OS X El Capitan WiFi Woes

So .. you are happily online on your WiFi, working, video conferening on Skype / GotoMeeting / (pick your vice for online meeting)…, showing off some cool online tools, when suddenly the tool you are showing ‘stops working’, but your online meeting continues….

Hmmm .. that’s weird. You now test the connection by pinging ..

but all you get is:

Request timeout for icmp_seq 6100
Request timeout for icmp_seq 6101
Request timeout for icmp_seq 6102
Request timeout for icmp_seq 6103
Request timeout for icmp_seq 6104
Request timeout for icmp_seq 6105
Request timeout for icmp_seq 6106
Request timeout for icmp_seq 6107
Request timeout for icmp_seq 6108
Request timeout for icmp_seq 6109
Request timeout for icmp_seq 6110

What’s going on?

After a kill of the WiFi interface, and restarting, you are back online, happiliy showing off the tool again, while the meeting only had a small hickup. How strange!

So now there are two options… Dig into the MacOS strangeness of the WiFi connection, or find a workaround to have the system fix itself when this happens… I opt for number two ;)

The follwing little shell script gem will keep an eye out for flaky connection and fixes it for you:

Now choose your favorite means of running (simple shell script, or wrappes in Automator Application) and voila, no more manual reset of the WiFi connection!

Oh, and it creates a nice log…

Wed Dec 21 14:47:26 CET 2016 [START] Starting WIFI Watch
Wed Dec 21 15:02:04 CET 2016 [RESET] Resetting WIFI connection
Wed Dec 21 15:17:06 CET 2016 [RESET] Resetting WIFI connection
Wed Dec 21 15:17:52 CET 2016 [RESET] Resetting WIFI connection
Wed Dec 21 15:32:16 CET 2016 [RESET] Resetting WIFI connection
Wed Dec 21 16:02:25 CET 2016 [RESET] Resetting WIFI connection
Wed Dec 21 16:32:38 CET 2016 [RESET] Resetting WIFI connection
Wed Dec 21 16:47:43 CET 2016 [RESET] Resetting WIFI connection