Marco.org

Recently, I’ve had a recurring Wi-Fi issue:

• A device shows full Wi-Fi signal strength, as it normally does at home.

• Almost daily, the device stops being able to connect to the internet over Wi-Fi, but doesn’t report this as a connectivity problem — connections just sit there, spinning, waiting, until they eventually time out and fail. (Like AT&T in Manhattan.)

  This happened most often on my iPhone 5 with the latest iOS version (6.1.4), but it also happened with the previous version (6.1.3) at the same frequency.

• Connectivity could be restored instantly, every time, by turning off the Wi-Fi, turning it on again, and letting it reconnect to the base station.

I complained on Twitter, and this sounds like a widespread issue with AirPort Extreme Base Stations and Time Capsules running the newest firmware, version 7.6.3. A number of people said downgrading to 7.6.1 completely fixed the issue for them, so I tried it.

I didn’t even know how to downgrade. Here’s how: in AirPort Utility, hold Option while hovering over the firmware version, and it becomes a drop-down menu. Pick whatever firmware you’d like and click Update. (warning: at your own risk, I don’t know, etc.)

I did this five days ago, and the problem hasn’t recurred once. A few additional people since then have reported similar results.

If you’re having this problem, downgrading to 7.6.1 may fix it.