Why, oh why hasn't El Capitan fixed Mac's most infamous WiFi issue after all these years!!!

[1madman1]

For me this problem used to happen in earlier releases of Yosemite and was later fixed. It is now back in El Capitan. This ONLY happens on my 2012 cMBP, not on my 2012 rMBP or 2010 Mac Pro.

Disabling DHCP and configuring IP manually on that one system fixes the issue in my case.

Also, it ONLY seems to happen on my 4th generation Time Capsule. It's fine on the Cisco access points at work and the 3rd gen Time Capsule at my parents place.

 

[ragnu]

I have that exact same problem with my late 2010 Macbook Air ever since Yosemite, through all the updates, including the latest one that's supposed to have resolved the problem by doing away with discoveryd. On my brand-new Macbook, however, everything's fine, both under Yosemite and El Capitan. (Haven't installed El Capitan on my Air, since that's my main computer.)

 

[evolkatie]

My 2015 3" rMBP came installed with 10.10.3 and I have not experienced any WiFi issues.

Great quality control right? my wifi works great with bluetooth completely disabled.

 

[Taz Mangus]

Great quality control right? my wifi works great with bluetooth completely disabled.

My 2009 Mac-Mini, 2009 MacBook Pro, 2011 iMac and 2015 MacBook Pro have had zero issues with WiFi running Yosemite. Not sure that you are experiencing has anything to do with quality control issues. When you initially bought your MacBook Pro did you return it and get another MacBook Pro? That is what I would have done if I had WiFi issues with my MacBook Pro after I setup it up.

 

[iamMacPerson]

Happens on my 2013 Mac Pro too, but instead of it just not connecting, it can't find any networks once it hits deep sleep. I have reboot the whole machine to get it to work again (trust me, I tried everything before the reboot).

 

[evolkatie]

My 2009 Mac-Mini, 2009 MacBook Pro, 2011 iMac and 2015 MacBook Pro have had zero issues with WiFi running Yosemite. Not sure that you are experiencing has anything to do with quality control issues. When you initially bought your MacBook Pro did you return it and get another MacBook Pro? That is what I would have done if I had WiFi issues with my MacBook Pro after I setup it up.

I was really busy with work and never took it in so the 14 days is up, I do have Applecare but since I have El Capitan on it they wont touch it unless I reinstall Yosemite on it. I will just wait till El Capitan goes official to see if anything changes. I've had bad luck with Macs though. My 2013 Macbook Air had a dark wake issue where the Apple store didn't fix it. Apparently logs and videos of the issue happening were not good enough to warrant a problem. Go figure. Still beats having a PC.

 

[AreanFSL]

I don't personally have that issue on any Mac

Ditto on my rMBP 15". Had this problem on my first gen MBA.

 

[robkat]

I have late 2008 iMac, iPad Air & iPhone 5. never had wifi issue with any of them in any iteration of software.

 

[AdeFowler]

I've never had any problems connecting to Wi-Fi from wake using perhaps half a dozen Macs, however, I must say that it's slower to connect since the last Yosemite update.

 

[Taz Mangus]

I was really busy with work and never took it in so the 14 days is up, I do have Applecare but since I have El Capitan on it they wont touch it unless I reinstall Yosemite on it. I will just wait till El Capitan goes official to see if anything changes. I've had bad luck with Macs though. My 2013 Macbook Air had a dark wake issue where the Apple store didn't fix it. Apparently logs and videos of the issue happening were not good enough to warrant a problem. Go figure. Still beats having a PC.

Sorry that you have had bad luck with Mac computers. They aren't perfect, I know that. On occasion I have had my own issues with the Apple computers I have owned. AppleCare has provided me with excellent service fixing anything that I have encountered.

Can you clarify something for me. You stated in a previous post that you had WiFi issues with your 2015 13" rMBP out of the box. Did you have the WiFi issues using the computer before you installed anything on it or restored it with your previous installed software from a backup? In other words, did you initially turn it on and use it as is (did not installer restore from backup) and found you were having WiFi issues?

You could create a separate partition on the computer, install Yosemite on the separate partition but don't install anything else, leave it clean. Boot it to the separate partition and take to the Apple Store and show them the WiFi issue at the Genius Bar. That is what I would do.

 

[djeeyore25]

My 2013 Mac Pro has WiFi issues with the latest version (DP3) of El Capitan. Sometimes after booting up it'll connect to my network but the internet will not work. If I then turn the WiFi off and on, it won't connect to my network at all. After I reboot the computer the internet usually comes on. Very strange. My 2006 Mac Pro, which isn't supposed to run El Capitan at all, works flawlessly. So does my 2010 MBA.

 

[aldrinjtauro]

By any chance, are you people whose Wi-Fi doesn't auto connect on wake using an access point with a hidden SSID?

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

Thats not going to help your issue but feel free to waste your time doing so.

I don't know what world you live in, but it's a valid troubleshooting technique in mine to try someone else's software out on the same hardware when available. Certainly saying nasty things to someone is not going to help his problem. That much is certain.

Im not sure, i have not heard to many people that are having your issue. All i know is its not an OS bug, which leaves the wifi chip or router incompatibility issues.

You can't know that either because OS specific bugs CAN and ARE often only problematic on some machines due to different drivers and hardware (and yes drivers are damn well a part of the OS). Ironically, the two things you do suggest as potential problems can be tested using Windows on the same machine since it will have a different driver (i.e. if it works fine in Windows, then the problem most certain IS in OSX, either in some configuration file or the driver itself). Certainly, I have had hardware problems with OSX versions that were solved by either a software driver update or an update to an onboard chip configuration (flash update).

My current 2012 Mac Mini will sometimes connect to WiFi on a reboot and give an error ("Not connected to Internet" but connected to the 5GHz channel). If I select the 2GHz channel and then go back to the 5GHz one or turn WiFi off and then back on, it goes away. This will not happen if I remove the Ethernet connection and run with only WiFi and it doesn't happen on every reboot either. It's clearly an OSX problem and likely a timing one at that given it goes away upon re-connecting to the same channel. And yes, you can have both running at the same time with the faster one set priority (separate addresses and some software can use dedicated one or the other such as Apple's own "Maps" software that requires WiFI to get a location fix, which is why I have them both run as my Gigabit Ethernet is faster, but options like location tracking in Maps is handy).

It also never seems to happen on my 2008 Macbook Pro even with Ethernet plugged in and prioritized the same as on the Mini and both running Mavericks. My Mini couldn't go to sleep (except manually) with Mountain Lion and couldn't properly wake from sleep sometimes with Mountain Lion. The 2008 MBP had no such issues in Snow Leopard or Mountain Lion. Mavericks fixed that problem on the Mini and it now sleeps correctly (although OSX in general won't recognize NFS as a valid network "do not sleep" token and thus I can't use sleep even so since I have an XBMC powered older AppleTV that is using NFS and the Mac will go to sleep while it's playing a video). I've given Apple feedback and they ignore it.

 

[BrettApple]

How did installing Windows and testing go? Does Windows have the same problem with WiFi?

Late reply I know, but so far I have had zero issues with Windows 8.1 reconnecting after being in sleep mode. OS X still does it every once in a while. Not super often, but enough to notice it. My rMBP hasn't done it for at least a month but it hasn't left the house since I got my MBA, haha.

 

[extremekc]

I've found that changing the WiFi broadcast Name and/or Password - and then reconnecting to the wifi works. It has worked for me in the past - whereas nothing else seems to solve it.

It's not a great fix, but it bypasses the frustration.

 

[Harryoldboy]

Issue: WiFi does not auto-reconnect on wake.

I'm not sure whether it's a software or a hardware issue, but it has persisted on my 2014 and 2015 MBPs running Yosemite, and still does in El Capitan. Mind you, my mid-2011 MBA has no such issue. It auto-reconnects just fine. What gives?

I was really hoping that El Capitan would fix it, even though it's still in beta.

Is anyone else experiencing this?

 

[Harryoldboy]

Very similar issue with 2012 MBP.

Mid 2011 iMac no probs but since and including Yoshemite every update has trashed my 13" 2012 MBP's ability to connect through Wi-Fi. I have just uploaded El Cap Public Beta 4 and once again Wi-Fi has failed. By using one or a few of the solutions on http://osxdaily.com/2014/10/25/fix-wi-fi-problems-os-x-yosemite/ the prob. has been fixed. - Still to see what happens with p. beta 4. First attempt held for 3 mins before drop out.

I should add the MBP is about 1 yard (1 meter) from the modem.

 

[sniffies]

Beta 6, the issue still persists.

 

[maxsix]

I can't be the only one.

You're not, we have several at work, including mine.

Flaky rather unreliable WiFi is how you know it's a genuine Apple computer

 

[bry223]

I started to see this issue back since the PB2 update of El Capitan. I never saw this issue on Yosemite with my 13" 2015 rMBP nor my iMac. WiFi doesn't wake from sleep or it just randomly drops every now and again. Hopefully this gets fixed by release.

 

[sniffies]

Same issues, different beta.

 

[thegoodsir]

Same issues, different beta.

Such a bummer - I've read about this problem before but never experienced it myself except for now after installing the latest El Cap beta (DP7)...

 

[FranckdeRijk]

On 10.10.3 and all previous Yosemite releases I do have the exact same issue. I have to turn wifi off and on. Very annoying. Actually I was hoping for 10.10.4 to fix it

Exact same issue here... MBP early 2011

 

[nontroppo]

sniffies: have you used wireless diagnostics when you see the connection problems and submitted the reports to Apple? I did this with Yosemite (used Radar rather than feedback assistant) and did get an engineer respond asking for more details. For me, 10.10.4 fixed my WiFi issues (apart from bluetooth+2.4GHz interference which always seems worse with Macbooks) and I haven't seen them come back in 10.11. The more data Apple has, the less excuses it has to fix it!

 

[dugbug]

sniffies: have you used wireless diagnostics when you see the connection problems and submitted the reports to Apple? I did this with Yosemite (used Radar rather than feedback assistant) and did get an engineer respond asking for more details. For me, 10.10.4 fixed my WiFi issues (apart from bluetooth+2.4GHz interference which always seems worse with Macbooks) and I haven't seen them come back in 10.11. The more data Apple has, the less excuses it has to fix it!

this. its on your mac, run wireless diagnostics from spotlight and it will ask you if it should monitor wifi problems in the background. If it finds an issue it pops up and creates a report for you to send to apple.