2024 Mac mini network issues

I purchased a 2024 Mac mini w/ M4 Pro chip and have been having network connectivity issues frequently and randomly. This is noticeable in the following two ways:

Zoom freezes and/or displays the message "Your internet connection is unstable"
When using Google Drive (drive.google.com) my browser sometimes displays the message "You are offline"

I have 1G (download) service and frequently run speed tests, which are just fine.

I have a 2023 MacBook Pro and have no network issues with it. I recently replaced all network patch cables with Cat 8. Since my laptop has no issues, I can only assume it is one of two things:

a hardware issue with the 2024 Mac mini
a software issue with Sequoia (the Mac mini is the only Mac I have that is running Sequoia (15.2 - it's up-to-date))

NOTE: I prefer to run wired-only!! The issue does not seem to occur if I run dual (wired & WiFi) or just WiFi.

Is anyone else having trouble maintaining a steady and consistent internet connection with their 2024 Mac mini?

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to further pinpoint the source of the problem and/or correct it?

I am ready to return the Mac mini and thought I would try here before doing so.

(FYI - I had the same problem with the first unit I purchased. So, I bought a replacement and I am experiencing the exact same problems.)

Thanks in advance for your help!

Warm regards,

Mike L

Mac mini, macOS 15.2

Posted on Jan 26, 2025 11:52 AM

Top-ranking reply

WiggyWare

Level 1

8 points

Posted on Mar 21, 2025 12:09 PM

TL;DR - I seem to have solved this for myself by setting the ethernet hardware config to manual instead of automatic.

I have been having similar issues as reported in this thread. M4 Mac Mini with 10GB ethernet.

I am using a wired connection and had wifi disabled. My network connection would die out quite frequently. I was able to get it to reliably happen by sending a ping command OUT of the mac mini via SSH and executing that in a loop (see below). In another shell, I would ping the m4-mac-mini just as a way to monitor when it was misbehaving.

while ; do

ssh m4-mac-mini 'ping -c1 -s 8184 some-other-machine'

done

Running this command would pretty predictably cause the mini's network connection to hang about every 15-30 seconds for 4 or 5 seconds.

I started with the service order, but it already had the ethernet connection listed first. I tried switching it lower and then back to the to without success. Next I turned on wifi as some have reported here, that didn't help either. Then I deleted the Ethernet bridge that is automatically created, but that also didn't help.

Finally, I thought I'd try different MTU sizes so switched the ethernet adapter config from automatic to manual. I just monitored the connection after switching to manual without making any actual changes to the settings to get a baseline, and it's been behaving since then.

I even put the config back to automatic and it started happening again. This definitely seems to be the fix *for me*.

I'm hoping this helps someone else who has been experiencing this VERY frustrating issue. Please report back if it does, so others can benefit.

Finally, thanks to everyone here who contributed suggestions and observations.

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2024 Mac mini network issues

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