Device discovery does not work with Yosemite

Question

Device discovery does not work with Yosemite

After updating to Yosemite, my (13-inch late 2010) Macbook Air can no longer find the printer on my home network, although I can print by specifying the printer’s IP address. Furthermore, Airport Utility cannot find my Airport Extreme; it says Device Not Found while acknowledging that the Airport Extreme was previously part of my network. However, the same Mac has no difficulty connecting to the internet through the Airport Extreme. It seems that some device discovery protocol (Bonjour?) is no longer working on that Mac.

I updated our other Macbook Air (11-inch mid 2011) to Yosemite without any issues. It finds the printer on the network, and Airport Utility finds the Airport Extreme.

Any suggestions?

MacBook Air (13-inch Late 2010), OS X Yosemite (10.10), Works fine on 11-inch Mid 2011

Posted on Oct 18, 2014 3:51 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Detective Vdawg

Level 1

8 points

Oct 18, 2014 4:04 PM in response to J Random Curious

Hi, this is Detective Vdawg, and I came across a similar issue when I updated to Yosemite on my MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Early 2013). Here is what I did. First, turn off all bluetooth devices turn off your printer and your computer. Wait about 15-30 seconds, then press and hold these four buttons for five seconds: shift, control, option, and the power button. What that does is refresh the hardware components; your settings will remain the same as they were before. After the computer reboots, then everything should be working the way it normally does including your device discovery. If that helps, please let me know; also let me know if it does not resolve your issue for whatever reason. I will be searching for different ways to resolve this problem. If you come across any more issues along the way, I would be happy to help you if I can.

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Answer 2

Oct 19, 2014 12:03 AM in response to Detective Vdawg

Thank you for the suggestion, but it didn't work. I also powered off the Airport Extreme, but Airport Utility still can't find the Airport Extreme.

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Answer 3

Oct 19, 2014 6:48 PM in response to J Random Curious

You may have to contact AppleCare and ask for technical support.

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Answer 4

Oct 19, 2014 11:19 PM in response to J Random Curious

I solved the discovery issue for both Airport Utility and the network printer by unblocking Discoveryd in the firewall preferences. I did not unblock Netbiosd.

I wonder about the security risks of unblocking Discoveryd.

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Answer 5

Oct 23, 2014 7:29 AM in response to J Random Curious

Unblocking discoveryd will make bonjour services work. It is probably necessary.

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Answer 6

Oct 23, 2014 7:34 AM in response to pmfromearth

On the other hand: I just unblocked discoveryd and it did not fix my (very similar) problem.

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Answer 7

Oct 23, 2014 10:09 AM in response to pmfromearth

So I found if I 1) unblock discoveryd in the firewall preferences and 2) reboot (which should not be necessary) the problem gets fixed.

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Answer 8

Oct 23, 2014 2:02 PM in response to pmfromearth

As I said before, device discovery started working after I unblocked Discoveryd. As best I can recall, I also had to reboot, but I'm not certain.

There is still a mystery: Device discovery works fine for one of our Macbook Airs with all incoming connections blocked by its firewall. The other Macbook Air requires Discoveryd to be unblocked.

I'm surprised that Bonjour ever requires an incoming connection. Furthermore, I am concerned about security implications of allowing any incoming connections.

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Answer 9

Oct 23, 2014 7:52 PM in response to J Random Curious

You are right to be puzzled. It should not require an incoming connection -- it did not used to require it. It should only require an outgoing connection for the request/response. Also, it didn't used to be the case that you needed to reboot to make the firewall rules stick. Something is buggy here. You are also right to be worried about the security implications of permitting incoming connections. Hopefully Apple will fix the bug soon -- if you have a developer account, file a Radar. (I have one and already did.)

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Answer 10

JaschaR

Level 1

5 points

Oct 27, 2014 8:43 AM in response to J Random Curious

Same problem here. I can connect to LAN printers via Ethernet, but as soon as I connect to the network via the Airport Extreme all rpinters are not visible any more.

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Answer 11

soplax

Level 1

6 points

Nov 6, 2014 4:12 PM in response to Detective Vdawg

I've been having similar issues since Yosemite on an iMac. It had been lagging extremely to the point I couldn't work. Tried many suggestions, and the I remembered I stopped using a bluetooth external speaker that had suddenly started skipping signal; it striked me that it could be an issue with the iMas's bluetooth and not with the speaker; I also had other devices hooked (mouse, keyboard, etc.). So I erased all devices, replaced the mouse and keyboard with wired ones, and turned off bluetooth. Voiala! Stopped lagging and now everything is back to smooth, but, no bluetooth devices! Any suggestions?

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Answer 12

Bullzie

Level 1

6 points

Nov 6, 2014 5:09 PM in response to J Random Curious

How exactly did you unblock discoveryd? I am having the same issue and on my machines the Automatically allow signed software... is checked.

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Answer 13

Jan 29, 2015 1:45 AM in response to J Random Curious

Thanks, unblocking Discoveryd in the firewall prefs worked for me!

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Answer 14

Mar 25, 2015 6:53 PM in response to Bullzie

Took me a while to add the discoveryd exception to the firewall SO here are the exact steps to add discoveryd to your firewall on a mac pro 10.10.2 yosemite:

Finder > Go > Go to Folder > /usr/libexec/ > move libexec to your favorites
Apple > System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Firewall > Unlock > Admin user/password
Firewall Options > + > navigate to libexec by clicking on your libexec shortcut > select discoverd > add
Make sure discoverd is set for allow incoming connections > OK
Lock firewall > close system preferences
remove libexec short cut from finder

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