Problems with WiFi on macOS Big Sur

Ok so I had the same problem my WiFi was connected but not working as I checked on the network page in system preferences, I also tried to plug in a either net cable directly and exactly the same issue it was showing as connected but not getting internet.

i tried all the suggestions here in the chat but no luck, I then realised that I saw somewhere that you need to disconnect your VPN and just before this issue happened I was trying to use my VPN but did not make the connection at the time.

not sure if there is a bug in Big Sur that has issues with VPNs but it seems this was the issue, my VPN was constantly trying to connect with no luck but as it’s truly oh to connect it’s on a constant loop so this was blocking the internet while looping.

so I went to System Preferences > then in the list I clicked on VPN and I could see it was trying to constantly connect so I could not disconnect it from there.

so I opened up Finder and click on the applications folder and deleted my VPN application there, as soon as I did this the internet stringed to life and it’s all working ok.

hope this works for others as it’s super worrying when this issue occurs, it must be some sort of bug in big sur or something

Every time I shut down and restart or come out of sleep or rest my network is lost and doesn't any longer automatically come back up. I'm force to turn wireless internet off then back on. WHY?

I too had the same issue after I bought my new MBA M1 2020. I transferred all the data from my MBA 2012. Initially when I got my M1 during the initial setup I think my wifi worked fine. But once I transferred all my data to the new one, it started showing this issue. WiFi is always connected and green in Network Settings but not actually connected to the web. I tried with customer care and was finally advised to take it to a Genius.

Anyway after a long days searching, found this link.
macreports.com/how-to-reset-network-settings-on-mac/
but the catch is, this one too is works just once. In the next shut down and boot, WiFi issue resurfaces again.

I have been having issues with wifi since Catalina and even after upgrading to Big Sur it's not helping. I did try the steps outlined in the thread above they work temporarily. Wifi on my other devices works just fine. I re-imaged my mac a couple times and also got a replacement from work but this issue seems persistent. VPN or No-vpn doesn't make much of a difference. Worst customer experience ever Apple.

I have the same issue. New MacBook Pro 13" 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD, After installing Big Sur I need to reset MacBook 2-3 times a day. Previously on Catalina, my computer was up over 100 days without resetting.

Having MBP 15" 2018 upgraded from Catalina to Big Sur. I notice that the WiFi networking slows down and suffers huge amount of packet loss. Turning off and back on the WiFi on the mac solves the problem for a while after which again I've a lot of packet loss. A MacBook Air M1 and my iPhone on the same WiFi network run stable, without any packet loss. See:

(drroot) [136] ping lxplus.cern.ch
PING lxplus.cern.ch (188.185.86.233): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 188.185.86.233: icmpseq=0 ttl=54 time=14.388 ms
Request timeout for icmpseq 1
Request timeout for icmpseq 2
Request timeout for icmpseq 3
64 bytes from 188.185.86.233: icmpseq=4 ttl=54 time=11.279 ms
64 bytes from 188.185.86.233: icmpseq=5 ttl=54 time=30.184 ms
Request timeout for icmpseq 6
Request timeout for icmpseq 7
Request timeout for icmpseq 8
Request timeout for icmpseq 9
64 bytes from 188.185.86.233: icmpseq=10 ttl=54 time=36.931 ms
Request timeout for icmpseq 11
64 bytes from 188.185.86.233: icmpseq=12 ttl=54 time=77.474 ms
Request timeout for icmpseq 13
Request timeout for icmpseq 14
^C

• -- lxplus.cern.ch ping statistics

  ---

  16 packets transmitted, 5 packets received, 68.8% packet loss

round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 11.279/34.051/77.474/23.723 ms

After WiFi off/on on the mac:

(drroot) [137] ping lxplus.cern.ch
PING lxplus.cern.ch (188.185.90.109): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 188.185.90.109: icmpseq=0 ttl=54 time=7.194 ms
64 bytes from 188.185.90.109: icmpseq=1 ttl=54 time=19.969 ms
64 bytes from 188.185.90.109: icmpseq=2 ttl=54 time=8.371 ms
64 bytes from 188.185.90.109: icmpseq=3 ttl=54 time=9.240 ms
64 bytes from 188.185.90.109: icmpseq=4 ttl=54 time=9.573 ms
64 bytes from 188.185.90.109: icmpseq=5 ttl=54 time=7.506 ms
64 bytes from 188.185.90.109: icmpseq=6 ttl=54 time=6.994 ms
64 bytes from 188.185.90.109: icmpseq=7 ttl=54 time=17.107 ms
64 bytes from 188.185.90.109: icmpseq=8 ttl=54 time=16.013 ms
64 bytes from 188.185.90.109: icmpseq=9 ttl=54 time=15.216 ms
64 bytes from 188.185.90.109: icmpseq=10 ttl=54 time=14.521 ms
64 bytes from 188.185.90.109: icmp_seq=11 ttl=54 time=9.223 ms
^C

Is this a known issue? The answers in this thread don't show packet loss, but the effect of losing WiFi connection is the same.

Cheers, Fons.

It looks like WIFI signal strength was significantly decreased in Big Sur. Now I can block the WIFI signal of my macbook pro by just putting my right hand on the side of the laptop - the same computer in the same spot had no WIFI issues when using an older O/S on the same early 2015 box. I can clearly see that using ping, for example, cover the USB/HDMI/card entry and signal is instantly lost. All other computers function on WIFI as before.

Debugging further, the issue looks to be defaulting on 5GHz WIFI network. Resetting to 2.4GHz puts things back close to normal. Not sure if there is interference with satellites (5.5GHz usually) or just being too far... Anyways, if you encounter this problem, make sure you check it on 2.4GHz, too.

I have been battling with this issue on my MacBook Pro 16-inch for several days now. It would connect to the wifi, but not internet. Even though other devices connected to the wifi could get online just fine.

Tried everything from OS reinstall to zapping NVRAM, from deleting Wifi locations and preferred networks to rebooting and upgrading router firmware. Ran hardware diagnostics. Changed DNS servers. Forgot and rejoined the wifi. Did hard reboots. At best, the internet would stay on for a few minutes after reboots.

As a last ditch resort I turned off my Apple bluetooth keyboard and mouse and... BAM, internet is back. Still had some sporadic drops, so I put my iPhone and Apple Watch on Airplane Mode, and shut down Bluetooth on my MacBook Pro. Now it seems that I am able to remain online.

It doesn't make any sense technically to me, but since I see many desperate people here I thought I would share, even though it may be that correlation ≠ causality.

Clearly there are major issues with Big Sur running on Mac's with Intel processors. After I upgraded my 2018 MacBook Air to Big Sur I had many problems. Network issues, battery life issue, sluggish performance issues, and a lengthly boot time. I tried many suggestions from this forum and various other web sites. The way I eventually fixed it was to revert back to Catalina. I erased the hard drive, reset the NVRAM, and did a clean install of Catalina.

Once connected to company VPN, WiFi works smoothly again with 5G networks and no other changes.
VPN changes DNS and other stuff.
Hopefully APPLE team will fix it soon.
CHeers

After trying zillion solutions like changing DNS and renewing lease, removing .plist files from Network and all other sorts of stuff.
Turning off Bluetooth seems to have fixed the issue for me! I don't have much guess about why this is the case but most probably it has to do with the fact that I often use Hotspot and in the new update there is some case where it tries to reconnect to it automatically causing instability. (I'm not sure of my assumption because even when I disconnect Wifi and connect to wireless hotspot, the internet issue persists, but when I connect to USB hotspot, there is no issue at all. )

Not alone. MacBook Pro 2018.

I lost the internet connection all the time after Big Sur install.
(The wifi is running without trouble.)
I switch off the wifi and switch it on again. The internet is back for some time.

I updated to Big Sur 11.1 and I think the connection is even worse.

SMC worked for me. After apps loaded and performance returned to normal.

Macbook 13 (Retina) 2015.

As soon as I upgraded to Big Sur most APPLE apps cannot connect to Internet - eg Safari, App Store, Mail. However, 3rd party apps can - eg chrome, outlook. Curiously, turning my VPN ON allows all apps to connect to internet.

• Sometimes* Safari does connect for a short time, but I haven't worked out what it is yet. I haven't tried disabling bluetooth .

Does it seem a coincidence to the fact that Big Sur now bypasses all VPN and firewall settings for exactly the same apple apps that I can't get to connect?