Fix Mac Wi Fi Issues With The Wireless Diagnostic App

Your Mac includes a built-in Wi-Fi Diagnostics application that you can use to troubleshoot your wireless network connection. You can also use it to tweak your Wi-Fi connection for best performance, to capture log files, and more.

Using Wireless Diagnostics: macOS Big Sur Through macOS High Sierra

How you use Wireless Diagnostics on your Mac depends on your version of macOS or OS X. Here’s how to use it with macOS Big Sur (11) through macOS High Sierra (10.13):

Information in this article applies to macOS Big Sur (11) through OS X Lion (10.7) as indicated.

• Quit all the open apps on your Mac.
• Confirm you are connected to a Wi-Fi network or attempt to join one.
• Hold down the Option key and select the Wi-Fi status icon in the menu bar.
• If you don’t see the Wi-Fi status icon in the menu bar, go to System Preferences > Network > Wi-Fi and check Show Wi-Fi status in menu bar.
• Choose Open Wireless Diagnosis in the drop-down menu.
• View an information screen and click Continue to begin testing.
• The app runs diagnostic tests. If you have problems, this could take a few minutes. If your Wi-Fi connection is working as expected, you receive that information quickly.
• If you are experiencing problems, select Monitor my Wi-Fi connection.
• After several minutes of monitoring the Wi-Fi connection, the app generates a diagnostics report.
• Select Continue to Summary for information about the analysis.
• The report is saved in /var/tmp with a name that begins with WirelessDiagnostics and ends with tar.gz.

What the Wi-Fi Diagnostics App Does

The Wi-Fi Diagnostics app is designed primarily to help users resolve Wi-Fi issues. To assist you, the app can perform some or all of the following functions, depending on the version of macOS or OS X you’re using.

Quit all the open apps on your Mac.

Confirm you are connected to a Wi-Fi network or attempt to join one.

Hold down the Option key and select the Wi-Fi status icon in the menu bar.

If you don’t see the Wi-Fi status icon in the menu bar, go to System Preferences > Network > Wi-Fi and check Show Wi-Fi status in menu bar.

Choose Open Wireless Diagnosis in the drop-down menu.

View an information screen and click Continue to begin testing.

The app runs diagnostic tests. If you have problems, this could take a few minutes. If your Wi-Fi connection is working as expected, you receive that information quickly.

If you are experiencing problems, select Monitor my Wi-Fi connection.

After several minutes of monitoring the Wi-Fi connection, the app generates a diagnostics report.

Select Continue to Summary for information about the analysis.

The report is saved in /var/tmp with a name that begins with WirelessDiagnostics and ends with tar.gz.

The Wi-Fi Diagnostics app’s main functions are:

• Monitor Performance: Provides a near real-time graph of signal strength and signal noise. Also, generates a log of signal performance over time.
• Record Events: Can log specific events, such as users connecting to or disconnecting from the Wi-Fi network.
• Capture Raw Frames: Allows you to capture data sent over the wireless network, data sent or received by your computer over the wireless network, and data from any nearby network to which you have access rights.
• Turn on Debug Logs: Allows you to capture debug-level events occurring on your wireless network.
• Scan for Wi-Fi Networks: The scan function looks for all Wi-Fi networks in your general area and shows key information about each one, including strength, noise level, and channels being used. In addition, the Scan function also suggests the best channels for you to use for your own Wi-Fi network, a helpful feature if you’re in a crowded Wi-Fi environment. (OS X Mavericks and later)
• Info: Provides text-based details about the Wi-Fi network you’re currently connected to, including the transmit rate, security protocol in use, channel, and band.

You can use any one of the functions individually. Not all of the functions can be used concurrently with some versions of the Wi-Fi Diagnostics app. For example, in OS X Lion, you can’t monitor signal strength while capturing raw frames.

The most useful function for most Mac users is the one that monitors signal strength and noise. With this near real-time graph, you can discover what’s causing your wireless connection to drop from time to time. You may find that whenever your wireless phone rings, the noise floor jumps up to squash the signal received, or maybe it happens when you’re microwaving pizza for lunch.

You may also see that the signal strength is marginal and that moving your wireless router may improve the Wi-Fi connection’s performance.

The other useful tool is for recording events. If you’ve been wondering whether anyone is attempting to connect to your wireless network (and perhaps succeeding), the Record Events function can provide the answer. Whenever someone attempts to connect or does connect to your network, the connection will be logged, along with the time and date. If you didn’t make a connection at that time, you might want to find out who did.

If you need a bit more detail than Record Events can provide, try the Turn on Debug Logs option, which will log details of every wireless connection made or dropped.

If you want to get down to the nitty-gritty of debugging a network, Capture Raw Frames will do just that; it captures all traffic on a wireless network for later analysis.

Using Wi-Fi Diagnostics: macOS Sierra through OS X Mavericks

Here’s how to use WI-Fi Diagnostics with macOS Sierra (10.12) through OS X Mavericks (10.9).

• Launch the Wireless Diagnostics app, located at  /System/Library/CoreServices/Applications/. You can also launch the app by holding down the Option key and clicking the Wi-Fi network icon in the menu bar. Select Open Wireless Diagnostics from the menu that appears.
• The Wireless Diagnostics app will open and provide a brief description of what the app will do. Click the Continue button.
• The app needs to make some changes to your system during the diagnostic phase. Enter your admin username and password, and click OK.
• The Wireless Diagnostics app will check how well your wireless connection is working. If it finds any issues, follow the onscreen advice for fixing the problem(s); otherwise, continue to the next step.
• At this point, you can select one of two options: Monitor my Wi-Fi Connection, which will start the logging process and keep a history of events that you can review later, or Continue to Summary, which will dump the current Wi-Fi logs to your desktop, where you can view them at your leisure. You don’t have to select either of the listed options; instead, you can use the additional Wireless Diagnostics utilities available in the Window menu of the app.

If you’re using OS X Mavericks, accessing the Wireless Diagnostics utilities is slightly different than in later versions of the OS. If you open the Window menu of the app, you’ll see Utilities as a menu option. Selecting the Utilities item will open a Utilities window with a group of tabs across the top.

Launch the Wireless Diagnostics app, located at  /System/Library/CoreServices/Applications/. You can also launch the app by holding down the Option key and clicking the Wi-Fi network icon in the menu bar. Select Open Wireless Diagnostics from the menu that appears.

The Wireless Diagnostics app will open and provide a brief description of what the app will do. Click the Continue button.

The app needs to make some changes to your system during the diagnostic phase. Enter your admin username and password, and click OK.

The Wireless Diagnostics app will check how well your wireless connection is working. If it finds any issues, follow the onscreen advice for fixing the problem(s); otherwise, continue to the next step.

At this point, you can select one of two options: Monitor my Wi-Fi Connection, which will start the logging process and keep a history of events that you can review later, or Continue to Summary, which will dump the current Wi-Fi logs to your desktop, where you can view them at your leisure. You don’t have to select either of the listed options; instead, you can use the additional Wireless Diagnostics utilities available in the Window menu of the app.

The tabs correspond to the various utilities listed in the OS X Yosemite and later versions of the Wireless Diagnostics app’s Window menu. For the rest of the article, when you see a reference to the Window menu and a utility name, you’ll find the corresponding utility in the tabs of the Mavericks version of the Wireless Diagnostics app.

Using Wi-Fi Diagnostics: OS X Mountain Lion and OS X Lion

In OS X Mountain Lion (10.8) and OS X Lion (10.7), you work with Wi-Fi Diagnostics a little differently.

• Launch the Wi-Fi Diagnostics application, located at /System/Library/CoreServices/.
• The Wi-Fi Diagnostics application will open and present you with the option to select one of the four available functions:
• Monitor PerformanceRecord EventsCapture Raw FramesTurn on Debug Logs
• Make your selection by clicking the radio button next to the desired function. For this example, select the Monitor Performance function. Click Continue.
• The Wi-Fi Diagnostics application will display a near real-time graph showing you the signal and noise level over time. If you’re trying to discover what’s causing noise problems, turn off or on various appliances, services, or other noise-generating items you may have in your home or office and see how it affects the noise level.
• If you’re trying to gain a better signal, move either the antenna or the entire wireless router or adapter to another location to see how it affects the signal level. Rotating one antenna on a wireless router might improve the signal level.
• The signal and noise level display shows the last two minutes of your wireless connection’s performance. However, all the data is maintained in a performance log.

Accessing the Monitor Performance Log

To view the performance log after running the Monitor Performance function:

Launch the Wi-Fi Diagnostics application, located at /System/Library/CoreServices/.

The Wi-Fi Diagnostics application will open and present you with the option to select one of the four available functions:

• Monitor PerformanceRecord EventsCapture Raw FramesTurn on Debug Logs

Make your selection by clicking the radio button next to the desired function. For this example, select the Monitor Performance function. Click Continue.

The Wi-Fi Diagnostics application will display a near real-time graph showing you the signal and noise level over time. If you’re trying to discover what’s causing noise problems, turn off or on various appliances, services, or other noise-generating items you may have in your home or office and see how it affects the noise level.

If you’re trying to gain a better signal, move either the antenna or the entire wireless router or adapter to another location to see how it affects the signal level. Rotating one antenna on a wireless router might improve the signal level.

The signal and noise level display shows the last two minutes of your wireless connection’s performance. However, all the data is maintained in a performance log.

• With the Monitor Performance graph still displayed, click the Continue button.
• Choose to save the log to the Finder. Click the Report button.
• The report is saved to your desktop in a compressed format.

Wireless Diagnostics Utilities: OS X Yosemite and Later

In OS X Yosemite and later, the Wireless Diagnostics utilities are listed as individual items in the app’s Window menu. Depending on your operating system, you will find the following:

With the Monitor Performance graph still displayed, click the Continue button.

Choose to save the log to the Finder. Click the Report button.

The report is saved to your desktop in a compressed format.

Info: Provides details of the current Wi-Fi connection, including the IP address, signal strength, noise level, signal quality, the channel being used, channel width, and more. It’s a quick way to see an overview of your current Wi-Fi connection.

Logs (called Logging in the Mavericks version): Allows you to enable or disable collecting logs for specific events associated with your Wi-Fi network. This includes:

• Wi-Fi: A general log of Wi-Fi events.
• 802.1X: Logs network authentication events that use the 802.1X protocol.
• DHCP: Logs devices requesting IP address assignments.
• DNS: Logs access to DNS (Domain Name System) hosts resident on your network.
• Open Directory: Keeps track of any directory services requests.
• Sharing: Logs file-sharing events on your Wi-Fi network.

To collect logs, select the type of logs you wish to gather data on and then click the Collect Logs button. Selected events are logged until you turn the logging feature off by returning to the Wireless Diagnostics Assistant in the Window menu.

Scan (called Wi-Fi Scan in Mavericks): Performs a one-time scan of the Wi-Fi environment, displaying any local Wi-Fi networks, the type of security being used, signal strength, noise, the channel used, channel width, and more. The scan also shows which are the best channels for you to use in your area.

Performance: Produces a real-time graph showing signal quality, signal strength, and noise. Depending on the version of macOS OS X, the real-time graph may also include the transmission rate.

Sniffer (called Frame Capture in Mavericks): Captures Wi-Fi packets to analyze.

Monitor (OS X Yosemite and later): This is similar to the Performance utility, except with a smaller display that you can leave running in the corner of your Mac’s monitor.

When you’re through with the Wireless Diagnostics utilities, return to the Assistant by selecting Assistant from the Window menu or by closing any utilities windows you may have open.

Monitoring Wi-Fi Connection

If you’re having intermittent problems with your Wi-Fi connection, select the option to Monitor my Wi-Fi Connection, and then click Continue. This causes the Wireless Diagnostics app to watch your Wi-Fi connection. If the connection is lost for any reason, the app notifies you of the failure and offers reasons for why the signal was dropped.

Quitting Wireless Diagnostics

When you’re ready to quit the Wireless Diagnostics app, including stopping any logging you may have started:

• Select the Continue to Summary option and then click the Continue button.
• You’ll be asked to provide any information you think is appropriate, such as where the Wi-Fi access point is located. Click the Continue button.
• You can add information about the access point you’re using, such as brand and model number. Click Continue when done.
• A diagnostic report is created and placed on the desktop. When the report is complete, click the Done button to quit the Wireless Diagnostics app.

Wireless Diagnostics Report

The Wireless Diagnostics report is saved to your desktop or to /var/tmp (depending on your operating system) in a compressed format. Double-click the diagnostic file to decompress the report.

Select the Continue to Summary option and then click the Continue button.

You’ll be asked to provide any information you think is appropriate, such as where the Wi-Fi access point is located. Click the Continue button.

You can add information about the access point you’re using, such as brand and model number. Click Continue when done.

A diagnostic report is created and placed on the desktop. When the report is complete, click the Done button to quit the Wireless Diagnostics app.

The report files are saved in various formats, depending on which function you were using. Most reports are saved in Apple’s plist format, which most XML editors can read. The other format you will see is the pcap format, which most network packet capture applications, such as Wireshark, can use.

Additionally, the Console app included with OS X can open many of the diagnostics files. You should be able to double-click the diagnostics files to view them in the Console log viewer or one of the dedicated viewing apps included in OS X.

For the most part, the reports that the Wi-Fi Diagnostics app creates aren’t helpful for casual users just trying to get their wireless network up and running. Instead, the various Wireless Diagnostic utility apps may provide a better way for you to run down any Wi-Fi issues you may be having.

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