A possible solution for the Wi-Fi dropping problem in OS X 10.9.1

Edit on 2014-04-08: I’ve applied a new solution.

Edit: After half day, my wife’s Mac started having the same problem. I have then applied the solution that I found in the . This seems to have improved the situation. In four hours we haven’t seen any problems.

This is the solution:

  1. Boot in the safe mode: Shutdown the computer, press [shift key] + [power key]
  2. Delete all files in System/Library/StartupItems, /Library/StartupItems, /Library/LaunchDaemons and /Library/LaunchAgents
  3. Reboot normally

This is the original solution that worked on my Mac:

Since installing OS X Mavericks 10.9.1 both my wife have noticed that the Wi-Fi connection on our respective Macs would drop, only to resume automatically a few seconds later.

Initially we thought the problem was with our ISP, but we noticed this problem only when working on the Mac, never from my work laptop, iPad or iPhone. We also noticed that we managed to resume the navigation by simply restarting Safari.

If you happen to experience similar symptoms, the rest of this post might help solve the problem.

For the technically inclined, what I am going to describe is simply how to delete your favorite network and add it again. This is in fact, how I solved the issue with my Wi-Fi connection in Mavericks dropping. If you know how to do this, you can stop reading now and test the solution on your Mac.

For the others, these are the step-by-step instructions together with some screenshots, on the solution I’ve found:

    1. Open Network Preferences from the menu bar

    1. Click on Advanced in the bottom right corner of the Network window

    1. From Preferred Networks, find the name of your Wi-Fi network and click on it to highlight it

    1. Press the button with the minus (-) sign to delete the network. Before doing so, make sure you have the password to access your wireless network.
    2. Click OK. The window should now close.
    3. Click Apply on the Network preferences window
    4. Go to the menu bar, click the Wi-Fi icon and turn it off (Turn Wi-Fi Off)

  1. Click on Turn Wi-Fi On
  2. Join your network. You’ll likely be prompted to enter the WPA password for your wireless network.

I really hope this works for you. I’ve noticed that the Apple forums have several threads for the same problem, each of them with a different solution. In this case, it might well be that different problems are at the origin of this behaviour.

2 thoughts on “A possible solution for the Wi-Fi dropping problem in OS X 10.9.1”

  1. I have had this problem intermittently and had solved it for a while using a solution that I had gotten from another source, Unfortunately I had forgotten what I did the first time. I had come upon your solution and had followed the directions from your first solution…..But now when I restart, the startup does not progress and I only see the spinning wheel of death! What do I do now?(I realized that I just grabbed the File: /Library/LaunchDaemons and /Library/LaunchAgents and not just the contents….)
    Thanks
    Eric

    Reply

    1. Hi Eric,

      Sorry to hear that. I hope you have a working backup because you might need it. If I were in your situation I’d try to:

      1. Boot from an external USB HDD. Then try to access your Mac HDD and either save your data or even try to restore the missing folders you accidentally deleted. This solution might not work if you use FileVault as the disk is encrypted.
      2. If the solution 1 is not feasible, you might need to reinstall OS X by accessing .

      Reply

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