternoon Mike, I really appreciate you taking the time to respond. Thanks for confirming this - hopefully Apple will have this bug resolved in the next OS X update.

 

[Taz Mangus]

Good afternoon Mike, I really appreciate you taking the time to respond. Thanks for confirming this - hopefully Apple will have this bug resolved in the next OS X update.

This may or may not work but try removing the network from system preferences. Do a permissions repair followed by a SMC reset then a PRAM reset. Then add the network back in. These are the things I would try next. It is unfortunate that you got hung up on after your long hold time. It could have been a accident as I have never had that happen to me. If you do call back maybe try early in the morning (I think 6am PST is when Apple starts taking calls) which could have less callers into Apple.

It must be the case that only certain year iMacs are having this issue because my 2011 27" iMac does not exhibit a WiFi issue.

 

[keysofanxiety]

Just an update on this one - the wi-fi issue happens after a fresh deployment on the 13" MacBook Airs, 13" Retina MacBook Pros, and 1.4GHz iMac.

I'm contacting Apple to let them know about the bug. Hopefully will be resolved soon as it's a PITA to manually resolve on 10+ new systems daily.

Thanks for all your help.