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jos.plompen Author

Level 1

14 points

Wifi keeps dropping since update to MacOS Sequoia 15.2

Ever since I updated to Sequoia 15.2 Wifi keeps dropping.

I have a MacBook Pro with M1 Pro, 14-inch, 2021.

I tried amongst others:

disabling VPN
disabling Dropbox
change Private Wi-Fi address to fixed
change Private Wi-Fi address to off
disabling firewall

It is driving me bonkers.

None of my other devices have this problem (iPhone 12 Pro iOS 18.2, MacBook Air M1 Sequioa 15.0.1)

Any knows what causes this and how to fix it?

(BTW: I appreciate helpful comments that are on topic, not comments on why one should use a VPN or not, or which cloud based storage is better. Thank you)

MacBook Pro 14″, macOS 15.2

Posted on Jan 18, 2025 9:44 PM

Top-ranking reply

steve626

Level 6

11,951 points

Posted on Jan 20, 2025 1:36 PM

jos.plompen wrote:

Thank you Steve626, for taking the time and effort to answer my post.

I will look into Etrecheck. I never heard of that road, so that might be very helpful.

It is not that I don't want to explore if the problems are caused by the VPN. It's just that I don't want to discuss "you don't need a VPN, because it doesn't give you the protection you think you get".

I completely uninstalled VPN and that did not make a difference. The problem still occurred.

I much appreciate your respons.

PRP has provided superb advice. Note that the CleanMyMac link PRP provided has ~ 10,000 instances in Discussions for CleanMyMac and these are not users praising that tool, these are users who are having problems with it or trying to remove it. While PRP's suggestion for a "clean erase/install" may seem severe, this software can be quite challenging to remove.

Not to argue about VPNs, you have a right to install and use them; I have noted in the past that using a commercial VPN (which is different than a corporate VPN provided and configured by an employer to access its secure network) is like hiring a security guard to take your postal mail from your personal mailbox by the curb to your front door, all while opening all your mail and reading it while bringing it from the curb-side mailbox to your home. Having the guard might make you feel a little more secure, and yet ... maybe not so much. I think one problem shown in your Etrecheck is that you have 3 or 4 different VPNs all embedded somewhere on your Mac! VPNs can easily cause WIFi dropouts because:

Simple Firewall settings can make the Mac reject a VPN connection, causing a dropout; and some VPNs cut off the WiFi when the connection to the VPN server is interrupted. Are you using the built in Mac Firewall, or do one or more of those other security tools you have possibly reject a competing VPN? Also, VPNs add additional processing for the network connection, thus reducing the connection speed and sometimes making dropouts occur. My employer's VPN can cause a reduction by as much as 2x in network connection speed, and also once in a while a network transitory interruption that would be otherwise unnoticed causes not only the VPN connection to drop but also all internet connections to "freeze," sometimes a reboot is required. What I am saying is that VPNs increase network fragility and even the really secure ones can have intermittent issues. You have 3+ commercial VPNs and this creates many ways for them to combat with each other as well as with the built in Mac security. Even if you "turn them off" they are still loaded into the system and running in the background unless completely uninstalled.

It looks like you are trying to piecemeal remove potentially offending items that were installed in the past. That may or may not work, some of the components of these tools are "hidden" and might not be accessible except through special steps. I have actually followed PRP's suggestion of complete erase/reinstall one notable time, it was when I "inherited" my college-age daughter's MacBook Air ("Dad, it doesn't work anymore") and had to wipe it to get rid of "stuff" she had installed. It worked and that laptop, a 2010 MacBook Air, is still running smoothly.

One reason that these problems sometimes surface after a significant update or upgrade to the MacOS is that each new version of MacOS makes some changes, especially to security and networking elements of the OS. So something that was in remission or lurking without impacts in the past may now be incompatible and create havoc. WiFi dropping is pretty serious havoc, there is clearly something notable that is wrong, somewhere in your setup.

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21 replies

jos.plompen Author

Level 1

14 points

Jan 21, 2025 12:28 AM in response to jos.plompen

BTW: the reason I use NordVzpN is because i live in Indonesia and certain websites are blocked (like the search engine DuckDuckGo) and other websites don’t show certain content outside their country (like NOS.nl the Dutch National news outlet).

steve626

Level 6

11,951 points

Jan 21, 2025 8:45 PM in response to jos.plompen

The idea of a clean install -- which entails completely erasing the entire drive, installing a fresh version of the MacOS but nothing else, is to verify that you don't have a hardware problem and that your issue was caused by something installed by the user. But you don't have a fresh install, you appear to have migrated some things over, and installed various third party apps. If you have first not migrated and not installed anything, say only created a vanilla Admin user (it could be called "admin") and then see if the WiFi continues to drop out, then that would indicate that this is a hardware problem with the WiFi chip in the Mac.

This installed item deserves some attention:

2025-01-22 Microsoft_Defender_101.24080.0001_Individuals_Shim_Installer (101.24080.0001)

This item could be interacting with your network access and WiFi. You also have WhatsApp and other things installed. This is not a good test of a "clean" Mac operating system

steve626

Level 6

11,951 points

Jan 22, 2025 1:14 PM in response to jos.plompen

jos.plompen wrote:

<EtreCheck.log>

I did erase my disk, then did a clean install of macOS Sonoma.

Then I updated it to MacOS Sequoia.

Since wifi did not drop during that process, I reckoned everything was fine.

I then installed Microsoft Office (from Microsoft's site) and WhatsApp, Logic Pro, GarageBand and EtreCheck from the App Store, since I need those apps.

Alas, wifi started dropping again.

I now have done again a clean install, but no update to Sequoia. With Sequoia 15.2 the problems started, so for now I'll stay on Sonoma. EtreCheck report attached

BTW: what is

2025-01-22 Microsoft_Defender_101.24080.0001_Individuals_Shim_Installer (101.24080.0001)

and what kind of attention does it deserve?

The "clean install" has to be done systematically or you just bring back previous problems.

The fact that you went to 15.2 and no WiFi drops were seen until other things were installed proves that something that you next installed is causing the drop outs. It might not be the installation of the third party software, it could be the way it is configured. What you installed sounds innocuous mostly, but the way to really find the culprit is to install those items one at a time and reboot and retest, which is not possible now. I don't use WhatsApp, but I believe it has some configuration options, you should look into that.

The reason I took note of Microsoft Defender is that is includes anti-virus among other "Security" tools and all of those are unnecessary with MacOS 15.2. in fact software like that often causes conflicts and problems with MacOS. The simple act of installing Microsoft Defender might not cause trouble, but the way it is configured (either as installed by default, or by you) is a prime suspect for the WiFi drop outs. These tools will interfere with internet traffic that looks problematic to the tool, which could be almost anything, including the WhatsApp messaging as well, noting that WhatsApp includes messaging with media attachments and those attachments are not encrypted. I would have installed these things one at a time and tested for dropouts after each install.

Since you have another Sequoia laptop without WiFi dropouts, you might look carefully at how the two computers are configured and differences between them.

You said "no problems with the router," but could the router be interacting with something like WhatsApp messaging that could appear suspicious to its criteria for security?

Staying on Sonoma is like a band aid. It solves the immediate issue, but the root cause is still there, lurking inside your Mac, no doubt surfacing at some later time; it also means you will be out of date down the road and will eventually have to confront what it means to stay with an older MacOS. Sonoma is not that old right now, but over time will become out of date.

Finally, as PRP astutely noted, you ran an out of date version of Etrecheck, which means the output you showed is also questionable.

To really troubleshoot elusive things like WiFi dropouts does require a systematic approach and attention to details.