OS X Yosemite update fails to solve Mac Wi-Fi mess

Apple today released the first update to OS X Yosemite that included fixes for unspecified Wi-Fi problems and improved reliability for connecting to Microsoft Exchange corporate email servers.

But Mac owners who had said that Yosemite crippled their Wi-Fi connections reported that the update did not solve their problems.

The 311MB download of OS X 10.10.1 was the first update from Apple since it released Yosemite in final form on Oct. 16.

According to Apple, Yosemite 10.10.1 “improves Wi-Fi reliability” — a big problem for users in the past month — “improves reliability when connecting to a Microsoft Exchange server,” and addresses a pair of issues specific to enterprise customers.

Other problems dealt with by 10.10.1 ranged from mysteriously-changing Notification Center settings and Time Machine backups not appearing, to updates refusing to show in the Mac App Store and failures in connecting to remote machines with Back to My Mac.

Top on Apple’s list — likewise for Mac owners who have struggled with connectivity troubles — was the Wi-Fi reliability fix.

As is Apple’s practice, it said nothing specific, neither acknowledging the massive number of messages about problems on its support discussion forums or defining the changes it instituted in OS X 10.10.1.

Mac users kicked off several still-growing support forum threads on connectivity issues within hours of Yosemite’s release. As of Monday, the largest thread contained nearly 1,100 messages and had been viewed more than 208,000 times.

That thread and others on Apple’s support site have swollen with claims by users that their Wi-Fi connections have not worked reliably since they upgraded to Yosemite. Some said that they have not been able to connect at all, while others asserted that Wi-Fi would suddenly go dark, often within moments of establishing a connection.

Early indications from the most active support discussion thread was that the 10.10.1 update did nothing to help. “10.10.1 didn’t fix my Wi-Fi issues, still randomly dropping every few minutes or so,” said Mike Ormerod Monday morning.

“We’ve got business-grade routers and [access points] at my school, and we’ve got numerous people unable to connect for longer than a minute before and after [updating] to 10.10.1,” wrote a user identified as samabenie Monday morning (emphasis added).

Others said that although their Macs now kept a Wi-Fi connection, speeds were significantly slower than they should have been.

“10.10.01 does NOT fix the Wi-Fi issues,” alleged MortenJamesCarlsen, also today. “I had to go thru the same extreme routines I have had to go thru the past 2 months to be able to connect to the Internet. This is not a very good sign [and] indicates that no one has been able to reproduce a clear-cut scenario in which this happens. So we are back to square one….”

Apple also released iOS 8.1.1 today, a 43MB update that was included bug fixes and stability and performance improvements for 2011’s iPad 2 and iPhone 4S.

OS X 10.10.1 can be downloaded from the Mac App Store.