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funkboy · Mar 9, 2011, 02:31 PM

I just got a great new 15" (anti-glare hi-res!) MacBook Pro, but I am having some strange behavior with regards to my home 802.11x connection.

It seems every time I put the machine to sleep, the wifi (being supplied by an Airport Extreme base station) is somehow getting corrupted, and I cannot reconnect back to the wifi from either my MacBook Pro, my iPad, or my iPhone.

To solve it, I kill power to the Airport base station, wait a few seconds, plug it back in, and then all is well again.

Has anyone else seen similar behavior? Any suggestions as to how to diagnose this issue? I have not yet looked at solutions, mostly wanted to see if this is happening with other people... it is repeatable for me.

pat++ · Mar 9, 2011, 03:02 PM

No problem with Wifi and my new MBP here (provided by my router).

Spheric Harlot · Mar 9, 2011, 04:30 PM

No problems here with my new i7 13" and a fritz box on 802.11n - neither on 2.4 nor on 5 GHz.

ghporter · Mar 9, 2011, 07:11 PM

Aside from restarting the base station, have you tried turning off and the turning back on the notebook's AirPort card? If that works, it's probably the "dreaded AirPort wake from sleep problem," which is basically caused by the card not realizing it's been asleep and thus not knowing it needs to reconnect.

Atheist · Mar 9, 2011, 09:20 PM

I believe he's saying that his new MBP is causing his router to go wonky requiring him to reset the router. Never experienced anything like that myself.

ghporter · Mar 9, 2011, 09:35 PM

I can see that from rereading the OP. That would be really bizarre. I have no clue what would cause that.

TailsToo · Mar 9, 2011, 10:13 PM

No problems with my new Thunderbolt 15".

funkboy · Mar 11, 2011, 10:30 AM

Originally Posted by Atheist

I believe he's saying that his new MBP is causing his router to go wonky requiring him to reset the router. Never experienced anything like that myself.

Absolutely correct.
And it keeps happening - every time it sleeps, wifi is strange.
Is anybody using an Airport Extreme base station with this same setup?

Are there any tools I could use if I have a hard-connection to the router to try and see what state the Airport Extreme is going into?

I've used this setup for years with a MacBook Core 2 Duo, and the only thing that's changed is the MacBook Pro.

funkboy · Mar 11, 2011, 07:45 PM

After more investigation:
The Airport Extreme gets knocked out once I put my MacBook Pro to sleep. So it's not the waking up that causes an error, but putting it to sleep.

Salty · Mar 11, 2011, 08:53 PM

It's the AIrPort Express, not the new MacBook. Mine was having the same issue with a Core Duo MacBook, and has the same issue with my i7 13 inch. It's not a huge issue for me though, most times if I leave the house I just flick the power back and on on the powerbar hooked up to the express.

funkboy · Mar 12, 2011, 01:17 AM

Originally Posted by Salty

It's the AIrPort Express, not the new MacBook. Mine was having the same issue with a Core Duo MacBook, and has the same issue with my i7 13 inch. It's not a huge issue for me though, most times if I leave the house I just flick the power back and on on the powerbar hooked up to the express.

So whenever you put your MacBook to sleep, the AirPort Express (Extreme in my case) would have its connection die? What in the world would cause that?

I put my computer to sleep every night, both to save power and because I don't want it making noise... ever see any threads on Apple's forums for this?

ghporter · Mar 12, 2011, 09:00 AM

What kind of broadband connection do you have, funkboy? Also, when you say you "cannot reconnect to the wifi," do you mean that other computers can't see each other, or that they lose their Internet connection? I have an idea or two about how having a client disconnect could mess up a base station, but it depends on the broadband connection and how that is configured.

If it's DSL and you have the computer in question do the authentication, when the computer sleeps the AirPort base could lose the broadband connection. The fix for this specific issue is to have the AirPort base station manage the DSL authentication (set this up with the AirPort Utility under the Internet option). It's a long shot, but still a possibility.

Salty · Mar 12, 2011, 03:13 PM

I don't know, I just recently solved the problem of it stuttering during AirTunes (moved it to channel 6) not sure how to fix that. Though if you way it's because another computer loses the WiFi connection, maybe I should leave my PowerBook connected...

funkboy · Mar 13, 2011, 04:56 AM

Originally Posted by ghporter

What kind of broadband connection do you have, funkboy? Also, when you say you "cannot reconnect to the wifi," do you mean that other computers can't see each other, or that they lose their Internet connection?

Other computers cannot connect to the wifi access point. They lose their internet connection. I could not tell you if other computers cannot see each other, because they simply cannot connect to the router.

Originally Posted by ghporter

I have an idea or two about how having a client disconnect could mess up a base station, but it depends on the broadband connection and how that is configured.

The broadband connection is a cable modem.

Originally Posted by ghporter

If it's DSL and you have the computer in question do the authentication, when the computer sleeps the AirPort base could lose the broadband connection. The fix for this specific issue is to have the AirPort base station manage the DSL authentication (set this up with the AirPort Utility under the Internet option). It's a long shot, but still a possibility.

That could be the case... though I just migrated from one laptop to another, so if anything was handling it before, it was the MacBook... which still went to sleep with no problems.

To have the base station manage DSL authentication, which setting would I be using? Since I'm on cable, I assume it's not an option... I have it connecting via Ethernet and doing Connection Sharing via "Share a public IP address."

AKcrab · Mar 13, 2011, 05:44 AM

The only connection that requires authentication (that I know of) is PPPoE. In Airport Utility it's under the "Internet" options > Connect Using.

I don't think cable uses PPPoE though...

Your settings are identical to mine on my cable modem.

ghporter · Mar 13, 2011, 09:46 AM

Cable almost always uses something very close to DHCP, so my idea isn't really what's going on. I'm puzzled.

Spheric Harlot · Mar 13, 2011, 12:44 PM

Is the AirPort Set to Bridge Mode? If yes: don't.

Salty · Mar 13, 2011, 06:14 PM

Mine had been set to bridge mode when I was getting all the skipping...

Spheric Harlot · Mar 13, 2011, 07:01 PM

If it's in bridge mode, the Airport station isn't a router - it's just passing the connection on directly to whichever computer talks directly to the modem a sort of dumb wireless replacement for a CAT5 cable.

If that computer dies while the connection is still open, the Airport has no way to tell the modem that the connection has ended, or to pass this connection on to another computer.

If you have multiple computers, the base station must be configured as a router - the base station itself has to talk to the modem and initiate/end the internet connection.