Trouble using Network Link Conditioner on OS X Mavericks

macos networking osx-mavericks
McFadden picture McFadden · Sep 30, 2013 · Viewed 14.4k times · Source

I'm trying to get Network Link Conditioner working on my machine that is running OS X Mavericks. I'm running Developer Preview 8 (the latest as of this writing). I downloaded the "Hardware IO Tools for Xcode 5 Developer Preview - June 2013" to get the Network Link Conditioner pref pane. I have also tried the version of Network Link Conditioner from the previous Hardware IO Tools bundle which fails to open with a "Could not load Network Link Conditioner preference pane." error when trying to load it.

With the version for Xcode 5 I get one of two fail states.

First, when I open NLC and click the lock icon to "make changes" I see the administrator unlock window that says:

com.apple.Network-Link-Conditioner.remoteservice.xcp wants to make changes. Type your password to allow this.

When this shows up I am unable to enter my password. No keyboard characters are registered in the password field, or in any other application until I cancel the password prompt. I have no trouble with the equivalent dialog in any other preference panes.

Second, I am sort of able to get past the password issue by uninstalling the latest NLC pref pane, installing the previous version, uninstalling the previous version, and then re-installing the latest NLC preference pane. However, I note that the password dialog is different in this case. I get the more generic:

System Preferences wants to make changes. Type your password to allow this.

In this second failed state, once I type in my password the NLC pref pane is fully accessible but has zero affect on my network link.

Has anyone been able to use the Network Link Conditioner successfully on OS X Mavericks?

Update:

The version of Hardware IO Tools released on October 22 and the final release of Mavericks appear to be working excellent.

Answer

Kenny Winker picture Kenny Winker · Oct 25, 2013

Try re-installing it. It fixed the issue for me, though I was having different error messages.

  1. Open System Preferences, right-click (or control-click) on the Network Link Conditioner and click "Remove Network Link Conditioner" to remove it.

  2. In Xcode got to the Xcode menu -> Open Developer Tool -> More Developer Tools...

  3. In the browser window that opens, grab the most recent Hardware IO tools .dmg

  4. Double click the "Network Link Conditioner.prefPane" on the disk image to install it.

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