why does OSX blacklist my wireless access point?

Question

why does OSX blacklist my wireless access point?

Intermittently, my new mac mini has been unable to connect to my home wifi access point. When I run the diagnostics, I see the following lines:

Thu Aug 25 22:08:46.042 AutoJoin: <airportd[58]> __matchProfile: Attempting to match network ['blahblahblah' — 40:b7:f3:ea:15:10]

Thu Aug 25 22:08:46.042 AutoJoin: <airportd[58]> -[CWXPCInterfaceContext __isProfileBlacklisted:]: Network blahblahblah is blacklisted.

Thu Aug 25 22:08:46.042 AutoJoin: <airportd[58]> __matchProfile: [wifi.ssid.<6d63686f 6d65>] is blacklisted, next

Why is this happening? Is there another keyword I can search for in the wifi diagnostic logs to determine why my AP is getting blocked? I've got an AT&T UVERSE Motorola NVG589 router [9.1.0h12d34 firmware] with the following configuration:

SSID unhidden
security WPA-PSK
WPA version WPA-2
key is 21 characters
Bandwidth 20MHz
Channel automatic
Power Level 100%
WPS off

Troubleshooting steps so far:

restarting and waiting some undetermined amount of time seems to allow OSX to reconnect to my AP for awhile
I've changed modes to N only and set bandwidth to the only other option of 40MHz with no impact
Moved mac mini from 2 inches to 25 ft from AP, all distances in between still affected

-austinmc

Mac mini (Late 2014), OS X El Capitan (10.11.6)

Posted on Aug 28, 2016 11:57 AM

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Answer 1

guz88

Level 1

12 points

Sep 21, 2017 7:54 PM in response to codejuicer

For me I noticed the blacklisted wifi network after I tried to rejoin the wifi network with a previously saved wifi password that had been changed (i.e. an old password). Solution to this was to forget the wifi network (by highlighting the wifi network (under network preferences, Advanced ...) then clicking the - to forget the network. Then go in and rejoin the network and enter the updated wifi network password.
I know that's not the solution for some of the problems above, but others may have my problem and be searching for the blacklisted wifi keywords. Hope it helps.

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Answer 2

KartNet

Level 1

8 points

Feb 21, 2017 1:59 AM in response to austinmccollum

austinmc - Were you able to get this issue resolved? If so, what was the trick? My Mac Mini running El Capitan started to show up with this issue since two days after I moved to a different city and tried connecting to Wifi APs and even my iPhone 7 Personal Hotspot - both don't work because of the same issue - the wifi.logs show the blacklisted message.

Appreciate any updates. Thanks!

-karthik

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Answer 3

dnwceo

Level 1

4 points

Apr 6, 2017 9:20 PM in response to austinmccollum

It reconnected as soon as I did a force quit of airportd from Activity Monitor. Try that and see if it works. Not that it explains why this is happening, but at least it beats restarting the computer.

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Answer 4

May 22, 2017 3:09 PM in response to austinmccollum

I have exactly the same issue with my MacBook. I have eliminated the access point as the cause because I get exactly the same symptoms with my Time Capsule and with a D-Link wireless router. Did you or anyone else ever find a fix for this? Frustrating. I haven't tried the tip about force-quitting the Airport process yet and I haven't seen a relationship with sleep but I'll look out for both. Anyone else have words of wisdom on this? Thanks!

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Answer 5

Jul 10, 2017 7:40 AM in response to polarbreeze1

Oh good, I'm not crazy. I'm seeing the exact same thing. I can't figure out any common factors as to when it happens. It's a different time every day. But it is every day, and only one MacBook. All my other network devices work fine (MacBook or not).

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Answer 6

Eric Root

Level 10

685,251 points

Aug 28, 2016 12:19 PM in response to austinmccollum

DNS Settings - Troubleshoot

Wi-FI connection drops

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Answer 7

Aug 28, 2016 1:37 PM in response to Eric Root

Thanks for the links.

My OSX 10.11.6 is a clean install no imported preferences. The only DNS entry is from the router. Following the conversations from the "Wi-FI connection drops" I saw mention of conflicts with the Bluetooth PAN. Wifi was already reconnected before removing that interface so I'll wait a few days to see if that made the difference.

I would still love to hear of anyone that has parsed the wifi.log from Wifi diagnostics that's gotten the blacklist message for their access point.

-austinmc

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Answer 8

Sep 19, 2016 2:40 PM in response to austinmccollum

Disabled Bluetooth PAN and regular Bluetooth. Changed Wireless Access Point to broadcast 802.11n only at 40MHz. Still intermittently shows the SSID of my home wireless network as being "blacklisted". I did notice a crash in com.apple.preference.network.remoteservice. It did seem to correlate with the mac mini waking from screen saver.

Going to try getting support from Apple on this one.

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Answer 9

vm8a

Level 1

4 points

Sep 26, 2016 11:30 AM in response to austinmccollum

Did you ever get any info from Apple as to why this is happening? It started happening to my iMac in just the last couple of days. It had been working fine up until now and i noticed the same message about blacklisting my AP in the logs.

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Answer 10

Tron2024

Level 1

10 points

Nov 30, 2016 5:57 PM in response to austinmccollum

I'm also interested to know if anyone else has this "blacklisted" issue, causing wifi to drop.

I have the same issue recurring daily; dropping all wifi devices. Restarting time capsule resolves issue... for a while.

But it's not "OSX" that's the problem, as iphone etc are dropped too.

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Answer 11

Dec 8, 2016 5:58 AM in response to Tron2024

I have the same problem on both iPhone and MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2014)

Cannot join network

Thu Dec 8 08:39:11.369 AutoJoin: <airportd[78]> __matchAndJoinSSID: Attempting to match network ['NextBranch']

Thu Dec 8 08:39:11.369 AutoJoin: <airportd[78]> -[CWXPCInterfaceContext __isProfileBlacklisted:]: Network NextBranch is blacklisted.

Thu Dec 8 08:39:11.435 AutoJoin: <airportd[78]> __matchAndJoinSSID: Attempting to match network ['NextBranch']

Thu Dec 8 08:39:11.435 AutoJoin: <airportd[78]> -[CWXPCInterfaceContext __isProfileBlacklisted:]: Network NextBranch is blacklisted.

Thu Dec 8 08:39:11.568 AutoJoin: <airportd[78]> __matchAndJoinSSID: Attempting to match network ['NextBranch']

This is not really an airport, just a work wifi network

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