Network Troubleshooting on macOS

Checking Telebroad Servers Status
General Troubleshooting Suggestions ---
The Wireless Diagnostics App ---
- Automatic Diagnostics
- Additional Diagnostics Tools
Restarting Network Connections ---
Changing the Priority of Connections and Wi-Fi Networks---
- Changing Connections Priority
- Changing Wi-Fi Networks Priority
Renewing the DHCP Lease

If you are experiencing problems with the TeleConsole, and you have already allowed it through your firewall (see this article for details about macOS firewall configuration) the likely cause may be an issue with your network.

Checking Telebroad Servers Status

Telebroad's servers are extremely robust with a 99.99% uptime performance. But before exploring the following troubleshooting suggestions, you may want to check the status of the Telebroad system here and see if Telebroad PBXCELLENT or Telebroad HyperT1 are operational.

Our team constantly monitors these services and any interruptions are usually resolved within minutes.

General Troubleshooting Suggestions

If any of the following suggestions or the below methods fail to solve the problem you should contact your ISP.

Restarting your Device and Safe Mode

Restart your device to clear any software or hardware conflicts and establish fresh network connections.

If this doesn't help, restart your device in safe mode – a diagnostic mode where only essential system apps and services are allowed to run after your device restarts. To enter safe mode restart your Mac while holding the Shift key on the keyboard.

If your network issues are resolved in safe mode the problem may be with a program that automatically runs when you log in to your Mac. You can access System Preferences>Users & Groups>Login Items and try to remove the suspected culprit. Just be careful with removing any important security software (such as antivirus or firewall). It is recommended to disable one program at a time and restart your Mac to see if this helped (to exit Safe Mode simply restart your device normally.)

Refreshing Wi-Fi Connection and Restarting Wi-Fi Networks

Refresh your Wi-Fi connection by switching it off and on. This is easily done by clicking the Wi-Fi icon ( ) on the menu bar and clicking on the relevant toggle or option.

Arrange the priorities of your Wi-Fi networks to ensure your Mac connects to the ones with the best speed/stability.

You can restart your Wi-Fi connection (see Restarting a Network Connections), but a more focused measure is to just forget a specific network and reconnect it. To do so follow the same steps described in Changing Wi-Fi Networks Priority, select the network to remove by clicking , and add it back after a few seconds by clicking .

If you have other Wi-Fi networks configured (but not actively connected) consider removing them or at least unchecking their Auto-Join option on the same window for changing Wi-Fi priorities.

Try switching off Bluetooth (if you don't need it) as it may create interferences with the Wi-Fi signal.

Invisible Wi-Fi Networks

If the Wi-Fi network you are using has disappeared or is not initially visible on the list of available networks, it is likely the network's administrator has disabled the router's broadcast feature. Doing so improves security by making the network invisible to client devices, but not inaccessible.

To connect to an invisible network you just need to obtain its SSID (its name), password, and security type from its administrator.

Now click the Wi-Fi icon ( ) on the menu bar and select Other Networks. Click Other... below the list of visible networks. Enter the name/password and security type in the relevant fields. Check the Remember this network box and click Join.

If the details are correct, a connection with the invisible network will be established

Router/Modem Side Troubleshooting

Try using a different device or two on your network to see if it has internet connectivity. This will help you figure out if the problem is with your own specific device or with the network in general.

If the problem is with the network try restarting your router/modem.

For Wi-Fi networks, you can try changing (on the router) the name/password of a problematic Wi-Fi network from the router's web interface.

You can also change the entire frequency band and Wi-Fi channel. The Wi-Fi Scan tool of the Wireless Diagnostics app, described next, can help you find the best channel to use in your area. Also see additional router information, terminology, and VoIP-related adjustments here.

If you are tethering or hot-spotting cellular connectivity from a mobile device, turn airplane mode for a few seconds before turning it off again. This will usually reconnect you with the nearest cellular tower at optimal speed.

The Wireless Diagnostics App

While macOS doesn't offer a general troubleshooting tool for all network types like Windows, it does have an app to diagnose Wi-Fi issues and provide troubleshooting suggestions.

Automatic Diagnostics

To run automatic wireless diagnostics on your Wi-Fi connection:

Hold the Option key on your keyboard and click the Wi-Fi icon ( ) in the menu bar.
Select Wireless Diagnostics and follow the on-screen instructions.
A list of possible causes and suggestions will be displayed once the diagnostics process is concluded.

Click next to a suggestion to get more information about it. The process also generates a compressed archive file (ending with a tar.gz extension) that may assist your system administrator or ISP in solving the network issues. The file is called WirelessDiagnostics and can be found in the /var/tmp folder.
It may be that your network problems are intermittent and the tool will not find any problem while running. It will tell you "Your Wi-Fi connection appears to be working as expected".

If this happens you get the option to click Monitor my Wi-Fi connection. This will make the tool monitor your network for a few more minutes to try and find the problem.

Additional Diagnostics Tools

After launching the Wireless Diagnostics app you can access its additional tools by clicking the Windows menu:

Assistant: This is the automatic diagnostic feature discussed above.
Info: Displays various useful details about your network including channel information, IP address, MAC address, signal strength, maximum transfer steed (Tx rate), noise level, and more.
Logs/Loggings: Start or stop background logging collection for certain networking features such as Wi-Fi, DNS, DHCP leasing, and file sharing. The logs can be inspected in the Console app but are not very relevant to the average user.
Scan: A handy tool that scans for all available Wi-Fi networks within range of your Mac, displaying their names, Wi-Fi protocol, type of security, signal strength, noise, channel, and more.

Additionally, the scanner makes important recommendations for the best 2.4/5GHZ channels to be used in your environment. Changing your router to use less crowded channels can have a significant positive effect on the speed and quality of your Wi-Fi connection.
Performance: Displays real-time visualization of the speed, quality, transmission rate, and signal strength of your Wi-Fi connection that can help you determine the best placement for your Mac and router.
Sniffer: A tool that captures and analyzes Wi-Fi traffic. The results are summed up when you stop the tool in a file saved to your desktop or in the /var/tmp folder.
Sidecar/Monitor: Displays highlights of the most important information from the other tools, including a noise graph, signal strength, transmission rate, IP address, security, etc.

Restarting Network Connections

Before starting a troubleshooting process you should access the network preferences screen to see the status of the problematic and other available networks.

Network Preferences Access and Statuses

To access the network preferences:

Do one of the following:
- Click the Apple menu ( ) on the menu bar, select System Preferences, and click Network.
- Click on the Dock (the icon may appear slightly different, depending on your macOS version) and click Network.
- Click the Wi-Fi icon () and select Open Network Preferences.

A list of available network connections and their statuses is shown –
- Green status is an active and configured network you are currently connected to.
- Yellow status is an active and configured network you are not connected to.
- Red status is a network your Mac cannot connect to or that has not been configured yet.

Restarting Network Connections

Restarting a connection will make it reconnect to the network and is the first thing to try. You can restart a network connection by either removing/adding it or by inactivating/activating it.

To restart a connection:

Access the network preferences screen as described above.
Do one of the following:
- Select the desired connection and click (remove ) under the list of networks. Add the connection back by clicking (add) and selecting the relevant service. This is like connecting to a network for the first time and you may need to reconfigure it.
- Instead of removing the network you can just temporarily disable it.
  
  To do so select the network, click (Options. On older macOS versions this appears as a gear icon – ), and select Make Service Inactive.
  
  Wait a few seconds and select Make Service Active from the same menu.
  
  You do not need to reconfigure the connection.

Restarting all Network Connections with a New Location

A location is a copy of your network settings that you can use in different scenarios. For example, in your home you can have a location with a priority for Wi-Fi while in your office you can give the priority to Ethernet (see how to set priorities next.)

The default location is called Automatic.

When you add a new location it will re-establish connections or configuration to all available configured networks, effectively restarting all your connections.

Adding a new location is also useful for maintaining your original settings while you are troubleshooting and making adjustments to the existing connections.

To create a new network location:

Access the network preferences screen as described above.
Click the location menu at the top and select Edit Locations...

Click (add) on the editing window, enter/edit the name of the new location, and click Done.
Click Apply at the bottom of the network preferences screen to finish switching to the new location.

You will now see that your network connections get re-established.
Switch to your old location by selecting it from the Location menu.

Changing the Priority of Connections and Wi-FI Networks

If you are using different kinds of network connections, you can change their order to give priority to connections that maximize performance. For example, if you have both Ethernet and Wi-Fi you can give priority to the Ethernet connection.

You can also change the order of available Wi-Fi networks to prioritize the speed/stability of oneWi-Fi network over another.

To change the order/priority of your network connections:

Access the network preferences screen as described above.
Click (Options. On older macOS versions this appears as a gear icon – ) and select Set Service Order.
Drag the different connections to reorder them, bringing the best connection for performance/stability to the top of the list.
Click OK to close the connections window.
Click Apply at the bottom of the network preferences screen.
The changes are only relevant to the current location (see above about creating locations). The priorities in other locations you created remain unaffected.

VPN connections always take top priority over all other connections regardless of their order.

To change the priority of Wi-Fi networks:

Access the network preferences screen as described above.
Select your Wi-Fi connection and click Advanced.

(If there is no Wi-Fi connection, click under the list of connections to add one.)
A list of all the Wi-Fi networks your Mac has joined is shown.
Drag the available networks around to reorder them, bringing the best connection for performance/stability to the top of the list.

Remember that while 5Ghz connections are faster, 2.4Ghz offer a longer reception radius and better stability. On the flip side, the 2.4Ghz band tends to be more congested.
Uncheck the Auto-Join box next to any network you don't want your Mac to try and join while you use Wi-Fi.

Also, consider removing (by clicking ) any network you no longer use or don't recognize – especially ones without security.

With fewer networks on the list and fewer networks checked to Auto-Join, the less likely your Mac will switch between networks when it attempts to find the strongest signal.
Click OK to close the Advanced window.
Click Apply at the bottom of the network preferences screen.

You can use the same steps, select a specific network, and remove/add it to restart its connection. This is a more focused alternative for restarting the entire Wi-Fi connection.

Renewing the DHCP Lease

Your Mac can be configured with a static or dynamic IP address that is assigned (leased) from a DHCP server. Generally speaking, DHCP is more secure for devices since the IP address is constantly changing. It is also more common.

DHCP leases usually get auto-renewed. But in network environments with certain policies or with many devices the automatic process may occasionally fail, in which case you need to renew it manually.

To manually renew a DHCP lease:

Do one of the following:
- Click the Apple menu ( ) on the menu bar, select System Preferences, and click Network.
- Click on the Dock (the icon may appear slightly different, depending on your macOS version) and click Network.
- Click the Wi-Fi icon () and select Open Network Preferences.
On the left panel, select the network connection for which you want to renew the DHCP lease for and click Advanced.
Select the TCP/IP tab.
Click Renew DHCP Lease and select OK when prompted.

If there is a problem renewing the lease go back to the list of network connections and restart the connection before trying to renew the lease again.

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