If the WiFi indication is missing from the menu bar, go to the Apple menu - System Preferences - click the Network icon - select WiFi. See if your Mac joins the correct wireless network. If it does, check if you have provided the correct password. Oct 17, 2017  Why It Doesn’t Make Your Network More Secure. The main reason why it doesn’t make your network more secure is because it’s really easy to spoof a MAC address.A network hacker, which can literally be anyone since the tools are so easy to use, can easily figure out the MAC addresses on your network and then spoof that address onto their computer.

Thanks. I looked at some of your links - here my comments:

Useless (as already mentioned in my original post) since it assumes you have a personal Airport station and just generates a report (i.e., no solution).

Seem mostly for Mountain Lion (I specified Mavericks). The last 1 MIGHT work, but since I found another workaround, I won't test it for now.

Why Won't The Terminal Wifi Hack Work On My Mac Computer

Looks like a pretty exhaustive list - will check next time I am stumped.

Why Won't The Terminal Wifi Hack Work On My Mac Free

What actually worked for me is to go to 'Network Preferences', 'Advanced' and delete the network from the list of known networks. This finally got my Mac to ask for the password before trying to rejoin it. I didn't see this in your list above, but it seems simpler than most proposed remedies.