Mac loses internet connection after Sleep

I am having the problem as jessisogray with my 2018 15" MacBook Pro. I have done the WiFi troubleshooting and it does not correct. The same problem happens when my Mac is connected via Ethernet and WiFi is turned off. It only happens when my Mac is asleep for more than a couple of hours, so could this be related to standby/hibernation? This only began happening within the last year or so. I have Parallels installed to use Windows 11--could this be related?

Hi jessisogray,

We'll be happy to help you out. Even though there seems to be a specific trigger of your Mac sleeping causing this, we would recommend following the information provided in If your Mac isn't connecting to the internet over Wi-Fi

This will help you to figure out what the root cause of this is, and solve it.

If you need further help, feel free to reach back out.

Cheers.

I had this issue too. In my case, there was a /Library/Preferences/com.apple.captive.plist file left over from various migrations. Removing that file and rebooting seems to have fixed the issue.

That file is a configuration for MacOS's "Captive Portal" detection system, captiveagent. If this system fails, then you don't get to go online.

Hey everyone, I had the same issue on both my iPhone 15 and M3 Macbook. I found a solution that worked for my iPhone, which also happened to solve the problem for my Macbook.

Click on Wifi > Wifi Settings > Right Click the Three Dots (...) Next to Your Wifi Name > Network Settings > Turn Off W-Fi 6E Mode.

After turning off the 6E Mode my problem was solved. I hope this solves it for you too. It was super annoying for me. Wifi would also stop working after Sleep. This seems to be a default setting with either newer devices or newer OS.

It took me a while to find this solution so I am sharing it everywhere I can. Please upvote if it fixes your issue.

I am having this issue now with my new, top of the line M3 Max running Sonoma 14.6.1.

When waking up from sleep, the ethernet connection is non-functional, though everything in settings appears normal. Switching the wifi on has worked before, but usually does not. Besides, I want the ethernet. Unplugging and replugging the ethernet USB does not help. Typically the only thing I can do is reboot to solve the issue.

Unfortunately, there is no com.apple.captive.plist Captive Portal file in that location in my case.

I have the same problem with my Mac Mini 2018. Wifi turned of and connected via Ethernet

There is no problem if I am connected via Wifi

How do you remove that file?

open finder.

Press shift + command + G together

enter the folder location given.

search the file name.

delete the file.