I am getting wifi error -3905, what does this mean?

If this is a developer issue, you should provide the code and other details. If this is a user issue, you may get better help at https://support.apple.com.

This is actually a user issue, but support.apple.com had no idea at all (I even tried 2 different support folk).

However, interesting turn - this seems to have fixed itself in 10.13.6 (17G65). This was consistently broken before, and now consistently working. So if you see a -3905, I guess just upgrade?

This is neither a user, nor a developer issue. This is a kernel issue. I am working on this one, and I would like to understand it.

Back to the initial question, where is documented the error code -3905? I got it repeatedly in an environment of work after about 6 days of full load of the Wi-Fi network with 4 clients moving. Here is the typical track I get once the network is unusable for everyone end Wi-Fi Logging turned to on on one of the client Mac. Notably, iPhones and another Mac cannot reach anymore the network once this error appear.

Sun May 22 10:45:37.994 Driver Event: <airportd[246]> _bsd_80211_event_callback: APPLE80211_M_ROAM_START (en0)
Sun May 22 10:45:37.994 Info: <airportd[246]> Roaming started on interface en0
Sun May 22 10:45:37.994 Info: <airportd[246]> PRIORITY LOCK ADDED [client=airportd, type=4, interface=en0, priority=5]
Sun May 22 10:45:37.995 Info: <airportd[246]> SUSPEND AWDL for interface en0, timeout=10.0s, reason=Roam, token=166
Sun May 22 10:45:37.995 Info: <airportd[246]> RESUME AWDL for interface en0, reason=Roam token=165
Sun May 22 10:45:37.995 Roam: <airportd[246]> Unschedule roam RSN handshake timeout, received ROAM_START
Sun May 22 10:45:41.106 Info: <airportd[246]> PRIORITY LOCK REMOVED [client=airportd, type=4, interface=en0, priority=7]
Sun May 22 10:45:41.106 Info: <airportd[246]> RESUME AWDL AFTER TIMEOUT for interface en0, timeout=10.0s, reason=Assoc token=163
Sun May 22 10:45:42.056 Info: <airportd[246]> RESUME AWDL AFTER TIMEOUT for interface en0, timeout=10.0s, reason=Assoc token=164
Sun May 22 10:45:42.513 Driver Event: <airportd[246]> _bsd_80211_event_callback: SCAN_CACHE_UPDATED (en0)
Sun May 22 10:45:42.539 <kernel> en0: Terminating supplicant.
Sun May 22 10:45:42.539 <kernel> RSNSupplicant: Releasing authenticator for 00:00:00:00:00:00
Sun May 22 10:45:42.540 Assoc: <airportd[246]> <en0> Auto-join association timed out on network  ••••• ••• , returned error code -3905
                                                                                                                                 *****
Sun May 22 10:45:42.540 Info: <airportd[246]> Failed to associate to Wi-Fi network  ••••• •••  on interface en0, returned error code -3905
                                                                                                                                     *****

This is neither a user, nor a developer issue.

This is definitely a user-level issue, and thus somewhat off-topic for DevForums. Having said that, I can answer this:

where is documented the error code -3905?

It is kCWTimeoutErr from the CoreWLAN framework.

I presume you’re not writing code that calls the CoreWLAN framework, in which case that’s not super useful to you. I encourage you to escalate this via a user-level support channel. You could try over in Apple Support Communities but, honestly, I think contact Apple Support directly might be a better choice here.

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Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple
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