locationd wifi scanning creates network latency

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locationd wifi scanning creates network latency

I'm at my wits end, so I thought I'd post what I'm seeing here in case it possibly reaches someone that can resolve this problem. I've seen reference to this issue in a few threads now, with no real solutions. What I'm seeing is that any time I connect over WIFI to my Company's VPN (F5 VPN appliance) to work remotely, locationd begins scanning for new networks every 10 seconds. You can see clearly in the console log that each time locationd triggers this scan, latency increases and packets are sometimes even completely lost for a few seconds. Normally I'm sure this would go unnoticed, but traffic over the VPN stalls completely and makes the experience extremely frustrating for remote sessions like ssh or really any long lived TCP stream. I've been round with Apple support a few times and really just got a suggestion of sending feedback via the website, but I'm quite certain now that this is a bug on the Apple and/or possibly F5 side. Just curious if anyone has experienced this and has an actual solution to disable locationd scanning, or a pointer on how to get someone to actually look at this problem to resolve it.

The locationd entries in console log look like the below. Again, this doesn't happen unless I'm connected to the VPN. I assume it's something about the interface or routing changes the VPN makes that cause this madness in locationd:

default 19:53:25.754000 -0500 locationd CoreWLAN event <private>, resultCount, <private>

default 19:53:25.754073 -0500 locationd WIFI_LOC: location services are disabled, ignore scan result

default 19:53:26.045685 -0500 locationd CoreWLAN event <private>, resultCount, <private>

default 19:53:26.045762 -0500 locationd WIFI_LOC: location services are disabled, ignore scan result

MacBook Pro TouchBar and Touch ID, macOS High Sierra (10.13.6)

Posted on Sep 3, 2018 5:57 PM

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Answer 1

Sep 3, 2018 8:00 PM in response to actofmatt

why is your Mac looking for new Networks? tell it to ask before joining anything else:

then on the next screen. delete anything that it should not be looking at:

If you are not using Wi-Fi for your VPN connection remember that Packets going to the Internet are sent to the TopMost, Working interface listed in:

System preferences > Network

Be sure you have your interfaces listed in the order you prefer, or use the gear icon below the list and choose 'set service order'.

If you have different setups for different place you visit, create a network location file for each:

How to use network locations on your Mac - Apple Support

.

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Answer 2

actofmatt Author

Level 1

9 points

Sep 4, 2018 10:11 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Thanks for the response. Your question is my question, why is locationd constantly triggering a scan for new networks when I connect to a VPN? I'm only using WIFI, so there aren't multiple connections in play.

One additional thing I noticed this morning, is that on a completely different machine (iMac in my office at work), I see the same behavior from locationd simply by having both ethernet and wifi connected with the wifi as the secondary connection. If ethernet is configured as the primary or only the wifi is connected, the scanning doesn't happen. It really seems like this is some kind of bug in locationd when the wifi network interface isn't primary. I imagine this is probably what happens when the VPN software adds its own interfaces as well ...

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Answer 3

Sep 5, 2018 8:54 AM in response to actofmatt

I was thinking... location should be the location daemon, your exact geographical location. This may indicate you have allowed Applications/Services to access your exact geographical location using Location Services.

system preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy > Locations Services...

... will show you what applications and service might be using this.

If Location Services can not determine you location, it may start querying the Wi-Fi Routers seen around you to see if it can find one that is in the Internet database of Router geographical locations.

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Answer 4

actofmatt Author

Level 1

9 points

Sep 5, 2018 3:58 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

I had a similar thought when debugging and thus disabled it, which I think you can see in the log output from locationd: "location services are disabled, ignore scan result". All the more frustrating that this scan seems to be for nothing ...

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locationd wifi scanning creates network latency

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