![\"Apple](\"http:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/en\/a\/a0\/Connectwaves_20070109.png\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Please, before implementing any of these fixes, try them one at a time<\/strong> and wait to see if there is any improvement in the situation before trying the next. Keep track of which fixes you have tried and report back when one of them (or none of them) in particular solved your problem so that we know which solutions are useful and which are less likely to help, thus moving forward in our knowledge of how to diagnose and fix wireless dropouts on Apple AirPort connections. Many thanks. ~ Ben.<\/p>\n Just after upgrading to 10.5.2 I noticed that once in a while my AirPort wireless connection would drop to 2 or 3 bars, then return to full signal strength, but I couldn’t access the Internet after that. There didn’t seem to be any pattern to these dropouts of wireless connection. No interference from neighboring base stations either. Yet everything was ultra stable with 10.5 and the only change I made was upgrading (finally) to 10.5.2.<\/p>\n After doing some research, I had a theory that AirPort was searching through old wireless connections within \/Library\/Preferences\/SystemConfiguration\/com.apple.airport.preferences.plist constantly looking for a better signal. And whenever the current wireless connection suffered from minor transient interference (say cordless telephones), it would immediately try to connect to another base station or try to switch to a different channel. Have a look at your version of the airport preferences file by navigating to it in Finder, starting with Macintosh HD, then Library, Preferences, and finally within the SystemConfiguration folder. You can simply hit enter with the file highlighted to use Quick Look. You can also use Terminal to quickly print the file to the screen with the following command: Once the AirPort control software in 10.5.2 set about trying to find a better wireless connection, it would never successfully get back your original wireless connection which was really fine. Hence, from time to time, you would see a slight drop in wireless signal strength, then after clicking on the AirPort wireless icon, it would scan for networks for a few seconds, then return to full strength, yet you would have already lost Internet access.<\/p>\n The fix is simple<\/strong>:<\/p>\n With only one base station listed in “Recent Networks” within the file, AirPort won’t try scanning for other stronger networks and you’ll stay connected.<\/p>\n That’s the theory anyways. It’s worked for me so far. Hope it helps you too.<\/p>\n Leave a comment if you have questions or have tried the fix with success\/failure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Symptoms AirPort wireless connection randomly stops working, even though signal strength to base station is good. Wireless connection strength drops, clicking on AirPort starts scanning, wireless strength returns to full, but Internet connection is lost. Can’t create wireless connection to DLink DIR-625 wireless router after upgrading to 10.5.2. Possible Causes AirPort attempts to connect to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[141,142,143,144,3,145,32,9],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/installingcats.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/installingcats.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/installingcats.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/installingcats.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/installingcats.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/installingcats.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/installingcats.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/installingcats.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/installingcats.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/installingcats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/06\/keychain_access-1.jpg\" "\\"Apple")
Launch Keychain Access within Finder: Applications => Utilities => Keychain Access. On the top left, select System<\/strong>, underneath login<\/strong>. Find the name of your wireless base station or router, often called an SSID in networking terms. For me it’s WANADOO-D310. Under the Kind column it should read AirPort network password<\/strong>. You may find multiple keychain entries for wireless base stations you’ve used in the past. We want to delete them all, but before doing that, save their passwords. You do this by right clicking on the item, for me WANADOO-D310, and choosing Copy Password to Clipboard. If you are asked to allow access to this item by kcproxy, click Allow.![\"\"](\"https:\/\/installingcats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/06\/kcproxy_allow-1.gif\" "\\"kcproxy")
\nThen create a new text file somewhere on your mac and paste the password that’s been copied to your clipboard. This will make it easier when you have to reconnect to this base station. You might want to note which base station\/wireless router this password is related to while doing this. I did this by simply writing the name of the wireless router beside the password. After backing up the passwords, delete all the keychain items of kind AirPort network password<\/strong>. Now turn off the AirPort connection by clicking on the AirPort menu bar icon (looks like the image at the top of this post) and selecting Turn AirPort Off. Open System Preferences => Network. You’ll notice that Network Name select list will no longer have your base station listed. Click Turn AirPort On. AirPort will search for wireless networks (takes about 30 seconds) and will eventually pop up with a window saying None of your preferred networks are available, but you should see your wireless base station listed as one of the networks.![\"\"](\"https:\/\/installingcats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/06\/preferred_wifi_networks-1.gif\" "\\"preferred_wifi_networks\\"")
\nSelect your network and click Join. You’ll be asked for your password. Hopefully you remembered to save that password somewhere and can simply copy and paste it back in. (Use right click => Paste rather than Apple Key + V, which won’t work for this password field). After this you should be reconnected to your wifi base station. If you return to your Keychain Access window, you should once again see your base station listed with the System Keychains. You can close the Keychain Access and Network preferences pane windows. If you have multiple wireless networks that you use often, you’ll have to search and reconnect to them with the passwords you’ve saved. Hopefully the recreated keychain items will keep you connected.<\/li>\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/installingcats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/06\/airport_preferred_networks-1.jpg\" "\\"airport_preferred_networks\\"")
<\/li>\nBackground<\/h2>\n
cat \/Library\/Preferences\/SystemConfiguration\/com.apple.airport.preferences.plist<\/code><\/p>\n\n