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Problem description: My wife's 2017ish Macbook Pro will without fail "drop" from the network without actually disconnecting after 5-30 minutes of being connected. The device is not visible from the router when this happens and the laptop is unable to ping the router and loses DNS/DHCP. However, the device thinks it is connected the entire time and shows proper DNS and DHCP settings from the router (though attempting to renew the DHCP lease causes a random address to be chosen outside the LAN's IP range) Restarting the wifi or rebooting will "fix" the issue until it happens again. The problem does not arise when the unit is hardwired into the network. Attempted fixes: - OS update/grade - OS reinstall - Set up test user - Set up test admin - Safe mode - Hardware diag (came back clean) - Replicated on other networks* - Wireless diag - Examination of logs from wireless diag - A few dozen Apple support calls/chats regular and advanced - Extended device diag at Apple store - Had apple replace the antenna module - Cried a bit Recent changes: The issue was first noticed after a factory reset of the LAN's router, though I suspect it has been longer running due to the relative infrequent nature of the device. This is the only device on the LAN behaving this way and it appears to be happening on other LANs as well*. -- Operating system: Current OSX System specs: Mid spec 2017 MBP Location: USA, NC I have Googled and read the FAQ: Yes (* I've not had the time/ability to sit down and test this out proper due to life obligations. The issue was replicated at the Apple Store on their network upon check in, but that network is an open one at a mall so it doesn't work great on a known working config. Apple techs did a extended diag overnight and so forth and deemed it necessary to replace the antenna module; which didn't take.) I'm at the end of my rope on this and am about to send this off to get the logic board replaced wholesale to the tune of $500 tomorrow. Before I do I wanted to float the matter here to see if there is anything I may have not considered from the perspective of either the laptop or the network side of things. I've got some wifi logs of the issue when it arrives that I can post if needed, but don't have them handy at the moment. I'm used to dealing with and fixing this sort of thing on Windows machines so it's entirely possible there is some step or trick I may not be aware of available in OSX land.
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Sep 30, 2022 23:20
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| # ? May 2, 2024 21:58 |
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You've done a lot of testing to rule out a ton of things. I'd make sure the router is on the latest firmware. Also, I'd try connecting it to a cellphone hotspot at home and see if it did the same thing. That'd be one way to eliminate the router as being the issue.
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Oct 1, 2022 22:23
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The router is indeed on the latest firmware and the issue appears to persist on cell hotspots though it’s hard to tell as our provider doesn’t really let you use them on our phones. I’ll test further with that when we return home.
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Oct 2, 2022 00:01
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Concerningly I have been unable to get the issue to come back up when attached to a cell hotspot. I'm going to try and get some time at a library or something tomorrow to see if I can replicate there. I've also formatted my router again just to rule anything out there, but the issue persists.
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Oct 2, 2022 06:15
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What's the exact router? There are a lot of cheap ones out there that can be flaky. There are also some routers out there which have questionable default settings (they need to be tweaked for optimal performance).
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Oct 2, 2022 21:58
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Well, I appear to have fixed it. This goddamn strange. While troubleshooting with the snbforums folks, someone advised setting up a guest network on 2.4Ghz to see if the issue happened there. It didn't. When mentioning that having a dedicated SSID for just 1 client would bug me, it was pointed out that clients can be restricted to one band or the other based on MAC address, so I opted to test on the "main" network with the client restricted to 2.4Ghz. It worked as you would expect it would. However, when repeating for 5Ghz something odd happened. The connection failed and the OS prompted me to enter my credentials for the SSID. Doing that allowed the connection and things worked as expected. Removing the restrictions after and retesting had everything working as well as you could have hoped. So my best guess is that the root issue was the router passing the client MBP from 2.4 to 5 and the credentials not being passed along with it for god knows what reason. Nothing else has an issue with this. Entering the password for the 5 band appears to have triaged the matter, but for the life of me I can't sort out why this happened? Is it an Apple Wifi bug? An Asus bug? Lord.
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Oct 2, 2022 23:57
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| # ? May 2, 2024 21:58 |
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Warbird posted:...but for the life of me I can't sort out why this happened? Is it an Apple Wifi bug? An Asus bug? Lord. First guess would always be a cheap and/or flaky router. Or maybe a very saturated area causing an issue with one of the wireless bands.
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Oct 3, 2022 22:29
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