Note that I live in Thailand.
The devices involved here include a 2010 MBA, a 2010 MacBook (White), a 2017 MBA, a Raspberry Pi 4, an old AirPort Extreme (the flat one), an Apple TV 4, several iPhones and iPads, a "smart" Samsung TV and a single HomeKit enabled plug.
I have a condo which I visit about monthly for five or six days at a time. The Pi and the 2010 MBA run 24/7. Their main task is to capture and upload webcam images to a web host and to encode time-lapse videos daily and upload those to the web host. These machines also perform other periodic tasks including keeping the Internet online (the router is behind a captive portal), monitoring bandwidth, and more. This has all worked very well, with flew glitches, for several years now.
You can see the result here: Cha Am Web Cameras
The condo provides a single private (non-routable) IP address to each unit. I have set up the AirPort Extreme to distribute private IP addresses in a different subnet to the local devices. This creates a double NAT condition which works OK but which requires an SSH Tunnel for remote access. The Raspberry Pi and the old MacBooks have static IP addresses, all the other devices have dynamic IPs.
The MBA stopped uploading photos on January 30th. The Pi continued. I was unable to log in to the MBA remotely, but I could log in to the Pi. From the Pi, I was unable to ping the MBA. I concluded that the MBA had either frozen or crashed.
When I arrived at the condo on February 11th I was surprised to see that the MBA was up and running, but not connected to WiFi. The WiFi icon in the menu bar was greyed out and no SSIDs were listed in the drop down menu. I was able to connect by going to the Network pane in System Preferences. I rebooted the MBA and reset the PRAM. Upon reboot the MBA connected to WiFi automatically which it is set to do in the Network preferences.
In order to find out what was up I decided to run Wireless Diagnostics. The first thing I looked at was the "Assistant", which told me: "You are connected to a Wi-Fi network that cannot communicate with your wireless router." And yet, at that very moment, the MBA was indeed connected to the router via WiFi, was connected to the Internet and was able to examine the Airport's configuration using the AirPort Utility.
Question: What, exactly, does Wireless Diagnostics mean by: You are connected to a Wi-Fi network that cannot communicate with your wireless router.
I decided to dig a little deeper and looked the Wireless Diagnostics report. This report contains numerous files. One of the files is called condoMGN-diagnostics.txt (condoMGN is the SSID of my WiFi network). That file contains the line:
Another file, wifi_scan.txt, contains the following line:
Indicating that a WiFi scan found six WiFi SSIDs. It then goes on to give details of the four found networks.
Question: Why does one of the Wireless Diagnostic reports say that no Wi-Fi networks were visible while another report goes on to list the six networks that it found?
At that point I was more confused than enlightened. I didn't find anything in the voluminous reporting to tell me what I needed to do to make sure the old MBA would automatically connect to the WiFi network, as needed.
I then decided to run Wireless Diagnostics on the other two MacBooks; the 2010 White MacBook and the 2017 MBA. Note: The old MBAs are running High Sierra and Wireless Diagnostics version 1.0, build 805. The newer MBA is running Catalina and Wireless Diagnostics version 1.0, build 910.
The white MacBook gave me the same answer from the "Assistant": "You are connected to a Wi-Fi network that cannot communicate with your wireless router."
The 2017 MBA gave a completely different assessment: "Your Wi-Fi connection appears to be working as expected."
Question: Why does Wireless Diagnostics on the newer MBA tell me that the network is fine while on the older MBs it tells me that they cannot communicate with the router?
At that point I pretty much gave up. Everything was working. The old MBA was uploading photos as usual. Time to give up.
Just as we were getting ready to leave the condo on February 17th there was a very brief power outage. The AirPort Extreme rebooted. After a few minutes I checked everything. All the iPhones and iPads and the Raspberry Pi and the Apple TV had immediately and quickly reconnected to the WiFi network. None of the Macs connected automatically. On each MBA I turned WiFi OFF and then ON and then it automatically connected.
Question: What could cause all the MacBooks to fail to connect automatically when all the other devices on the network were able to do so all by themselves?
Clearly, there is something seriously wrong; something that didn't exist until early this year. I remain clueless.
As an interim measure I've written a short shell script on the old MBA which runs every hour and checks the Internet connection. If the connection is down it cycles the WiFi OFF and then ON and hopes for the best. This is clearly a kludge that should be unnecessary, but I'm out of ideas.
Over to you.
The devices involved here include a 2010 MBA, a 2010 MacBook (White), a 2017 MBA, a Raspberry Pi 4, an old AirPort Extreme (the flat one), an Apple TV 4, several iPhones and iPads, a "smart" Samsung TV and a single HomeKit enabled plug.
I have a condo which I visit about monthly for five or six days at a time. The Pi and the 2010 MBA run 24/7. Their main task is to capture and upload webcam images to a web host and to encode time-lapse videos daily and upload those to the web host. These machines also perform other periodic tasks including keeping the Internet online (the router is behind a captive portal), monitoring bandwidth, and more. This has all worked very well, with flew glitches, for several years now.
You can see the result here: Cha Am Web Cameras
The condo provides a single private (non-routable) IP address to each unit. I have set up the AirPort Extreme to distribute private IP addresses in a different subnet to the local devices. This creates a double NAT condition which works OK but which requires an SSH Tunnel for remote access. The Raspberry Pi and the old MacBooks have static IP addresses, all the other devices have dynamic IPs.
The MBA stopped uploading photos on January 30th. The Pi continued. I was unable to log in to the MBA remotely, but I could log in to the Pi. From the Pi, I was unable to ping the MBA. I concluded that the MBA had either frozen or crashed.
When I arrived at the condo on February 11th I was surprised to see that the MBA was up and running, but not connected to WiFi. The WiFi icon in the menu bar was greyed out and no SSIDs were listed in the drop down menu. I was able to connect by going to the Network pane in System Preferences. I rebooted the MBA and reset the PRAM. Upon reboot the MBA connected to WiFi automatically which it is set to do in the Network preferences.
In order to find out what was up I decided to run Wireless Diagnostics. The first thing I looked at was the "Assistant", which told me: "You are connected to a Wi-Fi network that cannot communicate with your wireless router." And yet, at that very moment, the MBA was indeed connected to the router via WiFi, was connected to the Internet and was able to examine the Airport's configuration using the AirPort Utility.
Question: What, exactly, does Wireless Diagnostics mean by: You are connected to a Wi-Fi network that cannot communicate with your wireless router.
I decided to dig a little deeper and looked the Wireless Diagnostics report. This report contains numerous files. One of the files is called condoMGN-diagnostics.txt (condoMGN is the SSID of my WiFi network). That file contains the line:
09:13:11.870 No Scan Results 0.000 Yes No Wi-Fi networks are visibleAnother file, wifi_scan.txt, contains the following line:
total=6, 5GHz=2, 2GHz=4, ibss=0, hidden=0, passpoint=0, airport=4Indicating that a WiFi scan found six WiFi SSIDs. It then goes on to give details of the four found networks.
Question: Why does one of the Wireless Diagnostic reports say that no Wi-Fi networks were visible while another report goes on to list the six networks that it found?
At that point I was more confused than enlightened. I didn't find anything in the voluminous reporting to tell me what I needed to do to make sure the old MBA would automatically connect to the WiFi network, as needed.
I then decided to run Wireless Diagnostics on the other two MacBooks; the 2010 White MacBook and the 2017 MBA. Note: The old MBAs are running High Sierra and Wireless Diagnostics version 1.0, build 805. The newer MBA is running Catalina and Wireless Diagnostics version 1.0, build 910.
The white MacBook gave me the same answer from the "Assistant": "You are connected to a Wi-Fi network that cannot communicate with your wireless router."
The 2017 MBA gave a completely different assessment: "Your Wi-Fi connection appears to be working as expected."
Question: Why does Wireless Diagnostics on the newer MBA tell me that the network is fine while on the older MBs it tells me that they cannot communicate with the router?
At that point I pretty much gave up. Everything was working. The old MBA was uploading photos as usual. Time to give up.
Just as we were getting ready to leave the condo on February 17th there was a very brief power outage. The AirPort Extreme rebooted. After a few minutes I checked everything. All the iPhones and iPads and the Raspberry Pi and the Apple TV had immediately and quickly reconnected to the WiFi network. None of the Macs connected automatically. On each MBA I turned WiFi OFF and then ON and then it automatically connected.
Question: What could cause all the MacBooks to fail to connect automatically when all the other devices on the network were able to do so all by themselves?
Clearly, there is something seriously wrong; something that didn't exist until early this year. I remain clueless.
As an interim measure I've written a short shell script on the old MBA which runs every hour and checks the Internet connection. If the connection is down it cycles the WiFi OFF and then ON and hopes for the best. This is clearly a kludge that should be unnecessary, but I'm out of ideas.
Over to you.
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